Deacon the Vampire: 188 Years of Bullshit graces us with a hilarious late-night interview with a vampire, in which performer Jonny Brugh offers up all the delicious fringe-y weirdness that I’ve been missing from this year’s World Buskers Festival.

This hour-long show fleshes out the backstory alluded to in the cult mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, piecing together ‘bad boy’ Deacon’s childhood in 1830s Romania (lots of drama with goats), his expulsion from his village (more drama with goats), his unexpected turn to vampirism, and the curly road to his arrival in New Zealand (by way of genocide, boy bands, war criminals, and true love).

Throughout, the gothic Romanticism we’d expect from vampire narratives – accentuated here through Brugh’s open-throated linen shirt, fishnet singlet and piratey leather pants – is undermined with absurdity and bathos. There’s a great juxtaposition between the character’s cocky self-assuredness, his complete lack of self-awareness and his adolescent moodiness (everything is bullshit!), as if Lord Byron were a sulky emo with a penchant for mid-career Radiohead.  

The set helps, too: the backdrop in the Backstage Social Club features lush red curtains, which sit well against Deacon’s crappy faded armchair and dated boom box. Some minimal but well-placed lighting elements and subtle shifts in sound both enrich the sense of environment and make for some great visual and aural gags. Although the show is sold out, things still feel intimate, but the sightlines in the venue are a bit tricky, which means anything close to the ground is lost for those not up the front (in the virgin section) or on the aisle.

Throughout, Brugh is a captivating performer and storyteller, draping himself over his chair, flicking beautifully between louche and skeevy with the raise of an eyebrow. He’s a precise physical comedian and a deft mime, too. My companion is immensely taken with what she terms his ‘lizardy’ erotic dance, all gyrating hips and wavy arms, which he cracks out as both a form of self-expression and a means of seduction.

From a dramaturgical perspective, I’m not entirely sure if the arc and pace of the hour best milks the scenario and material yet; it’s a little uneven. That said, perhaps that’s irrelevant, as there’s a counter-intuitiveness to the narrative and its presentation that I find both entertaining and compelling, as if Deacon the vampire (as opposed to Brugh the performer) wanted to put on a show but didn’t quite know how. This is best expressed in a throwaway comment late in the show, that Deacon finds his minor celebrity post-Shadows “annoying”, which recasts our audience with the vampire both a source of pleasure and resentment. Narrative expectations are undermined, the ‘point’ of the show is uncertain until Deacon tells us at the end, and the relationship between audience and performer is kinda wobbly, but all to great comedic effect.

At the end, some people are on their feet, Deacon is inviting us to his next ‘bullshit’ gig, up the road at the Spiegeltent, and a whole room of virgins is spilling out into the night, happily hypnotised. 

[See review for the Rotorua Festival development season, entitled DEACON.]

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