In the late 1960s, reports began to materialise about a sinister entity witnessed on Swain's Lane, a long, straight road that runs directly along the divide between the two halves of Highgate Cemetery.
One half is a more open expanse of woodland graveyard that serves as the final resting place of Karl Marx and George Eliot, and more recently Scottish folk singer Bert Jansch and punk entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren. It is a reflective place, peopled with mature ash, where the dappled light plays delicately on the lichen-blotched headstones.
The other half is somewhat different — a tangle of oak and Cedar of Lebanon that grow in gnarled desperation upon a turbulent roll of dark, rocky hillsides. It has deep crevices and forgotten secrets. The paths are serpentine and winding. This is where you will find the Columbarium: a Victorian, faux-Roman circle of mausoleums. It is here that the sightings first began.
Accounts spoke of a tall, shadowy figure with red eyes that caused people to freeze on the spot while their life force was drawn from them. To the forefront of this tale came two figures: one a self-proclaimed priest and exorcist, the other a tobacconist by day and occult master by night. They hated each other. A rivalry was sparked, each claiming he could expel or destroy the demon.
All great fodder for a play — and a funny one at that. But beyond the tantalising nonsense I have just described (which also happens to be absolutely true… Google it), we wanted to tell the people of London a story about the city that has largely gone under the radar.
I have recently been rewatching all the different versions of A Christmas Carol (Alastair Sim's is the best), and it's led me to believe that this city really survives on tales about itself. London's stories often have a whimsically macabre tone; think Jack the Ripper or the ghosts in the Tower of London. As a writer, I have always been drawn to the elements that might not be all-out horror but still have a touch of the grotesque. In addition, London has a history with the occult — from Alister Crowley to the Rolling Stones. This came to a head in the late 1960s and provides a backdrop for our play.
Gothic tones of reality paired with a deep appreciation for folk tradition; sprinkle in a dusting of Monty Python's surrealism, and you have The Highgate Vampire.
Was it all really just a load of nonsense? I am convinced that there was something not yet explained by science which was manifesting in Swain's Lane back in the 1960s and 70s. A vampire? A Quranic jinn? A demon? A psychic phenomenon? Something else? I could talk you through my theories and research, but we might be here a while.
Alex Knott, my fellow writer and performer, is rather more rational (and boring) and attributes most unexplained phenomena to the excitable nature of the human imagination.
When researching the play, we ventured into the cemetery, if only to gain a visceral sense of what the environment is like — not just the cemetery itself, but the surrounding area too. We found that the vampire tale still has a very detectable presence.
The local bookshop owner told us, in a half-whisper, that the book which first detailed the encounters and told the tale of the two hunters is no longer for sale there, but assured us it is still in print. To the people of Highgate, the tale of the entity is a very real moment in the not-too-distant past, when a group of amateur vampire hunters stormed the grounds and began digging up the great and the good of this city.
While we did thoroughly research the real event, we allowed ourselves a certain amount of creative license. Partly because there was so much to the real-life account that it would be impossible to fit it into a 70-minute show. We distilled our favourite bits and stirred in elements from works that we love; Withnail and I, Inside Number 9, Toast of London.
Come for a comedy; stay for a deep and bonkers rabbit hole into a modern folkloric myth. If you want to know the rest, we shall see you at the Cockpit!
The Highgate Vampire is on at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham until 30 December 2025, before moving to the Cockpit from 28 January-1 February 2026)
