one4review | On 20, Aug 2024

If you’re of a certain age and of a certain nerdiness there is little to no chance you didn’t go through a phase of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which recounted the spooky adventures of a super-powered teenage girl who discovers she is the “chosen one” destined to hunt down vampires. It was required viewing in my house growing up and my parents had all the episodes in VHS box sets (which probably tells you all you need to know about both me and my parents) and even today, over 20 years after the final episode aired, it has a strong cult following.

It’s perhaps unsurprising then that, with the success of his existing show featuring a recap of the 90s TV phenomenon Friends, Brendan Murphy has decided to mine Buffy for a good dollop of nostalgia.

In Buffy Revamped, Brendan Murphy plays Spike, a sometimes villain/sometimes hero who also happens to be a cockney vampire, who was supporting cast member of the original TV show. Over a glorious seventy minutes, Spike, does his best to recall the events of the show including music, performance theatre and some deliberately awful poetry. But make no mistake, this is a comedy show first and foremost and the laughs are big and often, with Murphy hamming up his role with a gloriously over the top Ray Winston “lahn-dahn tahn” accent.

Buffy Revamped is as much tribute as recap and celebrates the silliness of the original show and it was nostalgic without being fawning.

However, I honestly cannot know if this is something that someone unfamiliar with the original show would get as much out of, though Murphy’s glowing charisma and slick writing might be enough to carry them through. But if you are or ever were a Buffy fan, I can’t recommend it enough.

*****
Reviewed by Tom
Pleasance @ EICC – Pentland