Guest Blog: 'It's A Truly Outrageous Story': Bag of Beard Theatre Director Alexander Knott on THE HIGHGATE VAMPIRE

This whole thing started with James Demaine. He’s into his occult, his gothic horror, his folk tales, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.

It started with a raised eyebrow. It started in a technical rehearsal for another play entirely, three years ago.

His mind should have been on his music – he was, at that time, playing about a dozen instruments in a play about the invention of the hot air balloon, told by pierrot clowns. He was also playing the King of France. And he had a very large moustache (he often does, when a bit of acting is required. The moustache is crucial.)

James said “I’ve read about this strange story. True story. A Priest and a Tobacconist. Except he only ran the tobacco shop in the daytimes. By night he was a vampire hunter. And they both set out to destroy the Vampire that was terrorising Highgate. 1970s, this was. And they met to have a duel. A Magician’s Duel, they called it. On some blasted heath somewhere. To see who was the winner.”

I blinked. I had several lights to think about. Where they were pointing, and when. “That’s good, that. Isn’t it?”

It didn’t take too long, no more than thirty seconds, to see that yes, that was good. That was very good. And for us, for Bag of Beard – so began The Strange Tale of The Highgate Vampire.

Within the thirty seconds after James told the vampire story, we’d changed the names. And the accents. These were pretend fellas, now. So we can make them do what we like. We decided they were called Sheffield & Farringdon.

One of us raised an eyebrow. Possibly a moustache was wiggled.

“Sheffield.” Said one, in greeting. Already pissed off.

“Farringdon.” Said the other. Can’t stand each other.

And that was enough to be going on with.

Our slogan is accurate. “More of this is true than we would like.” It is true, we are assured, that Highgate Cemetery was broken into by a horde of people who had read in the papers that there was a Vampire loose – and they proceeded to dig up the graves, and some poor beggar found a decapitated head lying on the dashboard of his car the next day. This is pretty horrible. I mean – it’s completely insane, that’s a given, but that can’t have been a fun morning for that particular car owner.

There were two men – this is true – and one was (or claimed to be) a Priest and the other ran a tobacconist's shop and had an interest in the occult. Both were deeply involved in the hunt for the Highgate Vampire, although one subsequently said there was no vampire at all.

The fact of the matter is SO MUCH of this story is outrageously true.

In our workshop performances, we had people who were there – older gents, with grey hair tied back in ponytails, sipping on pints of mild, who told us after the show “More of that’s true than you’d believe.” And rest assured, potential audience member, that this is a play that is wild, outrageous, silly, farcical, features an exorcism, a long-suffering technical operator, a pint of Bailey’s AND STILL we’re being told BY PEOPLE WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE that it’s pretty close to the facts.

So, many a Google rabbit hole awaits the unwary traveller who types in ‘The Highgate Vampire’ – you won’t believe what’s true. More of it is true than you would believe. Who would ever believe this outrageous true story? Ordinary folk, digging up graves and putting garlic into the mouth of corpses, trying to stop the dead from rising! Surely not.

We’ve been making theatre since 2017. Slightly before. We went to drama school together. The full Withnail & I. A down at heel Edwardian Hospital-cum-Hotel-cum-Morgue in South London which was, for decades, dedicated exclusively to the education of young actors by throwing a smorgasbord of theatrical methods at the proverbial wall and seeing what stuck and what slid down it. Three years of this, and we were a theatre company.

We are Bag of Beard – named for the fact that I kept a paper bag full of false beard in my locker for a Jacobean tragedy. A bag of beard.

Ryan Hutton and myself (Alexander Knott) are the joint directors and Ryan is directing this one. James Demaine acts, writes, plays music, designs sound and so does Samuel Heron. Over the years we’ve all been in them, we’ve all written them. We’ve ran a theatre in Islington. We’ve gone up and down to Manchester, touring. We’ve been making theatre, and a little bit of film, collaboratively ever since we started.

We have an idea. Sometimes the writing starts immediately. Sometimes we talk about it a while. Once we talked about it for seven years and wrote about three different versions of it. Often, we improv, but not in tight t shirts with miming. We improv sat down while typing. Back and forth. We redraft. We make original music (well, Sam and James do). We get together. We put it on. Original Words. Original Music.

Highgate Cemetery wished us the best with our endeavour but didn’t want to be an official partner. Perhaps it’s all too strange, too true. And yet, we live in strange times. And perhaps the only thing that can offer a bit of levity from some of this unremitting reality is a truly outrageous story. A true story.

The Vampire rises this Christmas, at the Clapham Omnibus. Come and see if you can tell what’s true.

More of it is true than we would like.

The Highgate Vampire runs at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham from 16-30 December