NBT Dracula reviews Dracula Performances Our NBT Page Halifax plc is the national tour sponsor of NBT.

A reasonable plan and excellent on the opening night when assorted Goths, vampires and vamps turned out. Great fun and I will always, but always, remember the delightful young lady in full 19th century Hammer House of Horror regalia as, just before each curtain up, she swept to the front of the stalls with plunging neckline and all bobbling up - about - and oh so nearly out. Would they, wouldn't they - intervals will never be the same! Men are a sad race at times I know, but I feel free to admit this in full knowledge that many men at Sadler's were just as gobsmacked if not more. I am of course deeply, deeply, sorry for this pathetic display!

Perhaps it's the more lodged in my mind because, while I enjoy the theatricality of NBT's Dracula, there is little dance in it and what there is comes over thin, a little perfunctory and not really bolted into the story. Perhaps Dracula is great theatre but just doesn't lend itself to a knees-up.

The cast was one of NBT's strongest - Denis Malinkine as Dracula, aided by Jayne Regan, Charlotte Broom, and Jeremy Kerridge. Malinkine is rather good as Dracula and well captures his scary, scheming side. He is in total control, never rushed and certainly nobody is going to come between him and a neck/meal. Kerridge, though is even scarier as Renfield, a mental patient who enjoys eating flies and has a few other unsavoury pastimes. He also gets a straight-jacket pas de deux which must be pretty unique and was actually a piece of dance I found interesting. Regan and Broom act their socks off but don't really have meaty roles and the dance for them does not lift things either. In fact it all has a feel of acting with movement rather than acting with dance.

Dracula is designed magnificently by Lez Brtherston, the man responsible for many AMP and NBT sets. The set converts from railway station to grand hotel to vampire's lair in a twinkling and has lots of surprises. Almost worth seeing in its own right. I also liked Philip Feeney's music, particularly the quiet and scary passages that accompany Dracula going about his work.

With Dracula NBT perhaps went down the theatricality path too far. As people have commented: it's a shame that they were not able to bring two pieces to London and show us a more rounded view of what they are about. I consider myself a supporter of NBT and my concern is that Dracula will confirm something of a view amongst those that don't know them that the company is not really about dance at all. That would be a great shame. As a fun evening it's fine; as an evening of dance you'd be better off elsewhere I think.