Dracula: Lucy’s Dream ★★★★

Let’s get straight to the sharp-toothed point with Dracula: Lucy’s Dream: It will be close to or nigh impossible for any other 2026 Edinburgh Fringe show to be more visually gorgeous than this fever dream of a production from Plexus Polaire, the French-Norwegian theatre company that incorporates life-size puppets with human performers so eerily well that at times it’s impossible to tell who’s real and who’s not.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the perfect classic subject for this company, and unlike their impressive-but-overstuffed production of Moby Dick that was previously presented in London and New York, Plexus Polaire has tightly focused the narrative to a single character and storyline. In this case, it’s poor Lucy Westenra, who’s alternatively seduced and terrified by the titular Count. Lucy is performed by both an anxious-looking puppet and many of the show’s ensemble members, and who’s playing her shifts in a seamless instant. At various points multiple Lucys are running about onstage, either trying to escape or destroy the demon who is haunting her days and nights.

This poor girl gets no rest, and the production sprints with that notion, constantly blurring her and the audience’s reality. The excellent, hard-working ensemble is in total sync thanks to director Yngvild Aspeli’s assured direction, and because this is a sumptuous spectacle where the designers are the true stars, they must be given their deserved plaudits. To set designer Elizabeth Holager Lund, costume designer Benjamin Moreau, puppet makers Aspeli, Manon Dublanc, Pascale Blaison, Elise Nicod, Sébastian Puech, and Delphine Cerf; lighting designer Emilie Nguyen, video designer David Lenard-Ruffet, sound designers Baptiste Coin and Pierre-Aimé Ballot, and, last but certainly not least, music composer Ane Martha Sørlien Holen: Bravo for such magnificent work.