As Danielle Jam leans in during our Zoom call, over the rising stage star’s shoulder appears a leering face instantly recognisable from cult movie The Rocky Horror Show.
Pinned to her Glasgow flat’s wall is a luridly made-up Tim Curry as cross-dressing mad scientist Frank-N-Furter in that infamous musical comedy.
A suitable piece of decoration, perhaps, as this young Aberdonian performer returns to Dundee with National Theatre of Scotland’s hit retelling of Dracula. Danielle certainly agrees she is in her element.
“I’ve never done something in the horror genre before, but I love fantasy and sci-fi,” she says. “So it’s exciting to be in a story that’s about vampires and that Gothic world.”
Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning turns a victim of the bloodsucker, Wilhelmina Murray, into the play’s main protagonist, the regular NTS cast member explains.
“It’s about women and people outside the gender binary living in 1890s Scotland and what that meant in terms of what they were allowed to do,” she says. “How they were seen if they wanted to be educated or didn’t want to get married.
“This is a character who’s experiencing a life where she’s shut down and can’t exist how she wants, as well as discovering the existence of vampires in this world. Though even in the book she’s bright and assertive – you don’t often see women from that era written about in that way.”
Jump-scares make play ‘atmospheric’
Mina’s Reckoning arrives at The Rep this week after opening last month at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, followed by performances at Glasgow, Stirling and Inverness, where this powerful production has already wowed audiences, Danielle claims.
“It’s going really well,” she says. “We’ve had some great responses. We’ve heard people jumping, gasping and screaming, which is quite satisfying.
“We’ve got a few jump-scares that’ve worked incredibly well and a lot of them are music-related. It’s atmospheric and chilling.”
Danielle praises the involvement of composer Benji Bower, who has been involved in the production since early rehearsals, adding there are laughs as well as thrills.
These come via playwright Morna Pearson (herself from the north-east) and director Sally Cookson, who set the action in a mental asylum in Danielle’s native county, a nod to how Dracula author Bram Stoker was inspired by visits to Cruden Bay, especially Slains Castle.
This creative team have even introduced some Doric dialect, their leading actor reveals, increasing her local pride.
‘It’s important people hear all the different dialects of Scotland’
“It’s how I spoke in school and with family members, so it’s what I’m used to,” Danielle adds. “I’m grateful I get to do it on stage professionally. It’s important people hear all the different dialects in Scotland.”
This too has been going down well with audiences across the country and Danielle hopes that continues in a venue she knows well.
“It’s been really nice to hear the response to north-east humour and Doric lines and references,” Danielle says.
“At the Rep you can see everybody, so it’s easy to acknowledge that you’re all in this space together. It makes it more exciting.”
She has come a long way from studying acting at Queen Margaret and Napier Universities, Edinburgh, where she found herself adapting her accent.
“Because I was meeting people more from the Central Belt area, my dialect became more neutral,” she says. “It was something that I only spoke when I was back at home, so my voice has been on a bit of a journey.”
Hard-won success for Danielle
To be fair, Danielle’s adaptability has aided her burgeoning career. She has played “very Doric” characters in Aberdeen pantos, while for NTS her breakthrough role was as Moorish woman Ellen in James IV: Queen of the Fight.
For TV, Danielle has starred as PC Eleanor Hipgrave in BBC mockumentary Scot Squad, as well as regularly appearing in CBeebies kids show Molly and Mack.
Straight after university, Danielle secured a placement at the Rep in 2018 which helped launch her career, and she returned in 2021 for magical adventure Wings Around Dundee.
“I have a wonderful relationship with the Rep, so I’m really excited to be back,” she says, thinking back to her first appearance there in The Snow Queen. “The ensemble were like a family you were stepping into.
“They’ve done countless shows together and know each other so well, but they were really welcoming, especially for someone that had just started in the industry. It was super helpful to have people who were so kind and supportive.”
Danielle come backs to the Rep next spring to star in another literary adaptation, based on that much-loved, Mearns-based classic – Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon.
She is thrilled to have won the coveted role of Chris Guthrie, experiencing her hardscrabble life and dysfunctional family in a farming community.
“It’s such a loved story and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intimidated by it,” she says. “The whole journey she goes on over 10 years of her life is just incredible. She goes through so many highs and lows.
“I really felt that Mina was going to stretch me a lot and I feel the same with Chris, but I’m just so attracted to her love of storybooks, because I’m just the same. It’s just about finding how you’re like that part and finding your way in.”
Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning runs at Dundee Rep until October 7.
