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What was a bit of a surprise was just how little dance content there is in the production, less than there is in say, a typical Adventures in Motion Pictures production, and much less than in a conventional full length ballet. The plot is very seldom moved forward by dance alone but more by mime and gesture. I recall that someone described an AMP production as being rather like a musical without the songs: I thought this applied much more strongly to NBT. Sound effects are used extensively, and occasionally the performers speak or vocalise. Pointe shoes are used occasionally: actually I thought the production could have dispensed with them. The only time where they were used with real effect was where a mesmerised Mina slowly drifted across the stage, pulled to a lurking Dracula as if by an invisible force. Otherwise they looked a little out of place.

I’m afraid I found the production oddly uninvolving, although always watchable and interesting. I think the problem is that the plot offers no conflicts or development of character : Dracula is just evil, the good characters are all good. Although Harker, the hero, gets to struggle against Dracula, there’s never any hint that he might be struggling against anything darker in his own nature. There aren’t any moral dilemmas: no one has to make any difficult choices. It tells you nothing about the human heart or condition in the way that say, Giselle can do. It’s essentially a melodrama, an entertainment whose whole point is its plot (and there’s lots of plot). Oddly enough, it’s curiously unsexy despite the potential of the Dracula story as exploited so often on film - all those swooning maidens and exposed necks. The sensible girls of this production, or Harker for that matter, never look as if they might have some subliminal attraction to the count.

The plot might be difficult to follow if you hadn’t read the programme notes first, given the first act is mainly a flashback. Our hero, Harker, nursed by his wife Mina, is haunted by nightmares of the torments suffered on his visit to Count Dracula’s transylvanian castle. Cue lots of folksy village dancing and worried villagers warning the confident Harker. There is a terrific moment as the doors of the castle swing open and the most stupendous interior is revealed: Dracula’s lair looks like the devil’s cathedral, a vast space through which Dracula (the slinky Denis Malinkine) slowly writhes towards us. The production has a number of these moments: much is down to a terrific set design by Brotherston. In the final act there is another marvellous moment as the undead slowly emerge out of another vast echoing crypt. But these really belong to theatre rather than to ballet.

In terms of dance, the production never quite generates the heat that it might. The first act ends with a half naked Harker in thrall to Dracula: this ought to perhaps have had more of a frisson than it did. (I’m not sure how he escaped to make it to Act II: sorry to be pedantic, but when a production is all about plot then the plot should work). In Act II, Dracula arrives in England to upset a jolly English gathering at a seaside hotel. Harker, his wife and her friend Mina, and a host of other minor characters are introduced to us. The ensemble dancers are rather weaker than the pas de deux, and this section seemed to drag a little. Charlotte Broom was quite delightful as Mina, light and flirty, a strong dancer as well as an actress. I would have preferred to see her seduction by Dracula (after another stunning entrance) on an empty stage - the presence of the other performers, even only half-lit, was a distraction, and they sometimes obscured the action.

I see that in describing this production, I’m veering towards a recitation of the plot, which is something I generally try to avoid in a review. I do have the odd sense though that there isn’t much else that I can usefully describe in this case. The good guys win in the end, by the way. Mina gets nibbled by Dracula again, and becomes one of the undead. Dracula then goes after Harker’s wife - rather a good swooping and swooning pas de deux here for Malinkine and Jayne Regan, quite the best dance part of the evening. Our heroes burst in and interrupt the evil ceremony in the crypt, and nail the villain.

Gutsy and committed performances all round from the NBT team. Denis Malinkine, clearly a man who enjoys his job, runs his hands lingeringly over his victims, and has great stage presence. Daniel de Andrade was suitably tormented as Harker. Jayne Regan doesn’t really have enough to do in dance terms in this production: what she does do is delightful, and it would be nice to see more of her. The star of the show though, is Lez Brotherston’s design - both sets and costumes are superb, and it’s those, rather than the dance, that I’ll remember from this production.