Audible's New Dracula: Bailey, Purnell and Gyllenhaal in Cinematic Horror

Audible Originals has released a new audio adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" running 5 hours and 57 minutes, directed by Mary Lambert and adapted by Robyn Aherne, with a cast led by Jonathan Bailey, Ella Purnell and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

The production answers a fair question before it is asked. Stoker's novel has already yielded multiple films, plays and radio dramas. The review's verdict is that this version justifies its existence on three counts: an unusually star-studded cast, a streamlined story and an immersive, frequently nightmarish sound palette.

Bailey, known for "Bridgerton," plays the eponymous count. The review finds him smooth and charismatic in the role. The plot follows the familiar spine of the 1897 novel. Dracula invites a young solicitor, Jonathan Harker, played by Louis Partridge, to his castle in Transylvania to assist with a property sale. There, Harker grows increasingly uneasy. He glimpses the count's diabolical powers and realizes he is, in fact, a prisoner.

What happens in Whitby?

The action widens to Whitby, England, where Harker's fiancee Mina, played by Ella Purnell, is visiting her friend Lucy, played by Aimee Lou Wood. A Russian ship is found wrecked on the shore, its captain murdered and its crew nowhere to be seen. Shortly after, Lucy has an unusual encounter in a graveyard that leaves her with puncture wounds on her throat and prone to night terrors.

David Jonsson plays the doctor who tends to Lucy. Maggie Gyllenhaal takes the role of garlic-wielding vampire hunter Van Helsing, and the review calls her brilliantly cast.

How does it sound?

The technical craft carries much of the production. Ilan Eshkeri supplies a haunting score. The cinematic sound design plunges the listener into Dracula's castle, with disembodied voices and echoing corridors. The review's practical advice is direct: this is a series best heard via headphones.

The adaptation does not shrink from shock and gore. The blood-sucking scenes are done sparingly, and without a hint of camp, according to the review.

What else is worth downloading?

Two further audiobooks receive attention:

• "A Rebel and a Traitor" by Rory Carroll (HarperCollins, 11hr 24min). The "Killing Thatcher" author trawls through letters, police reports and declassified government documents to tell the story of Sir Roger Casement, the British diplomat who became an Irish nationalist and fierce critic of British imperialism. Read by Stephen Hogan.
• "A Truce That Is Not Peace" by Miriam Toews (Fourth Estate, 3hr 45min). The celebrated Canadian writer narrates her deliberately fragmented memoir, recalling the deaths of her father and sister from suicide and her repressive Mennonite upbringing.

What does this change for listeners? The new "Dracula" shows that a novel adapted countless times can still find fresh life in audio, provided the casting is sharp and the sound design does the atmospheric heavy lifting that film once claimed for itself.