7.30pm | Tickets £10 /£5 Conc for students and those on benefits | Kendal Museum 

J R Planché, adapted by Chris Taylor
+ 3 newly commissioned stories

2019 is the bicentenary of the first Vampire story.

Almost 80 years before Dracula, and 20 years before the Victorian era, John Polidori wrote The Vampyre, (at the same party that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein). Just one year later J R Planché produced The Vampire, or The Bride of the Isles, a dramatization of Polidori’s story set in the wilds of Scotland. Director, Chris Taylor has adapted the original for a performance to celebrate this literary and dramatic milestone.

The Bride of the Isles will be accompanied by three original Vampire stories by local writers written especially for the bicentenary.

Set in Lord Ronald, Baron of the Isles’ castle, Lady Margaret, the Baron’s daughter is preparing for her marriage to the Earl of Marsden. When the Earl appears, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Marsden’s younger brother. Lord Ruthven.

But Lord Ronald was with Lord Ruthven in Greece many years ago, when Ruthven was attacked by bandits and died. Or did he?

Margaret’s virtue and devotion to her father, the Baron overcome the dark desires of Ruthven, and the vampire is indeed vanquished by love.

In 1820 J R Planche transformed John Polidori’s original vampire story into a ‘melo-drame’ set on the shores and caves of Staffa and demonstrates the power of love over evil. We have adapted and shortened the ‘melo-drame’ to allow for three new Kendal vampire stories to be performed as a prologue.

Location: Kendal Museum, Station Road, Kendal LA9 6BT