So much at stake: Laura Castle’s Count Dracula and Jamie McKeller’s Van Helsing in Neon Crypt Productions’ Dracula: The Bloody Truth. Picture: Michael Cornell
FROM the York producers of The Deathly Dark Tour and A Night Of Face-Melting Horror, bonded with the mischievous minds of Le Navet Bete, comes the debut production by Neon Crypt Productions, Dracula: The Bloody Truth.
Drawing blood at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from tonight to Saturday, a very disgruntled Professor Van Helsing and an accompanying troupe of three very stressed actors will “shatter the lies spoken by the charlatan Bram Stoker and finally shed light on what actually happened”.
Exposing the truth behind the fangs, Laura Castle will take the role of Count Dracula, joined by Laura McKeller as Mina and Michael Cornell as Jonathan Harker in the horror-comedy show scripted by Le Navet Bete.
Neon Crypt Productions is the latest venture by ghost tour promoters Jamie and Laura McKeller, who run The Deathly Dark Tour in the guise of Dr Damian Deathly and Dede Deathly, as well as the film company Neon Crypt Films.
Bram Stoker sucks! Neon Crypt Productions bite back in Dracula: The Bloody Truth
Jamie also appeared in Rowntree Players’ pantomimes in 2023 and 2024 and made his return to directing after 15 years with Rowntree Players’ March 2023 production of John Godber’s Teechers Leavers ’22, followed by another state-of the-rotten-nation Godber comedy, Shakers, co-written with Jane Thornton, in March 2024.
The Deathly Dark Tour, now in its fifth year on York’s haunted streets, is noted for its alliance of spooks and dark humour: a combination matched by physical theatre exponents Le Navet Bete in Dracula: The Bloody Truth.
Coming next from Neon Crypt Productions will be November’s staging of The Wetwang Hauntings, a new comedy-horror show penned by Jamie McKeller and two Deathly Dark Tour cohorts, to mark Halloween.
Neon Crypt Productions in Dracula: The Bloody Truth, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, May 6 to 11, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.