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Okay, it turns out that show creator Joss Whedon was not the sound progressive chap we thought he was, but that shouldn’t serve to diminish the brilliance of his joyously irony-heavy ‘90s fantasy series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. Lest we forget it followed the life and times of Buffy Summers, a regular American schoolgirl who laid waste to legions of the undead alongside her various nerdy pals.
It’s well worth a rewatch, and its enduring place in popular culture is confirmed by ‘Buffy Revamped’, a one-man stage show which sees comic Brendan Murphy retell the entire 144-episode arc over again through the eyes of Spike, the briefly menacing Billy Idolalike British vampire who goes from the main villain of series two to Buffy’s complicated love interest later on.
A one-man, 70-minute condensed take may or may not sound like a horrible gimmick, but it’s worth noting that Murphy’s previous show ‘Friend’ did a fine job of retelling the entire saga of ‘Friends’ from the point of view of surly barista Gunther: yes, it was quippy and meta and wilful ‘90s nostalgia. But he found a genuinely thoughtful angle in imagining what Gunther’s take on Chandler and co’s decade of slobbing about might have been. Spike is a slightly more complicated character, who both missed more of ‘Buffy’ than Gunther did of ‘Friends’, but was much more involved when he was there. Still, he was also a whiny English bloke, and this sounds pretty entertaining for those who can reconcile their ‘Buffy’ fandom with not taking the show too seriously.
‘Buffy Revamped’ is part of the new season at Wilton’s Music Hall, where it runs April 19-23.