SHERLOCK HOLMES V DRACULA

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1981 and long thought lost, a recording of this play turned up on cassette tape several years ago. Thankfully it was a good copy with only minimal tape hiss and now it has been cleaned up and was rebroadcast back in 2007. It got another run yesterday evening on Radio 7 and it is now available to listen for the next seven days on the Radio 7 website HERE

It's a great play - the audio really builds up atmosphere but then that will come as no surprise to anyone familier with the excellent work of the BBC Audio drama department.

Details:

Adapted for radio and directed by Glyn Dearman.

The year is 1890. A ship is discovered adrift off the English coast, its crew missing, its murdered captain lashed to the wheel, and its only passanger is a sinister black dog. This impenetrable mystery is clearly a case for the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, but for the first time in his illustrious career the great detective is baffled. Clearly the crew have been murdered and dumped overboard, but what can account for the captain's expression of imponderable terror and his acute loss of blood, or the ship's strange cargo - fifty boxes of earth?

The game is afoot, and Sherlock Holmes, aided as ever by the faithful Dr. Watson, finds himself on the trail of no mortal enemy, but the arch-vampire himself - Count Dracula...

Sherlock Holmes...........John Moffatt

Doctor John Watson......Timothy West

Count Dracula..............David March

Professor Van Helsing.....Aubrey Woods

Thomas Parker..........Michael Maloney

Mr. Caffyn................Noel Howlett

Mary Watson........Theresa Streatfeild

Vampire.................Frances Jeater

Inspector Lestrade...Nicholas Courtney

Mrs. Barton.............Katherine Parr

Red Bridger................John Hollis

First broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on December 19th, 1981.