Vampires are very much my favourite at the moment, I am obsessed with What we do in the Shadows, the latest Dracula film, and of course Nosferatu.
When our lovely Spooky Isles Editor, David Saunderson, gave me the green light for reviewing the whole of the new series, A Reluctant Vampire, I was thrilled.
The series is an adaptation based upon a 1982 book by the comedy legend Eric Morcambe, I already knew there was going to be some tongue-in-cheek humour afoot and I wasn’t disappointed.
The series focuses upon a vampire family – Victor, the head of the family, Valeeta, the mother who has many secrets, Vernon, a smug, know-it-all brother out to prove his worth and Val, the young heir, keen to impress his father.
Val is central to the story, he is the narrator taking us on a journey into his thoughts and feelings, one filled with humour and complexities.
The first episode opened with a truly genius moment, Victor has flown in and is leaning menacingly over a potential female victim.
The music is intense, he is building up to pounce and feed, at which point Val turns the sidelamp on and declares that he needs to use the bathroom.
The female victim awakes in horror to find two vampires in her room and the plot to feed upon her has been foiled. Cue a very awkward moment as Victor waits with the female as we can hear Val using the bathroom.
We quickly realise that Val stands out from the family, he is not a typical vampire but he is desperate to fit in and make his father proud. Something that his brother, Vernon, is also out to do.
It is a race as to who can achieve certain milestones first so that they can be the first one to have the initiation ceremony making them an official vampire.
One of the big barriers to Val achieving this is that he can’t fly and he doesn’t drink blood…. Or does he?
This is a spoiler free zone and so I am not going to give anything away but needless to say there is a twist and a masterclass in humor courtesy of Morecambe’s writing.
As the episode progresses we learn that Val isn’t who he thought he was and that are some rather large family secrets hiding beneath the cobwebs of the family castle.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the first episode, it is easy to watch. I look forward to continuing to follow Val on his journey and bringing you more reviews – stay tuned!
A Reluctant Vampire is on BBC and is available on IPlayer.
