LONDON (Reuters) – Count Dracula swaps Transylvania for the British capital this Halloween appearing at the spooky London Dungeon.
The tourist attraction by the River Thames is running a special Dracula show for the occasion, where guests walk into a specially-made graveyard where the famed character awaits.
“We're bringing Count Dracula to the Dungeon, which for some people it seems a little bit bizarre but when you look at the real history of this Victorian character, there's some real underpinning of why we're bringing him to the Dungeon,” Richard Quincey, head of performance at The London Dungeon, told Reuters.
"I mean, the whole hysteria in Victorian London at the time, which birthed Count Dracula to the audiences and as a character he 's well known… but we're putting our own Dungeon spin on him.”
The London Dungeon is known for its short live immersive shows, recreating horrible history and with actors portraying sinister characters like Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd.
“When the guests come in, they're very apprehensive... it's a very spooky atmosphere in this room,” actor Ciaran Cochran, who portrays Dracula, said.
"They walk in and oftentimes they stop. So you have to very calmly gesture them in, welcome them in, and they're always a little bit unsure, got an unsure look in their eye. But very quickly, they warm to you, and... Dracula has a presence, a gravitas that's very grounded, very smooth, very alluring, if you will."
Halloween is “hugely important” to The London Dungeon, which is popular with Britons as well as tourists from the United States and from across Europe, Quincey said.
"It's our Christmas. It's when we all know that we're going to... have a lot of fun with guests coming around,” he said. "We have audiences dressed up as well, so they come in knowing that they're going to be scared and... really want to be involved. They want to be immersed.”
The Dracula show at The London Dungeon runs until November 3.