THE UNSERIOUS UNDEAD
“You will be horrified!” The five players announce, “- one way or another”. And with a flourish they hurl Bram Stoker’s book behind them into Tijana Bjelajac’s remarkably elegant (yet neon edged) late-Victorian set. Before long we are seeing Charlie Stemp’s timorous Harker with his estate-agent briefcase creaking into the dread castle door and meeting the Count. Who is in his workout gear of lacy mini-basque, ciré trouserings and peekaboo midriff.
Which is, of course, just what a thousand-year-old Victorian vampire should always wear, when not in a swirling cape, fitted floorlength kimono and weskit with darling corset-lace detail (Tristan Rains’ s costumes are tremendous, two of the wigs spectacular). And Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen’s revue-style spoof , an off-Broadway hit, is in every aspect just as tightly and carefully worked . So here’s 90 straight minutes in which five top-flight comic performers re-enact, queerstyle and knowing, the immortal tale of the Transylvanian aristocratic vampire who takes a trip to East Yorkshire.
It’s noisy, it’s fast, it’s unflaggingly fun. Charlie Stemp (who is allowed a quick step-dance, just to remind us of his greatness) is a timid and downtrodden Harker (until a kiss from the vampire gingers him up). James Daly is the lanky, camp, improbably buff blond and determinedly thirsty Vampire.
Which is not to undervalue the extreme scene-stealing of Sebastien Torkia: first as Lucy’s erotically desperate sister Mina, vastly beruffled in a wild ginger wig (THIS, ladies, is what REAL cross-dressing should be like ). He reappears laster as Van Helsing, who in this version is a lady doctor, forbiddingly ultra-German in a scary hat and costume. Other scenes are stolen by Dianne Pilkington as among others a pompous little Dr Westfield and one of his asylum patients working as a butler in an ill-fitting strait-jacket with the arms dangling. In one late scene he plays both, with the old revue trick of twirling from one to the other with top wig-work.
As for Safeena Ladha’s Lucy, she too morphs around a bit – they all have hasty second-jobs to do – but displahs the same dead-drop timing and fearless physical mischief such a show needs, and gets. Fine prop-work and intermittent puppetry too, as the dastardly tale of bloodsucking and deceit proceeds from Transylvania to the high seas to Whitby to London and many a coffin. Any required fog, wolves’ eyes, bat invasions, storms and additional characters nimbly provided. Lovely.
www menierchocolatefactory.com to 3 May
rating 4
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