Enhanced Radio Classics · Enhanced Radio Classics

(EP1) The Mercury Theatre on the Air: "Dracula"

March 10, 2026·1 hr 3 min·5 clips

Orson Welles insists no one has ever made Dracula well, revealing his pride in this 1938 radio adaptation.

Dracula opens with admiration sharpened into a dare. The host plays Orson Welles late in life, praising the book as a hair-raising marvel that radio had handled with real care. Welles wore several masks in the Mercury Theatre premiere. He directed it, adapted it, and performed as both Count Dracula and Dr. Seward, all in that commanding voice. The broadcast starts with prestige, then lets the shadow in. Its strength is simple: journals, warnings, bedside watches, and found papers pass the fear from one person to the next. Lucy sits at the center of the alarm. A red mark appears at her throat, with two white-edged punctures over the external jugular vein. Van Helsing refuses to dress it up. He tells Seward the young woman faces a danger greater than death, and the line lands cold. Then the dates start marching. September 8 brings a night watch, a promised safeguard, and something beating angrily against the window panes. September 11 tightens the trap. A message from Purfleet pulls the doctor toward London, while Lucy's own paper records a closed window broken open. The room feels invaded, then emptied. Blue light, drifting specks, and sweetness push the scene out of illness and into possession. The radio style does not over-explain. It lets entries, interruptions, frightened voices, and stiff composure do the work. Near the end, the host turns back to Bram Stoker: seven years of research into folklore, superstition, and historical accounts, followed by only moderate success while he was alive. One premiere becomes a resurrection. What remains is Gothic radio with its collar buttoned, moving fast, listening hard at the window.

As heard by us

A debut Dracula that uses radio's structure and Welles' voice to build eerie, gothic dread.

This Mercury Theatre on the Air debut treats Dracula as a story that benefits from all four narratives, and that structure gives it real shape. Orson Welles directs, adapts, and stars, putting both Dracula and Dr.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play for Welles' first Mercury Theatre Dracula, where his powerful voice turns the broadcast eerie and ceremonial.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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