Writers and Directors: Joanna Holden and Jack Kelly
Feeling unseen in daylight hours, an obsession with blood and particularly the lack of it, and seeming otherworldly, Joanna Holden and Jack Kelly equate the experience of the menopause with being a vampire in their new two-hander Countess Dracula, playing at the Camden People’s Theatre. Staged as a vaudeville act encouraging the audience to fear the monster in the cage, there is plenty of innovative thinking in this clowning-inspired drama that uses sketch humour blended with horror myths and end-of-the-pier performance to create a unique, if unfinished reflection on changing womanhood.
For a small touring show, the production values of Countess Dracula are pretty impressive, leaning into the enjoyable Victoriana with a mini curtained theatre which is repurposed as a tablecloth and later a vertical bedspread, and lots of attention to detail. The sideshow setting is well realised, while the writing style for these scenes draws on the hyperbole of the era, full of daring, mystery and an atmosphere of fearful wonder as the gathered audience is invoked to look inside the shadowy cage for the creature within. So, the fullness with which this world has been realised, as well as the cut-outs to a seaside location with Joanna’s no-nonsense mother, are really enjoyable.
That all of this is a performance by “Joey” and “Jack” is also amusing as a Laurel and Hardy double act emerges from this opening sequence and recurs throughout the show in a series of skits, although the relevance of these choices and how funny they are is hit and miss. Joey’s first visit to see her doctor is well managed, blending the symptoms of vampirism with the menopause and although the term is never used, the references to bodily change and the feeling that “when the last blood stopped, I stopped” give Countess Dracula an extra depth.
There is even some poignancy with Joey’s mother, someone she looks to for advice about her menopausal symptoms and receives a put up and shut up response. But Kelly is vivid in the role, which is reprised a second time later in the show, and there could be more mileage in these exchanges, examining how different generations of women have been expected to cope silently with the experience. One of the great contrasts in clowning is the innocent humour within the deeper wells of tragedy, and it feels like this exchange could be the place for that.
Other ideas feel less worked through, however, and take up far more of the story, including a long movement sequence in which Joey and Jack lay the table for a dinner they never eat or when Joey tries to hide in an archive box, which quickly becomes a car that Jack zooms around the room. Later, Joey starts to inhabit the Countess Dracula character and draws her gynaecologist into her cervix during a personal exam, but there is also more potential content here about the ingrained misogyny of the medical profession and how that shapes treatments of menopausal symptoms.
The connections between different sections could be stronger, yet Holden and Kelly are charismatic and likeable performers, and Countess Dracula has lots of potential for helping more women to feel seen.
Runs until 1 November 2025
