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Vampire Vlad played by Jack Trow looking for
teardrop salvation
Vampomime
Belgrade Theatre, B2
*****
VAMPOMIME
is Panto for people who aren’t sure it’s for them (and the over-18s who
think they’ve grown out of it).
Panto is hardly recognisable; no dame, no huge
costumes, no children on stage but everyone is a villain except Denise,
the lovely librarian from Earlsdon (the very, very Welsh Miriam Grace
Edwards).
It is wonderfully funny, with a supreme script
from Nick Walker and beautifully located in the Coventry area despite
the broad Transylvanian accents, with a pertinent reference to The
Special’s ‘Ghost Town’ at its core.
The premise is simple even if the story is com plex:
a company of theatrical vampires performing Beauty and the Beast
alongside the Belgrade’s Main House Christmas Panto plan to become a
human theatre company.
The big problem is how to become human.
Alan Alucard (Graeme Rose), vampire supremo, in
knocking about Europe for a few thousand years has heard that a
sympathetic teardrop from a woman can turn them human, and Denise is
their best (and only) choice.
Graeme Rose as the vampire supremo
Recruited into the company to play Bella, over
the head of vampish vampire Karen (Katy Stephens) who is suitably put
out – all the more so when her smoky and disembodied lover Brian is seen
leaving Denise’s dressing room . . . he is trapped, genie-style, in a
vacuum cleaner occasioning possible the most memorable if groan-worthy
joke of the evening – ‘Dyson with death’.
Karen has to play Kevin, Denise’s unlikely car
worker ‘boyfriend’ in moustache, flying suit and uncertain accent.
Vampire Vlad (Jack Trow), hungry for human blood, plays the Beast doomed
by his own cruelty to wait for the love of a good woman to set him free.
Denise as Bella is beguiled by his library as much as anything else, and
the rest you can probably guess.
I loved the shadow puppets, loved the ‘business’,
laughed out loud at the programme notes which I wish I had read before
it began, loved the one-liners, hated the instantly forgettable songs,
but enjoyed the performance enormously and would happily take work
colleagues, family and friends to enjoy it again – BUT, a word to the
wise, wear a polo neck! To 02-01-16.
Jane Howard
11-12-15
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