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Buffy Revamped

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh 

Four stars

 

In every generation, there is a chosen TV cult that will stand against the reality shows, sitcoms, and forces of prime time darkness. Between 1997 and 2003, that show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Josh Whedon’s kick-ass yarn concerning Sarah Michelle Geller’s wisecracking new girl in town Buffy Summers and her ever-morphing entourage of high school misfits. Over seven seasons, Buffy and co saw off all manner of vampires, demons and whatever else the Hellmouth beneath Sunnydale High School could throw at them in order to show that the geek really could inherit the earth. 

 

For those of us who witnessed the growing pains of Buffy, from queen nerd and slayer extraordinaire to reincarnated badass and actual saviour of the world, resurrections are welcome in any form. Judging by the Fresher's Week aged crowd who make up a sizeable proportion of the packed audience for Brendan Murphy’s comic compendium of the show’s 144 episodes in seventy minutes, the generations that followed in its wake feel much the same. 

 

Murphy adopts the persona of Spike, the punky, peroxided cockney vamp with a saucy line in patter and a hell of a crush on our favourite heroine. Spike here isn’t the louche bad boy with devil may care attitude and dubious charm as played on screen by James Marsters. As possessed by Murphy, he motormouths his way through the show’s assorted plot twists with the manic edge of Jim Carrey channelling Jason Statham by way of Rik Mayall’s people’s poet of yore. 

 

As he dons assorted wigs to introduce us to Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles and the rest of the gang by way of assorted end of the twentieth century pop references, Murphy is quite the monster to contend with in Hamish MacDougall’s production. As has already been proven several tours over since it was an Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit in 2023, it works.

 

Specialised knowledge of some of the programme’s more arcane points aren’t necessary to enjoy a show that Murphy leaves loose enough to ad lib with the audience. It won’t do any harm either, especially as brought to life so evocatively by the British Sign Language interpreter who accompanied him on this Edinburgh date.  

 

As Murphy sums up the suitably labyrinthine Buffy legend by channelling the rapid-fire apocalypse of a rewritten take on R.E.M.’s It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), it is the perfect primer for the forthcoming reboot of the show. A new Slayer awaits. Grr argh to that. 


The Herald, September 20th 2025

 

ends

 

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