By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***1/2

WHEN?: Saturday 22 March (matinee), runs through 3 May 2025 RUNTIME: 90 minutes without interval

We were last at this venue for a fantastic revival of Mel Brooks’ The Producers which transfers to the West End this year and the good news about Dracula, A Comedy Of Terrors is that it shares a similarly anarchic comedic quality.

• Read on for reasons including how this is love at 1st bite if you want a bunch of belly laughs

The marketing says the show evokes the spirit of Brooks as well as RuPaul and Monty Python and these are accurate touchstones for a production where the talented cast impress in a multitude of roles.

Charlie Stemp (Crazy For You, Gillian Lynne Theatre) plays timid estate agent Jonathan Harker who travels to Transylvania to meet self-obsessed bisexual Dracula with James Daly quick to reveal his physical credentials for the role as the Count cursed by his inability to appreciate himself in mirrors falls for a picture of Harker’s fiancee and makes his way to their Yorkshire home.

Stemp is best known for his dance roles and brings those moves as well as a Norman Wisdom-like comedy awkwardness to a part that sees him lock lips with Dracula at 1 point as the Count struggles to find the true love he’s been craving yet missing.

Safeena Ladha injects a spirited sense of danger and thwarted talent to her role as heroine Lucy Westfeldt, the initial object of Dracula’s affections, but it is Sebastian Torkia and Dianne Pilkington (Young Frankenstein, Garrick Theatre) in a variety of roles that perhaps most earn the audience’s biggest whoops and cheers.

The heartiest laughs are perhaps sparked by the quick costume changes of Pilkington as she flips effortlessly between roles including Westfeldt’s sexist doctor father and insect-eating butler Renfield.

While Torkia brings a dazzling sense of mischief to Lucy’s overlooked sister Mina and brilliant Van Helsing who challenges the lazy stereotyping of her male medic counterpart.

There’s a physicality to the comedy that made us think of The Play That Went Wrong series of hits and this was surely intended to be in that, ahem, vein.

We live in difficult times and should never underestimate quite how important it is to laugh and we did so out loud with this far more often than we were expecting.

It’s not especially insightful or thoughtful but sometimes childishly silly is exactly what you need.

If you’re looking for a show with a bunch of belly laughs this is love at 1st bite.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Menier Chocolate Factory Tickets
• Have you seen a Charlie Stemp show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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