Spooky stories tend to work better on stage than flat-out horror. It’s hard to build tension in a crowd, so comedy mixed in with creepiness is typically the ideal approach for tales of terror. But just because this is an easier approach, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. Horror is hard.
Baron Vordenburg’s Guide To The Paranormal is essentially a gothic TED talk. It’s that bit in every good vampire movie in which the professor explains what a vampire is, but as a stage show. Alas, it doesn’t quite hit the vibe.
The show opens rather confusingly as two women who introduce themselves as ‘The Scarlet Courtesan’ and the ‘Dark Gentle Lady’ introduce the story. This adds absolutely nothing to the story and serves only to let us see some rather nice costumes. Both these performers turn up later as different characters, of course.
The story then begins; we’re introduced to Baron Vordenburg and his two pet monsters, Gothic and Grotesque. (These are meant to be vampires. The Baron calls them something slightly different to make himself sound clever, and it honestly seems like he’s saying umpire. Like we’re being plagued by blood sucking cricket referees. This does not feel like a deliberate joke.)\
The Baron then proceeds to talk about these clearly intelligent creatures as if they were dogs (and even has a clicker for them). Gothic and Grotesque clown around as The Baron delivers his suspiciously incomplete lecture. We come to realise that The Baron is not at all a nice person. Wackiness ensues.
Though this show seems to be designed to appeal to the casual Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan and most goths, it does fall a little flat as a stage play. It needs gore, atmospheric lighting and some better sound design, and we can’t help but wonder if this show would have worked better as a short film, or at the very least in a much smaller, more moodily lit venue.
This is a lovely idea for a show, and we watch the future of the production company, Dark Pony Productions, with interest.
You can book tickets for the Edinburgh Fringe show here and learn more about Dark Pony here.
