‘I hope people will feel uncomfortable’ – Soap star to bring one-man Dracula to York stage

What can audiences expect from this version of Dracula?

It’s an attempt to try to approach it from a different angle. Most productions tend to concentrate on one aspect, one area of the book. The book is different diary entries, journals, telegrams and it runs across different timelines.

So I will be playing myself and I was hired to do a documentary series and something went tragically wrong early in the filming. I was left the journal, which was a handwritten version by Stoker but instead of it just being from his imagination, he was given diaries and journals by the people involved like Harker, Seward, Van Helsing. These are real people that gave him the journals because they wanted him to tell the story and warn the world that vampires are real. So that was what the documentary was about. And I’ve been left with the journal and I’ve decided to continue investigating it – it all becomes a bit of an obsession.

Everybody knows the story – it’s just an attempt to add something slightly different to it.

What was it like adapting the book for the stage?

It’s the first time I’ve adapted a book. I wanted to adapt a story that resonated with me as a kid. It was the first horror movie I ever watched – and when it came to the book you see how different the book is from most of the movies.

I think this is about the 10th version that we’re now on because originally I was trying to get everything in – it was running about three hours, which is ridiculous. We wanted to get it to a sharp 90 minutes, and to do that you’ve got to say who are the people, who are the characters? What effect is that having on me as a person investigating it? What effect does it have on the overall book?

In the book Dracula is there but he’s not, he’s an ominous presence – everything is reported about him. That was fascinating in itself.

How do you hope the audience will react?

I hope that they will come along first and foremost, and that they enjoy it. And that they feel uncomfortable – it isn’t a question of a big scare, it’s not my kind of stuff. It’s creating a sense of uncomfortableness. There should also be hopefully some humour in there as well.

It would be lovely if people went away and read the book, if they haven’t read it. But ultimately, I just want people to come along and enjoy going back to the theatre.

It’s been such a difficult time for the theatre industry, for many months now. How does it feel to go on tour again and back on stage in front of an audience?

It’s refreshing. It’s been difficult the last couple years. When the first lockdown hit I was doing Hollyoaks – I was only scheduled to do a short stint but that ended up spreading over six months because we had to go back and finish it later on.

So many friends have actually just given up the business because they got no support at all. A lot of people – I’m talking stage crew, musicians, actors – ended up taking work in other fields. I think that we were in danger of losing an awful lot of expertise in the profession.

It’s a great time for new actors to be coming through, new directors, production staff and everything else because there is an energy about getting back into theatre.

I think with every time you think to yourself will an audience want to come out, will they be worried about Covid and everything else? There’s also that feeling that people are ready to get back into theatres – that’s important.

We’ve kept [Dracula] specifically small – we didn’t know what situation we were going to be in with Covid. We wanted to keep it likely to be okay, by keeping the company as small as possible.

Do you have any connection to York? Are you a fan of the city?

I love York. I’ve never played there, which is fascinating. When I was in school at Stockton, the music teacher used to travel to York every two or three weeks and he would offer four seats in his car for 50p and go down on a Saturday morning. I used to go every time – we’d get to York about 11 o’clock and then we’d walk around. It’s the most beautiful city I think in England.

York is one of those cities which I love – I’m hoping to enjoy some time in York as well.

What can we expect next from Gaddas and Clark productions, the company you created with theatre producer Jamie Clark?

I want do a one man version of The Three Musketeers. I came up with the idea of fighting myself – so that’s an option.

I like the classics and I think finding a way to approach them in different ways is fascinating. There’s plans afoot.