Actor and Historian Jonathan Rigby will be narrating a long-lost Dracula script written by Hammer writer/producer Anthony Hinds. He will be joined on stage by a selection of actors to voice out the screenplay in front of an audience. What fun.
Titled The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula the script follows Count Dracula as he escapes to India 'where his evil influence is just as insidious and powerful'. Hinds wrote a few scripts for Hammer Films as John Elder: The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Phantom of the Opera (1962) and The Evil of Frankenstein (1964). This script was written some time around the late 60s, was never made into a film but would have been written for the late Christopher Lee at the time.
"This is a completely unique event for Mayhem", explains festival Co-Director Chris Cooke, "and a great pleasure to work with horror expert and film historian Jonathan Rigby. He's also a talented actor and will be perfect as our narrator, taking a live audience by the hand and leading them into Gothic darkness. Hammer Films have never felt more important to the history of British cinema, so this is a great opportunity for an audience to imagine a piece of classic cinema that sees Count Dracula resurrected before their eyes."
I do not know how my fellow Brits do things back on their side of the pond but from my own experience at Fantasia the other month if there is a watermelon on stage that means someone in the radio play is going to get stabbed. Hopefully, a lot.