Dracapella – Park Theatre

L-R Lorna Want, Ciarán Dowd, Stephen Ashfield, Ako Mitchell and Monique Ash-Palmer in Dracapella at the Park Theatre, London. Picture: Craig Sugden

Dracapella continues at the Park Theatre, London until 17 January 2026.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Theatre adaptations come in batches, with some classic works often receiving multiple different stagings in short order. For Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for example, we saw Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s adaptation at the Lyric Hammersmith earlier this year, while Cynthia Erivo is to star in a one-person West End production in February.

Neither of those productions, though, will involve quite as many silly puns as Dracapella, Park Theatre’s blood-soaked Christmas comedy show by Dan Patterson and Jez Bond, directed by Bond. As the name suggests, there is no band for this a cappella musical, relying instead on the artists’ voices and the talents of UK Beatboxing champion ABH Beatbox.

Inspired by Stoker’s plot, Stephen Ashfield’s solicitor, Jonathan Harker, is sent by his employers to Transylvania to tie up some legal business for their client, the mysterious Count Dracula (Ako Mitchell). His pregnant wife, Lorna Want’s Mina, travels to Whitby to stay with her friend Lucy Westenra (Keala Settle) – but her life is endangered when Dracula sees Mina’s portrait in Harker’s possession and becomes convinced that she is the reincarnation of his centuries-dead wife.

There are songs aplenty throughout, using the panto tradition of finding numbers that vaguely parallel whatever else is happening on stage. And thus as Harker begins his travels, we are graced with a version of Gladys Knight and the Pips’ ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’, with the title destination changed to Dover (and, this being Britain and in an anachronistic comedy musical, quickly has the key line changed to “I’m leaving on a bus replacement service”).

Other numbers are definite crowdpleasers. Numbers from Queen and Bonnie Tyler are fun, if more nebulously connected to the onstage antics of the hyperactive cast, while CeeLo Green’s ‘Crazy’, used to introduce the asylum in which the demented Renfield resides, goes too far in the other direction.

The best numbers are the ones that dare, in a show that rarely takes itself seriously, to show real romance. ‘A Thousand Years’ (taken from another well-known vampire chronicle, the Twilight movie franchise) is delivered with honest and earnest emotion.

Settle, meanwhile, gets her big solo number in Act II as Lucy, mistakenly bitten by Dracula (he was aiming for Mina, but gets blinded by Lucy’s bug spray), delivers a barnstorming rendition of Etta James’ ‘At Last’.

Elsewhere, Mitchell is a fun Lord Dracula, though he finds the cod-improvised comedy dialogue more of a struggle than his castmates. Ashfield is much stronger in melding the demands of humorously silly dialogue and outstanding vocal performance. Indeed, most of the rest of the cast straddle those two distinct demands with substantial effectiveness.

There are occasions where the show begins to lag, when the needle drops dry up at the same time as the relentless puns and groan-worthy jokes. These are more often when the play is attempting to bring itself back to Stoker’s plot – and once everything is back on track, the silliness and singing resume.

All this is held together by ABH Beatbox’s accompaniment, not just in song but as a foley artist for all sorts of sound effects.

With a standard band, Dracapella would be a reasonably fun comedy musical take on one of the world’s most reversed Gothic horrors. As an a cappella musical, it has just enough originality to become a great and popular work with a life far beyond this Christmas season.

Scott Matthewman