002 Historical Drama – Old
Appropriately, Vampyre
Man by Joseph O’Connor was as much a biography of Bram Stoker as it was of
Henry Irving. I don’t know that many
people know the influence the great actor Henry Irving was on Bram Stoker, who
was his manager, and in creating the character of Dracula, though I think this
play exaggerates somewhat. Nevertheless,
I really enjoyed the play. Anton Loesser
steals the show as a larger-than-life Irving, though some of the metaphors are
a bit obvious—an aristocrat who sucks people dry! Darragh Kelly is wonderful as a Bram Stoker
who disbelieves that any lasting fame will ever come to him through his
writing. His wife, Florence (Eva
Birthistle), is a difficult role given what we know of her (she basically had Nosferatu destroyed because of the
copyright issue), but her frustrations and difficulties are understandable and
realistic. I liked the idea of Stoker as
a clerk with a poetic soul who gambled it all to run Irving’s theatre with very
little prior practical experience—an inspiration to us all. Amanda Redman was Ellen Terry, who has a soft
spot for both Stoker and Irving. Very
compelling. The play was directed by
Stephen Wright and was originally broadcast in 2015.
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