Summon the supernatural and get ghoulishly gothic this weekend as Bram Stoker Festival returns on Friday with four days of living stories and four nights of deadly events. Honouring Dublin’ most famous Gothic son, the packed programme includes theatre, spectacle, visual arts and music in haunting locations across the city. Bram Stoker Festival is a Failte Ireland and Dublin City Council initiative. For events information and tickets sink your teeth into www.bramstokerfestival.com
Fans of the unusual are invited to travel back to a time when gentlemen wore top hats, ladies wore corsets and mobile phones were steam-powered for Bleedin’ Deadly (Oct 28th – 31st, 9pm, Tickets €20), a raucous celebration of a time when the Freak Show dominated in all its shocking glory, in the atmospheric Pillar Room of the Rotunda Hospital. Over in the National Concert Hall the culturally curious and fans of Todd Browning’s 1931 classic movie Dracula can enjoy Dracula Live (Sat 29th, 8pm, Tickets €27) which sees leading Irish musicians Matthew Nolan and Sean Mac Erlaine create a chilling, atmospheric new score for this iconic film which they will perform live on the night.
For families, master-storytellers and creators of stunning, brilliant chaos, and big, bold, visual spectacles, Macnas, will summon spirits and awaken the ghosts with Sleep No More (Mon 31st, 6pm, Free), a new parade like no other seen in Dublin. Under cloak of twilight, the whole family will be entertained as magic is released in a stunning crescendo of street art, parade and thundering music beginning on Moore St before making its way down Henry St and Wolfe Tone St. Across the river, see St Patrick’s Park like never before as it transforms into Stokerland (Sat 29th & Sun 30th, 11am-4.30pm, Free), a pop-up gothic fun park with the macabre talents of world class street-performers alongside rides and attractions to ensure a fangtastic time for all!
Speaking about the return of the festival, Tom Lawlor Festival Director said:
This October Bank Holiday weekend allows Dubliners and visitors alike to experience the city like never before. By day we have programmed gothic intrigue at family friendly events, talks and interactive experiences, before night descends and we embrace the darkness with deadly adventures offering macabre thrills in unusual locations.
Prohibition: the Beautiful and the Damned at IMMA with Film Fatale (Sat 29th, Tickets €34 plus booking fee), features a night of gothic glamour, strange curiosities, the bewitching and the bizarre at Ireland’s most elegantly decadent Halloween celebration; while Horror Expo in the stunning surroundings of Freemasons Grand Lodge (Sun 30th, 2pm-2am, tickets €42.43 including booking fee) will deliver a one of a kind event promising to please the most ardent of horror fans, a day filled with panels, Q&A sessions, screenings, and paranormal investigations; and Werewolves (28th – 31st Oct, venues across the city, Free) is a tactical game of finger-pointing and self-preservation, a high-octane, high-stakes parlour game played with friends and strangers around a table. Find out if you’re a villager or werewolf, but be careful: this game is survival of the fittest. Trust nobody, observe closely, because werewolves are hiding among villagers and as day turns to night their aim is to subsume the village.
Dubliners and visitors to the city are invited to follow the fun using #BiteMeDublin at www.facebook.com/BramStokerDublin and @bramstokerdub on Twitter and Instagram. For events information and tickets sink your teeth into www.bramstokerfestival.com