An anthology of full-cast Gothic dramas and readings from the author of the world’s most famous vampire tale

Celebrated today as the creator of the legendary blood-sucking Transylvanian aristocrat Count Dracula, Bram Stoker was best known in his lifetime as stage manager to the actor Henry Irving. A former Dublin civil servant, he wrote a over a dozen other novels and numerous short stories, yet his reputation rests on a single masterpiece.

But Stoker was much more than a one-hit wonder: several of his other titles are ripe for rediscovery and are included here. However, no collection would be complete without his archetypal classic, and we open our box set with a chilling adaptation of Dracula starring Frederick Jaeger, Phyllis Logan and Bernard Holley. With specially composed music and sound effects, this atmospheric drama is suffused with brooding fear and dark eroticism.

Succeeding it is The Lair of the White Worm, which sees Adam Salton (Jimi Mistry) visiting his elderly uncle in the the tiny Derbyshire village of Penda’s Dale, where he discovers an ancient secret and confront a terrifying, malevolent force. In The Judge’s House, a student seeks a quiet location to study for his exams: but unbeknown to him, the lonely Jacobean mansion he leases is a house of horror inhabited by a malign spirit. David Timson stars as Malcolm in this 1989 drama, first aired in Fear on 4. And in The Squaw (broadcast in The Price of Fear as Cat’s Cradle), a boorish film director has a gruesome encounter with a vengeful feline. Kenneth J. Warren stars in this explicitly horrifying tale of violent retribution.

The undead Count makes his presence felt once more in the short story ‘Dracula’s Guest’, read by Bertie Carvel. Written before Dracula, it is widely thought to be an excised episode from the novel and describes the adventure of a young Englishman who finds himself facing peril in the Austrian Alps. An alternative spin on the story can be found in ‘The Dream in the Dead House’, performed by Dyfed Thomas – who also gives three us more gripping readings in ‘The Secret of the Growing Gold’, ‘The Coming of Abel Behenna’ and ‘A Dream of Red Hands’. Terrifying, suspenseful and fraught with supernatural dread, these dark studies in guilt, vengeance and betrayal will thrill and chill you to the core...

NB: The themes present the Squaw could be distressing for some listeners

Production credits
Written by Bram Stoker

Dracula

The Lair of the White Worm

The Judge’s House

The Squaw (Cat’s Cradle)

Readings

Dracula’s Guest
Read by Bertie Carvel

Midnight Tales
The Dream in the Dead House
The Secret of Growing Gold
The Coming of Abel Behenna
A Dream of Red Hands

Read by Dyfed Thomas

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 October 1990 (‘The Secret of the Growing Gold’), 30 October 1990 (‘The Coming of Abel Behenna’), 31 October 1990 (‘The Dream in the Dead House’), 1 November 1990 (‘A Dream of Red Hands’)

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