Jonathan Bailey Stars in Audible's Dracula Adaptation — SkimNews
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- Dracula gets a 5hr 57min Audible Originals adaptation, directed by Mary Lambert and adapted for audio by Robyn Aherne.
- Jonathan Bailey plays the eponymous count, who summons young solicitor Jonathan Harker (Louis Partridge) to his castle in Transylvania to help sell a property, only for Harker to realise he is a prisoner.
- Ella Purnell plays Mina, Harker's fiancée visiting her friend Lucy in Whitby, England, where a Russian ship is wrecked on the shore with its captain murdered and its crew nowhere to be seen.
- Aimee Lou Wood's Lucy is left with puncture wounds on her throat and night terrors after an encounter in a graveyard, with David Jonsson cast as the doctor who tends to her.
- Maggie Gyllenhaal is cast as Van Helsing, the garlic-wielding vampire hunter, in a role the review calls brilliantly cast.
- Ilan Eshkeri scores the production with a haunting, cinematic sound palette of disembodied voices and echoing corridors that the review says is best heard via headphones, while the adaptation keeps the shock and gore but treats blood-sucking sparingly and without camp.
Why it matters: With a 5hr 57min runtime and a cast including Jonathan Bailey, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ella Purnell, the Audible Originals production turns a much-adapted novel into a star-led listening event, with Ilan Eshkeri's score and a headphone-dependent sound design carrying the horror. Audible gains a prestige title; listeners get a darker, less campy retelling of Dracula.
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