Auntie has another stab at Dracula

At the BBC Media Centre you can read all about it, but here are a few bits.

BBC One has commissioned Dracula from the co-creators of multi-award-winning hit BBC drama Sherlock. It will be produced by Hartswood Films and is a co-production between BBC One and Netflix. 

The 3x90’ mini-series is written and created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and inspired by Bram Stoker’s classic novel. Three feature length episodes will re-introduce the world to Dracula, the vampire who made evil sexy. In Transylvania in 1897, the blood-drinking Count is drawing his plans against Victorian London. And be warned: the dead travel fast.

I thought the vampire who made evil sexy was Carmilla, but that's press releases for you.

The series will premiere on BBC One in the UK and on Netflix outside of the UK, and China where the service is not available. BBC Studios Distribution, who brokered the deal with Netflix for Hartswood Films, is the international distributor.

Interesting times. Who will play the key roles of the Count, and his adversary Abraham Van Helsing? We can but speculate. Inevitably, comparisons will be made with earlier portrayals.




The BBC has, of course, done numerous versions of Dracula on television and radio. In 1977 Auntie tried her hand at that very Seventies (and American) concept, the TV movie, with a major adaptation. I recall it as a bit weak, to be honest - a decent effort but nothing special. I don't think Louis Jourdain shone as the count. Frank Finlay made a decent Van Helsing, though.