Edinburgh Fringe Chats (#19): Rebecca Russell, DRACULA’S GUEST

23 Jun

Conducted by Emmie for Theatre and Tonic

As anticipation builds for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025, we’re catching up with a range of exciting creatives preparing to bring their work to the world’s largest arts festival this August. In this series, we delve into the stories behind the shows, the inspiration driving the artists, and what audiences can expect.

Today we’re joined by Rebecca Russell about the show Dracula’s Guest.

1. Can you begin by telling us about your show and what inspired it?

Dracula’s Guest is inspired by queer readings of Bram Stoker’s Dracula - and by the general queerness that suffuses pretty much all subsequent vampire media, and also by the tendency of adaptations of Dracula to give Jonathan Harker the short end of the stick by making him boring, or stupid, or cutting him entirely. I think he’s a really interesting character if you read the novel with a careful eye, and what stuck out to me about him is that he inhabits a narrative role that isn’t traditionally masculine. He’s displaced from familiarity, trapped in a place where he is both powerless and bound by social conventions, at the mercy of a strange man, who is both fascinating and terrifying, subjected to sexual threat - he’s a gothic heroine. Plus, Dracula the novel is presented as an edited compilation of journal entries and letters - what might someone who was invested in appearing like the perfect Victorian gentleman have left out of the record? My adaptation takes those ideas and runs with them to their logical conclusion.

2. What made you want to bring this work to the Fringe this year?

This is the first time I’ve actually brought something to the fringe, though I’ve wanted to several times - I would say that I’m very proud of this work and that it’s the thing I’ve made that is most worthy of a Fringe audience. And vampires are hot right now - Nosferatu, Sinners, AMC’s Interview With The Vampire - It’s the right place/right time/right audience.

3. How would you describe your show in three words?

Spooky, Bloody, Sexy

4. What do you hope audiences take away from watching your performance?

That repressing yourself for the sake of society will only make you miserable and vulnerable.

5. What’s your top tip for surviving the Fringe?

Carry emergency snacks! Don’t crash out because your blood sugar is low!

6. Where and when can people see your show?

CC Blooms (venue 171), 8pm, the 11th to the 16th of August. It's free fringe, so you don't even have to book a ticket.

https://freefringe.org.uk/shows/draculas-guest/