I've already mentioned the excellent bus network round here. Last year we did a little bus trip to Derby, the county town, and we thought we'd do a repeat run this year (especially as it still costs GBP 2 per person per way).




We knew from last year's visit that Derby has some lovely architecture:



But what we'd come for was this, Pickford's House:


It's a really elegant period building:










So that was all excellent. But the really surprising thing about this place was its world-class collection of toy theatres:


These came into vogue around 1800 when print sellers began to offer reproductions of famous actors and actresses, and then expanded their trade to enable children and other theatre aficionados to construct model theatres in their own homes, and perform their own plays. Sounds like a cool way to pass a few winter evenings.

The little theatres are charming. Here are just a few:




This exhibition also offers a wonderful retrospective of Derby's "big theatres":



Derby is also intimately connected with a book I read after a visit to Whitby in 2017, and now probably need to re-read: Bram Stoker's Dracula. The first authorized dramatization of Dracula premiered at Derby's Grand Theatre in May 1924. It was a great success, and went on tour. The production was then adapted for the Broadway stage in 1927 -- with Bela Lugosi starring as Dracula. Finally, it morphed into the celebrated 1931 Dracula film (Lugosi again), which has influenced the portrayal of Dracula and vampires in general ever since. There are hopes that Derby will stage an annual Dracula Day, since this is "the place where Dracula came to life and transformed".

This isn't the end of Derby's Dracula connection, however. In 1951, Bela Lugosi was back. Eying a run on the London stage for his trademark character (with the hope of improving on his recent succession of bit-parts and low-grade movies), he began a provincial tour "to build up momentum" for the West End. Derby was 20 weeks into this tour, and Lugosi was feeling both his age and the shadow of disappointment: "That night in Derby, producer John Mather told Lugosi of further plans to travel to Newcastle and Liverpool, with no West End opportunities in sight. Mather recalls: 'He looked at me a long time. "John, I can't go on," he said, "It's taking too much out of me. Please finish it quickly."'"


Lunch after this. At the Book Cafe, sister to the one in Belper that helped us through our first rainy day in Milford last year.



And then we shopped. But even that was easy, as the Derbion has lots of useful places under one roof.

Back on the bus. Grand day out.