Jonathan Bailey, Ella Purnell, Aimee-Lou Wood, Maggie Gyllenhaal and more bring shock and gore to an immersive retelling with real bite

Do we really need another retelling of Bram Stoker’s fabled horror novel, which has already yielded multiple films, plays and radio dramas? Perhaps not, but this new audio version of Dracula, directed by Mary Lambert and adapted by Robyn Aherne, justifies its existence with an unusually star-studded cast, a streamlined story and an immersive and frequently nightmarish sound palette.

Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey is smooth and charismatic as the eponymous count who invites a young solicitor, Jonathan Harker (Louis Partridge), to his castle in Transylvania to assist him with the sale of a property. There, Harker becomes increasingly uneasy as he glimpses the count’s diabolical powers and realises that he is, in fact, a prisoner.

The actor waxes lyrical on directors, dildos and why she hates being referred to as though she’s a dusty old relic

In the late 1950s, Judi Dench was invited to meet a major Hollywood producer about a possible career in the film business. The producer looked at her for a long time and said: “Very nice to meet you but you’ll never make a movie because you have every single thing wrong with your face.” As she left his office, Dench – who was 23 and about to make her professional debut as Ophelia in Hamlet at the Old Vic – breathed a sigh of relief and resolved to concentrate on theatre. Though she dabbled in film and TV, it wasn’t until the 1990s that she became a bona fide movie star, playing M in the Bond films and winning an Oscar for her portrayal of Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. Yet, she notes: “Being onstage is where I feel safest. Yes, I’ve appeared in films, but I’d never consider myself a film actor.”

Dench’s reflections on her working life form the backbone of Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, a memoir built around her conversations with the actor and theatre director Brendan O’Hea, Dench’s friend with whom she also collaborated on 2023’s Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent. This book confirms much of what is already known about Dench: that she is impishly funny, swears like a sailor, and that, despite that film producer’s unkind comments, she has “no hang-ups about what I look like on camera … Acting for me is not about looking glamorous. It’s whatever’s needed for the story.” We also learn that Dench, who is 91, can’t resist a prank: while playing Brecht’s Mother Courage at the Barbican in London, she replaced the drinks her character serves to two soldiers with cider vinegar – “It was a joy watching them knock it back, made even more glorious by the fact they had to ask for a top-up.”