It’s Halloween in Hounslow. Sorry, Halaloween – it also happens to be Eid. A white working-class vampire called Kathy (Jaime Winstone) who doubles as a part-time dominatrix on disability benefits is on the prowl for some halal blood. She’s got a thing for Muslims, you see. (Also Hindus, it transpires.) She has tried Jewish blood, Buddhist blood, Christian blood and an increasing amount of atheist blood. But halal blood is the best. As for halal virgin blood “It’s like Christmas!” she hisses, baring her fangs. Mind you, as the British-Pakistanis point out in the opening moments of Count Abdulla before their necks are duly sucked, it would have been more culturally appropriate if she had referenced Ramadan instead.
Welcome to the could-be-extremely-dodgy premise of Kaamil Shah’s six-part vampire comedy. The series would be unthinkable if it wasn’t made by brown people who know what they are doing, and at one point even deploy the P-word in a way that isn’t gratuitous or misplaced but just plain old racist. After all, on paper how do we feel about laughing at racist vampires? Vampires who, at the other end of the class spectrum, are portrayed as a bunch of white supremacist toffs desperate to protect the bloodline from racial impurity? Is it OK? Then again, if Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson could do the whole cultural reference-rammed lovable spoofy sitcom thing more than 20 years ago with Spaced, why the hell not? The hour for Muslim vampires cometh.
