The Highgate Vampire offers a surreal theatrical experience packed with gothic thrills and absurd comedy, writes DAVID TURNBULL
The Highgate Vampire takes a satirical and occasionally surreal look at the urban legend that grew up around the true events surrounding alleged vampire sightings in Highgate Cemetery in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
These sightings sparked a media frenzy which led to groups of amateur vampire hunters invading the cemetery. Their activities caused an outcry when they resulted in the desecration of several graves.
Written and performed by James Demaine and Alexander Knott, and directed by Ryann Hutton, the plot centres on an uneasy and fractious alliance between a demon-hunting priest and his sworn adversary – a man who works as a mild-mannered tobacconist by day and is the would-be nemesis of the undead by night.
The characters are very loosely based on the real-life rivals and players in the Highgate events: David Farrant, a British Occult Society investigator, and Sean Manchester, a self-proclaimed exorcist, vampire hunter, and bishop of the “Old Catholic Church”.
I attended a matinee performance of the play at the Cockpit Theatre, located just off the Church Street market which runs from Edgware Road toward Lisson Grove.
Demaine and Knott made innovative use of the theatre’s intimate performance space to bring their take on the story to life in a hilarious, yet thrilling manner.
Largely a two-handed affair, although the light and sound engineering becomes part of the cast at various points, the premise of the play is that the pair have grudgingly settled their differences in order to perform a pseudo-scientific public lecture on their efforts to track down the witnesses who claim to have encountered the vampire, and to tell of their daring efforts and ultimately disastrous attempts to hunt and destroy this supernatural creature.
The actor-writer team claim to have drawn inspiration from the likes of The Mighty Boosh and Monty Python, and it shows in the absurd re-enactments which include an onstage séance and an extremely silly song about the accoutrements of the vampire hunter’s arsenal.
I would add in Reeves and Mortimer and Garth Marenghi into the comparison list.
They manage to fill the stage with a host of other characters through the ingenious notion of the lead characters playing the lead characters playing other characters in the re-enactments, and the use of staged playbacks of taped interviews.
Demaine and Knott bounced off each other with perfectly timed one-liners, witty exchanges, and withering put-downs, with a bit of audience participation thrown in here and there for good measure.
A booklet featuring the script of the play was available to purchase from the bar, and the programme was accessible as a free PDF download via a QR code.
I thoroughly enjoyed the play which, despite its humorous tone, managed to maintain an eerie, gothic feel throughout.
It made me laugh out loud from beginning to end, and even caused me to jump at a couple of points.
It’s a play well worth catching, and the humour is inclusive enough that it doesn’t require you to have a detailed knowledge of the real tale of the Highgate Vampire.
