My Unenviable Envy of Mark Gatiss's The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula (BBC Radio 4, 2017)

 My Unenviable Envy of Mark Gatiss's The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula (BBC Radio 4, 2017)

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Imagine you’re Mark Gatiss. On Monday, you’re writing and directing an adaptation of a classic M R James ghost story for BBC4. On Tuesday, you’re writing a Dr Who story for telly, or as a book, or for radio, or all three at once. On Wednesday morning you’re acting in an Agatha Christie thing, and in the evening you’re writing and presenting a documentary about James Bond films, before writing and starring in your own sci-fi radio comedy. On Thursday morning you’re writing an episode of Sherlock, which, come noon, you’re acting in (as Mycroft Holmes), and by nightfall you’re narrating Conan Doyle stories for Audible, before directing a version of Quatermass just before you go to bed. Friday, you’re on stage as one quarter of The League of Gentlemen. And on Saturday, you’re adapting and directing a lost Hammer Dracula screenplay for BBC Radio 4, before writing a Marvel Studios blockbuster movie set in 1976 in which Dr Who, Sherlock Holmes Professor Van Helsing, Professor Challenger, Professor Quatermass and Baron Frankenstein and bounce on space hoppers as they battle the ghost of Count Dracula, the Hound of the Baskervilles, The Daleks, Professor Moriarty, The Mekon, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld. In Royston Vasey. Which is now on Dartmoor, which has been relocated to Transylvania. Which is now in outer space. And because you’re Mark Gatiss, you get to be in the movie, as any character you like, or indeed, as every character. Dear God, please let me wake up tomorrow to find I am Mark Gatiss! And lest you suspect that I might perhaps be just a teensy bit jealous of the remarkable Mr G, let me reassure you, dear reader, that you’re absolutely bang on the money. I am jealous of Mark Gatiss. Who wouldn’t be? I like to imagine that even Mark Gatiss is jealous of Mark Gatiss, in much the same way that Spinal Tap’s bassist Derek ‘Lukewarm Water’ Smalls concurs with lead vocalist David ‘Fire’ St Hubbins that, without their guitarist Nigel ‘Ice’ Tufnell, Tap are free to move in any artistic direction they please, and that other bands will envy them: “I envy us,” proclaims Derek, wisely, and also bafflingly.

The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula is Mark Gatiss’s audio adaptation of an unmade Hammer horror film from the 70’s, when the studio was in decline. With a weary Christopher Lee having finally walked from the franchise, it’s possible to read the screenplay by stalwart producer Anthony Hinds as either Hammer’s riposte to their absent star for bailing, or as an appeal to the actor to come back, in a kind of ‘this one will actually be really good, honest’ attempt at persuasion, for the Count is very much centre stage here, given much to do and say - more than in any of the Hammer Draculas except Scars of Dracula (1970). It’s intriguing to wonder who Hammer might have cast if Lee had remained steadfast in his refusal to ever again play the Bitey One. Presumably they would not have gone with John Forbes-Robertson again, unless everyone at the studio was ingesting way too many bad drugs. Whomever they would have picked, he would almost certainly have been better than Lewis McCleod, the actor playing Dracula in this version. McCleod, who once played Paul McCartney in a series of TV sketches, was the voice of Postman Pat (beloved under-tens kid’s BBC TV stop-motion animation from the early 80’s onward), and so I couldn’t help but listen to this otherwise splendid audio drama picturing the amiable ginger postie as speaking all of Dracula’s lines, which conjured up some fantastically weird imagery, particularly during the obligatory sexy bits. And Mcleod’s Dracula laugh is rubbish. But the rest of the cast is excellent, and the Indian setting, following the Far East in Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, adds much to the story, though this being Hammer, and this being the 1970s, obviously the focus is on a Kali death cult. I’m sure Dr Who fan Gatiss got a kick at directing a character named Rani, but since Gatiss, as we’ve established, makes a living from indulging his inner fanboy, that’s part and parcel of the territory. There’s a fair bit of bad audio descriptive narration (by the splendid Michael Sheen), with lines like “Penny has to stifle a scream as a rat scurries across her foot,” and “As Prem turns from the coffin, the vampire’s eyes open,” and the whole thing is wrought with ornate Gatiss dialogue and has at least six endings, but I liked it well enough. A decent Monday morning’s work from Mr G, before he’s had his coffee and breakfast and his busy day really begins, because he’s off now to write, direct, and star in a Postman Pat vs Godzilla movie.

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