What A Bray Day!

FIRST THEY UPDATED SHERLOCK HOLMES. NOW THEY’RE GIVING DRACULA A TRANSFUSION OF NEW BLOOD. STEVEN MOFFAT AND MARK GATISS TELL US HOW, AS WE VISIT THE BRAY STUDIOS SET.

- Ian Berriman

ON OCCASION, SFX GETS TO walk in the footsteps of legends. This time, it’s one that casts no shadow.

A sign we spied turning off the road gave us our first shiver down the spine: shaped like a clapperboard, it bore the legend “Bray Studios”. The site has seen better days. Decaying outbuildings and corrugated sheds around the perimeter – which we imagine formerly housing costume designers and make-up artists beavering away on cloaks and fangs – are in such shabby condition that they’ve been fenced off. Down Place, the grand house next door (once home to offices and screening rooms), now stands derelict – paint flaking, masonry crumbling, a window boarded up with some old doors. But this place still retains an aura of greatness, because for 14 years it was the home of Hammer. Gothic classics like Dracula, The Curse Of Frankenstein and The Mummy were filmed here. Rounding a corner, it’s easy to picture Christopher Lee magisterially sweeping past, cloak billowing in his wake.

Closed for several years, its soundstages are now back in business, and after reopening their doors for Elton John biopic Rocketman they have welcomed home Bram Stoker’s bloodsucker for a new three-part adaptation of Dracula for the BBC. It’s the brainchild of Sherlock creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. The latter is clearly just as thrilled to be here as we are.