PROFESSOR NOSFERATU : ACADEMIC FARCE (English version).

  

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU: ACADEMIC FARCE © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

GAVARREUNAM@GMAIL.COM

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

ACADEMIC FARCE

(English version)

By Benjamin Gavarre

 

 

Biting the Bureaucracy: A Post-Structuralist Nightmare at St. Sepulchre’s

By Julian Fotherington-Thomas, Arts Editor, The Cherwell

 

To stage a vampire narrative in the 21st century is, frankly, to risk pedestrian cliché—or so one might assume before witnessing the delightfully absurd Professor Nosferatu. Here, the traditional gothic horror of Stoker is violently re-semanticized through the lens of modern collegiate bureaucracy, resulting in a piece that owes as much to Eugène Ionesco's Theatre of the Absurd as it does to Hammer Horror.

 

The narrative structure is a masterclass in tonal whiplash. We are introduced to the ancient St. Sepulchre’s College not through misty graveyards, but via the Kafkaesque horror of self-inking stamps and fluorescent lighting. The true monster, the play boldly asserts, is not the millennial bloodsucker with cartilaginous amphibian hands, but the paralyzing institutional machinery of Oxford itself.

 

The character dynamics are where the production truly bares its fangs. Edgar Allan Smythe-Browne serves as a devastating critique of our own student populace—a faux-intellectual clad in an oversized sub-fusc scarf, whose desperate need for academic validation makes him a willing victim of the undead. Conversely, Leo provides a brilliant, Beckettian counterpoint. His existential apathy, perfectly encapsulated by his relentless scraping of a Bombay Bad Boy Pot Noodle, grounds the high-camp melodrama in a stark, post-ironic reality. He is the modern Estragon, waiting not for Godot, but for a passing grade in Linguistics.

 

Yet, it is Victoria, the JCR President, who steals the show. Her descent into vampirism is not driven by erotic seduction, but by the desperate need to bypass the Great Western Railway commute. It is a scathing indictment of the socio-economic pressures placed upon the modern undergraduate, masked beneath layers of flour and plastic fangs.

 

While the unironic deployment of My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade bordered on the visually assaultive, one must commend the director's commitment to the neo-goth aesthetic. Professor Nosferatu is a triumph of ridiculousness—a blood-soaked, form-stamping fever dream that forces us to question whether the Oxford tutorial system is, in fact, literally draining our life force.

 

Rating: ★★★★☆ (Deducted one star due to the genuinely offensive odor of artificial beef flavoring emanating from the stalls).

 

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Professor Nosferatu A tenured professor and a millennial vampire don. He attempts to impart his ancient philological knowledge while navigating the absolute degradation of 21st-century collegiate bureaucracy. His supernatural powers are constantly thwarted by fading patience and his highly unique, webbed axolotl hands (spread, spread, cartilaginous, newt hands). He is a visual genius, capable of creating overwhelming gothic holographic displays (image_0.png), but finds forms and stamps more terrifying.

 

Edgar Allan Smythe-Browne The archetype of insufferable academic pretension. Clad in an excessively long, trailing college scarf and steampunk welding goggles (image_0.png), he is obsessed with unmasking the Professor. His motivation is driven solely by filological snobbery and a desperate need for intellectual validation, viewing the vampire not as a monster, but as a chance for peer-reviewed distinction.

 

Valeria The neurotic JCR President and encarnation of corporate-goth procedure. Her true loyalty lies not with the dark arts, but with the college bylaws, risk assessments, and official stamps (image_0.png). For her, Nosferatu’s vampirism is an 'administrative anomaly' that needs to be 'regularized' for college points, seeing the supernatural as just another tool for securing dissertation signatures and funding.

 

Leo The perpetual undergrad and anxious spectator. Always found violently scraping a Pot Noodle with a spork (image_0.png) during tutorials, he serves as the play’s relaxed, stoic narrator. A resilient failure on a gap year that never ended, his perspective provides the necessary, post-ironic counterpoint to the bureaucratic chaos, proving that a bad attitude can survive even the ancient undead.

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

By Benjamin Gavarre

(Adapted for an Oxford University Setting)

CHARACTERS:

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU: A millennial vampire and Don of Philology. He has the webbed, cartilaginous hands of a giant Thames newt and a notoriously short fuse for modern academic bureaucracy.

LEO: The alternative, overly relaxed student. Probably on a gap year that never ended. Always carrying a violently scraping pot of instant Bombay Bad Boy noodles and a perpetually chilled-out attitude.

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE: The insufferable "intellectual" snob of the college. Wears a college scarf that drags on the floor and round, steampunk welding goggles.

VICTORIA: The JCR (Junior Common Room) President. Obsessive about college statutes, Risk Assessment forms, and ink stamps. A corporate-goth in training.

VOICE OF THE ANCIENT MASTER: An ancestral vampire, Head of the College, absolute hater of the Harvard Referencing System.

 

SCENE 1: THE SEPULCHRAL TUTORIAL ROOM

SETTING: A gloomy, 14th-century tutorial room at St. Sepulchre’s College, Oxford. The ceiling features a damp patch suspiciously shaped like the skull of Yorick (or Edgar Allan Poe’s neon silhouette).

LIGHTING: Cold, flickering, utterly depressing fluorescent tube light. Every so often, a drop of water falls from the ceiling into a bucket with a comical plink!

(The action begins in a sepulchral silence, interrupted only by incredibly annoying noises. EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE is reading a tome so thick he can barely support its weight; it slips from his hands and hits the oak desk with a deafening echo. LEO is scraping the very bottom of a plastic Pot Noodle cup with a spork, producing a sharp, dry, insufferable squeak. VICTORIA obsessively stamps a stack of forms with a self-inking college seal: CLACK, CLACK, CLACK!).

 

(Suddenly, the heavy oak door’s hinges screech like something out of a Hammer Horror film. Enter PROFESSOR NOSFERATU. He doesn’t walk: he glides, as if wearing invisible roller skates beneath his oversized tweed trousers, which pool around his feet. He stops at the lectern. He drops his chalk. He pulls a "Permanent" marker from his pocket. He drops the marker. He tries to pick it up with his clumsy, webbed newt-hands... and it slips three times because his fingers are too stretched out. The students watch in uncomfortable silence until LEO takes pity and hands the marker back. Instead of thanking him, the Professor unleashes a terrifying, guttural hiss. Leo scurries back to his seat, looking thoroughly chastised.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Voice soft, dragging his sibilants like a serpentine librarian)

Good morning, future... unemployed baristas... forgive me, future philologists, ha, ha, ha... Today... we shall set aside the dreadfully dull Latin declensions. Explicatio, replicatio, alumnitis, alumnorum... Whatever. Ha, ha...

 

(NOSFERATU raises his hands to his face. They are dark, elongated, and membranous, spread wide like a swimming amphibian.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

Today... we shall look Eternity... directly in the eyes.

(BAM! A deafening bass drops, escalating from a whisper to a stadium-level climax in seconds—it’s Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. The fluorescent light dies. Neon laser lights sweep the ancient stone walls. The dusty chalkboard is swallowed by a 4K holographic display featuring dizzying, hyper-realistic images of Gothic spires, blood, and bats. A holographic bat flies straight at Leo’s face; he tries to swat it away with his empty noodle pot.)

LEO

(Shouting over the music, absolutely ecstatic, trying to catch the laser beams)

Bloody hell, he’s a visual genius! This is curing my anxiety! Best emo-goth aesthetic ever, mate!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

You are so unbelievably basic! Any vulgar commercial display dazzles your plebeian mind!

VICTORIA

Shut up, both of you! Professor, turn that off!

LEO

(Eyes wide, offering a piece of chewing gum to the holographic bat)

Nah, Prof! What a trip! Blew my bloody mind! Pure genius!

VICTORIA

(Pulling a megaphone from her satchel to overpower the music, hysterical)

Professor! The College Statutes, Section 4, Clause B, strictly prohibit pyrotechnics, strobe lighting, and decibel levels that disturb the High Table! I’m filing a formal grievance with the Proctors!

 

(EDGAR ALLAN, indignant that no one is paying attention to him, leaps atop his wooden chair, adjusting his excessively long scarf with a clumsy gesture that nearly strangles him.)

 

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Shouting in the tone of a pretentious literary review, striking a dramatic pose)

Professor Nosferatu! Excuse me, but this romantic iconography clashes terribly with the diegesis of Polidori’s text! It is a vulgar anachronism! I dare say your approach lacks the indexed, peer-reviewed philological rigour expected at Oxford!

 

(The music CUTS ABRUPTLY with the screech of a scratched record. The holograms freeze. Edgar is stuck in a ridiculous pose atop his chair. The lighting shifts to a dismal, blood-red spotlight focused solely on NOSFERATU. He turns his head towards Edgar with the creepy, slow-motion precision of an owl. His neck bones loudly crunch.)

 

LEO

(In an annoyed whisper, covering his face)

Edgar, get down, you’re giving me second-hand embarrassment, mate. Always making it about you.

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(With a deep, guttural voice echoing as if from a tomb. The room’s vents begin pumping out freezing fog)

Philological... rigour? You poor, insignificant creature of mediocre predicted grades... Were you at the Villa Diodati in 1816, enduring Lord Byron’s insufferable verbal diarrhea while the storm raged outside? No. I was. And let me tell you, Polidori was a dreadful card player, he cheated at Hearts, and he owed Mary Shelley fifty francs. Sit! Down! Shut up and learn.

 

(Nosferatu points at the floor with his little newt-hand. By the sheer power of his glare, Edgar’s chair slides magically backward. Edgar loses his balance and crashes into a seated position on the floor with a heavy thud. His scarf flops over his face.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Smiling normally again; smooth, elevator-style jazz resumes in the background)

As I was saying... how easily the new generations are distracted. Study chapter 8 of... my book. Next week, reading comprehension test.

(NOSFERATU turns and exits the room walking backward, floating in reverse with unblinking eyes, until he vanishes completely into the dark corridor. The depressing fluorescent light buzzes back to life.)

LEO

(Sighing, fanning himself with his notebook)

He’s the only decent don in this whole uni. Also, did you see how his little fangs sparkled? Absolutely wicked. I want him to fail me just so I can thank him.

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

You are a sycophant and a literal bootlicker, Leo. Disgusting.

LEO

(Staring dreamily straight ahead)

His webbed hands drive me crazy, mate... If a finger falls off, a new one just grows back. Imagine if the Prof drops... his whole arm during Finals? What if we keep it in my rucksack and trade it back for extra marks?

VICTORIA

(Writing furiously in an official college ledger, accidentally stamping her own hand)

I just know he didn’t sign the health and safety register, used unapproved audiovisual equipment, and moved university furniture without the Bursar’s consent. That is immediate suspension and a tribunal hearing.

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Emerging from under his scarf, paranoid, trembling but trying to sound valiant as he struggles to his feet)

Do you fools not see it? Vampire music? Hollywood-level special effects on an underfunded humanities budget? The hands of an endangered, endemic amphibian? That man is hiding something... and it isn’t the syllabus. I am going to unmask him. He’s plotting something sinister.

 

(Edgar tries to run out with dignity, but steps on the trailing end of his own scarf, trips, and stumbles out the door, smashing his shoulder against the ancient stone frame. A pathetic groan echoes from the corridor.)

 

BRIDGE 1: THE AWKWARD INTERVIEW

LIGHTING: A lone spotlight illuminates the front of the stage.

 

(LEO walks forward, the microphone of his cheap gaming headset pressed to his lips, filming with his phone. PROFESSOR NOSFERATU power-walks across the stage, trying to hide his face behind the lapel of his enormous tweed jacket, but his membranous hands aren’t quite big enough to cover it.)

 

LEO

(Intercepting him like an intrusive TikTok paparazzi, shoving his plastic spork right into the Professor’s nose)

Prof! Prof! A quick word for the Cherwell student TikTok! The lads are curious... The whole webbed-hands situation: is it a curse from falling into the Isis river, or an accident with the rusty scissors at the Bodleian Library?

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Stops dead. Shifts only his eyes toward the spork, then up to Leo. Glares with ancestral disdain)

Young Leo. Curiosity killed the cat... and the student who has to retake Linguistics I, II, and III. Drop that repulsive noodle pot that smells of a Swindon car boot sale, and go read Virgil.

 

(NOSFERATU shoots out a frog-like tongue and slaps the Pot Noodle right out of Leo’s hand. The empty cup flies into the audience. Nosferatu performs an exaggerated ballet leap and vanishes into the stage shadows.)

 

LEO

(Looking at his empty hands, then at the spork stuck to his nose)

Touchy. Probably put too much hot sauce in it. Anyway... let’s go see if the scarf-wanker hasn’t been turned into a lizard yet.

 

(Curtain falls fast.)

 

 

SCENE 2: THE TRANSLUCENT WASHROOM

 

SETTING: The Senior Common Room washroom (a supposedly exclusive cubicle for Dons, featuring chipped Victorian tiles and a defaced mosaic of the goddess Athena).

 

SCENOGRAPHY: A torn, translucent shower curtain. Smoke machine on maximum. Only the disjointed, elongated silhouette of Nosferatu can be seen, dancing and subtly humming in the thick fog.

 

(EDGAR ALLAN stumbles in, tripping over a bin labeled "Organic Waste Only." He is wearing an enormous spelunker’s headlamp. When he points it at the curtain, NOSFERATU lets out a high-pitched bat squeal, flaps his webbed hands, and vanishes entirely. Only the steam remains.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Voiceover, echoing like a hollow oil drum, sounding profoundly exhausted)

Can a man not have a single milligram of privacy? Edgar Allan! This is my personal space, my institutional hydrothermal sanctuary. What do you want? Extra credit? An extension on your essay? Do you want me not to send you to a disciplinary hearing with the Master of Linguistics? Speak, by the stakes of Dracula!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Bewildered, pointing the headlamp everywhere, blinding himself)

You... you can’t be seen! You’re transparent! A floating, translucent amoeba! My philological intuition was correct! You’re undead! A bloodsucker! A Transylvanian anomaly!

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Voiceover)

I am an academic with a complex dermatological condition, glass skin, and a severe allergy to radioactive UV rays. Respect clinical diversity and academic tenure, boy!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

And why do you like emo music?! My Chemical Romance, neon lights! It’s a mass seduction trap to strip us of our discernment and our souls, just like TikTok! Perhaps... perhaps it’s a tactic of subliminal indoctrination!

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Voiceover, letting out a mocking chuckle)

Perhaps? What, am I not allowed to enjoy neo-gothic rock, young man? The youthful soul never dies, not even in a fourteen-hundred-year-old body... Now listen here. What is an absolute breach of conduct is your presence. Do you realize how inappropriate it is for you to be perceiving me in my gaseous state of undress? People might think... things. The gossip in the Senior Common Room is worse than the bubonic plague.

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Scandalized, covering his eyes dramatically)

What? You and me? Never! I have standards, please! I only date fluid individuals who self-identify as absolute terrors. I don’t... I don’t date men like you!

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Voiceover, bursting into an evil, echoing guffaw)

Ha, ha, ha! Your grandmother’s corset, you bed-wetting little grub! I have romanced Russian duchesses, Polish baronesses, French counts in powdered wigs, deranged marchionesses, and cursed poets who leave you breathless and devoid of your maintenance grant! You are a clumsy larva. An amoeba with a scarf and identity issues. Fluid neurons, more like! You’d best leave before I end up sucking your blood purely by accident.

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Striking a clumsy, defiant karate pose)

Ah, I’d like to see you try! Let’s see if you can catch me in your purified water vapor state!

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

Ahhh, insolent brat... Witness the power of the Old Syllabus!

(BAM! Strobe lights. NOSFERATU appears instantaneously BEHIND Edgar Allan. He wears a gigantic black velvet robe that sweeps the floor. He leans in dramatically, opens his mouth impossibly wide, and delivers a lightning-fast, elegant, theatrical bite to the neck. Edgar Allan lets out a comical, choked gasp, then his shoulders completely relax, his eyes roll back, and his expression melts into absolute, blissful happiness.)

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(With a trembling voice, sighing, delicately adjusting his scarf)

Ah... well, I must say... I didn’t entirely hate that, Prof. It was like a demonic reiki session. What should I call you now? My mentor? My Lord of the Night?

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Staring straight ahead in a Napoleonic stance)

Master... to you, from now on, I am your new Master. Now, I shall read you your list of rights and obligations.

(He pulls out an iPad and begins reading a Terms of Service agreement to the completely dazzled Edgar Allan.)

BLACKOUT.

 

(Dark Bauhaus music plays: Bela Lugosi’s Dead).

 

BRIDGE 2: THE DARK GLOW UP

LIGHTING: The lone spotlight returns to the proscenium. LEO is sitting in a folding chair, playing with a laser pointer, aiming it everywhere... except at the audience.

 

(EDGAR ALLAN crosses the stage walking completely stiff, like a mannequin. He’s wearing painfully cheap red Halloween contact lenses, dark welding goggles, and a faux-leather jacket three sizes too small. He looks as though he thinks he owns the university.)

 

LEO

(Flicking the laser pointer at him)

Alright, Count of the Cotswolds? All good in the underworld? You look paler than a blank exam paper. Want a piece of my gum for the shock?

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Hissing like an angry cat, covering his face with his scarf)

The sun of this wretched town burns my millennial aura! That cheap corner-shop gum offends my refined, royal-blooded palate! I am an apex predator of Renaissance poetry! Insolent fool! I am retreating to my sarcophagus... well, my damp basement flat in Jericho!

(He tries to run off with his eyes covered and smashes face-first into the wall before finally stumbling offstage.)

LEO

(Sighing)

What a weird bloke. Well, more gum for me.

(Curtain falls).

 

SCENE 3: EMPIRICAL VERIFICATION

 

SETTING: The tutorial room.

 

(In the background, black cardboard cutouts simulate stiff, bored students.)

 

(EDGAR ALLAN is filing his nails with a piece of heavy-duty sandpaper. VICTORIA, the JCR President, paces furiously, slamming her institutional ring-binder against the desks.)

 

VICTORIA

Wake up, colleagues! The social fabric of this college is disintegrating! We cannot normalize our course rep showing up with Halloween contacts, a severe allergy to the dining hall’s garlic bread, and demanding we call him "The Lord of the Night." This is a hostile vampirization, strictly unsanctioned by the bylaws!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

Oh, shut up, you jealous cow. You just can’t handle my dark radiance and my legal right not to cast a reflection in your critiques.

VICTORIA

(Getting right in his face)

Envy is not listed in my procedural manual! We must conduct empirical verifications according to the 1897 Van Helsing Protocol!

 

(She pulls a wooden Wagamama chopstick out of her hair bun and stabs him forcefully in the arm.)

 

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Letting out a weird yelp, rubbing his arm)

Oy, you psycho! That hurt! And this is faux-lambskin... it was a gift...!

VICTORIA

(Scribbling furiously with a four-color pen)

Failure on the traditional stake test. A gift, was it? I can only imagine... who... gifted it to you... Moving on to digital refraction.

 

(She snaps a flash selfie three centimeters from his face. BAM! Edgar falls backward from the blinding impact.)

(Enter PROFESSOR NOSFERATU, dragging his feet, holding a can of blood-red fizzy drink.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

Miss Victoria... My patience is millennial, but my tolerance for your bureaucracy expired during the Michaelmas term of 2012 when the Mayans failed to end the world. You cannot harass the students, especially the overachieving ones. Go to the Dean. And tell the Dean I send my regards... he owes me a favor ever since I saved him from the Spanish Inquisition for hoarding secret chicken broth recipes... The Holy Office accused him of witchcraft and satanic pacts because his books promised to 'raise the dead.' He was saved from the pyre when the Grand Inquisitor tasted the broth, burst into tears, and declared such seasoning came not from the Devil, but from the Holy Ghost itself... and gave him a job as head chef in the convent.

VICTORIA

(Eyes wide, connecting the dots)

Yes, yes, yes... how fascinating... but that only proves one thing... A Transylvanian corruption ring! I knew it! The faculty board is a horde of evil bloodsuckers engaging in perverse associations, heretical recipes, and the endless torment of livestock!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

Heretical recipes? That’s not even a thing, mate.

(Suddenly, Victoria flips completely. She drops to her knees, weeping dramatically and hugging Nosferatu’s ankles.)

VICTORIA

I know, I know it’s not a thing, but I’m having a crisis, help me! Please, I want to be a vampire too! Vampirize me, please! Do it now! I’m sick of waking up at seven AM to catch the Oxford Tube! I don’t want to ever get on the dreadful Great Western Railway again! I want eternal life to finish my credits, write my dissertation, and not have my funding expire! Bite me, Prof, under the authority of the Magna Carta! I’m yours!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Lowering his welding goggles, indignant)

Ah... so that was the real root of your institutional drama? You just wanted a little nibble?

VICTORIA

(Drying her tears, dignified)

Well, yes. No one ever includes me in the covens or the college benders. I’m not that annoying!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

Look, I despise you because you always remind me of the essay deadlines... but truth be told, I always thought you’d look phenomenal in fine black lingerie, maybe with some Egyptian embroidery and a Toledo-steel filigree vibe... divine... Ahem. I’m not gay, mind you, I’m fluid. Come 'ere, my servant of the night.

 

(Edgar Allan grabs her by the waist with an exaggerated, clumsy, and rigid tango dip. He bites her neck in a thoroughly theatrical manner. A sound effect plays: the PING! of a microwave.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Staring fixedly at the audience, breaking the fourth wall with a profound sigh)

Oh, woe is me. I have created a monster. And not even one that holds a candle to the great vampires of history. Oh well. If I ever do an interview, I’m going to have to tell so many lies... say I was impaled at Golgotha, that my grandmother was the Egyptian vampiress who conquered the Romans... I don't know... I'll just ask that Leo boy to make me a fake, theatrical TikTok interview... actually, no, what do you lot think?

 

BRIDGE 3: BLOOD-RED BUREAUCRACY

 

LIGHTING: The proscenium spotlight.

 

(LEO is trying to slurp the last drops of water and ice cubes from a plastic cup with a straw. VICTORIA marches past at light-speed. She is wearing gigantic plastic vampire fangs that barely let her speak, her face is powdered white with baking flour, and she is filling out forms on a clipboard at warp speed.)

 

LEO

(Speaking into his headset mic)

Vicky, darling! Are you dodging the greasy kebab van now too? I already ate mine, I'm not sharing, but I bought a fizzy apple juice... with ice... fancy a sip?

VICTORIA

(Without stopping, stamping papers mid-air)

Oh, please, Leo! Being undead doesn't solve university life... Edgar and I are seeking to formalize our dissertations with the most highly-ranked local vampire of this faculty... (She marches off like a bureaucratic soldier).

LEO

(Looking at the audience, sighing)

The most highly-ranked vampire... I should probably care about my dissertation... Why, why do I not care? I don't even want to think about it... Would I like to be a vampire? I don't know why there are so many vampires at this uni... there are dons who are five thousand years old giving lectures... And if I become a vampire... Nah, nah... I'd rather stay exactly like this, the eternal undergrad. That way, I don't have to suck anyone's blood. Literally, anyway.

 

SCENE 4: THE THESIS AND THE MASTER

SETTING: The Senior Common Room (a battered leather Chesterfield sofa, a filthy microwave, and the lingering stench of rancid filter coffee).

 

(NOSFERATU, drinking tea from a chipped mug, is on a video call on a prehistoric smartphone.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

Yes... quite, Most Excellent Master... Of course. Yes, the Transylvanian jurisprudence of 1400 is perfectly clear on the matter of postgraduate stipends...

 

(EDGAR ALLAN enters stealthily, tiptoeing, and sticks to Nosferatu's back like a decal.)

 

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Whispering into Nosferatu’s ear)

Master... a metaphysical query. How can you see a vampire on a mobile phone screen if reflections are banned by the Church?

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Covering the mic with his webbed hand, terrified)

By all the demons of the inferno! What are you doing here?! It's OLED technology, you imbecile, not a silver-backed mirror! The camera captures pixels and light bounce, not souls! Get out, if the Union sees us they'll revoke my Waitrose grocery vouchers for the month!

(VICTORIA kicks the door open, wearing her fangs and slamming her clipboard down.)

VICTORIA

Prof Nosfe! We have come to demand our statutory rights. We require your signature as the primary supervisor for our joint dissertation, titled: "The Effect of Radioactive Light Provoked by the Depletion of the Ozone Layer over Oxfordshire on the Dermis of Metropolitan Vampires in the Faculty of Classics."

VOICE OF THE ANCIENT MASTER

(From the phone speaker, a trembling, incredibly ancient, cavernous voice)

Nosferatu? What the devil is happening over there? I hear two voices! And they sound exceedingly juvenile, reeking of hormones and low self-esteem! I can sense them through my telepathic broadband. You’re treading dangerous ground, Nosferatu. Who is the affair with? Her? Him? Both? How very modern of you!

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

Master, please, I am a respectable academic with tenure!

VOICE OF THE ANCIENT MASTER

Well, if you don’t let me join the coven or bring me a taste of that young blood, I’m reporting you straight to the Undead University Council!

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Desperate, breaking into a cold sweat)

No! It’s not a gothic orgy, Master! They were asking for supervision on ozone, pollution, and vampires. And I am palming them off on you! A gift! They are yours, your property, you can fail them if you like! Take their souls! Master! Master!

VOICE OF THE ANCIENT MASTER

 

(Thoroughly offended, voice dripping in disgust)

 

A dissertation? Reviewing a theoretical framework? Correcting Harvard citations? Oh, absolutely not! Go to hell, Nosferatu! I haven't been available for academic bureaucracy since the Fall of Constantinople! What a drag!

 

(Sound effect: Dead line dial tone. Beep... beep... beep... Nosferatu lowers the phone slowly, looking utterly defeated.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Voice barely a whisper)

So... you really want me to be your supervisor?

VICTORIA AND EDGAR ALLAN

(Hugging each other and jumping up and down like toddlers)

YESSSS! And we want Summa Cum Laude!

 

SCENE 5: OVERWHELMING SUCCESS

 

SETTING: The same dilapidated Common Room, but now strangely dignified.

 

LIGHTING: An exaggerated, heavenly, triumphant golden glow. A majestic gothic organ piece plays in the background (think Bach’s Toccata and Fugue, but with a danceable synth beat).

 

(VICTORIA and EDGAR ALLAN wear standard Oxford sub-fusc and mortarboards, but customized with little bat wings. Together, they hold up a gargantuan, faux-leather-bound thesis that weighs a ton. NOSFERATU is in the darkest corner, frantically scratching his hands, faking a monumental fury, and trembling dramatically.)

 

VICTORIA

(Hugging the tome, on the verge of bureaucratic tears of pride)

Oh, Edgar Allan! Who would have thought we’d navigate all those administrative hurdles. Our joint thesis is the magnum opus of contemporary vampiric studies and office terrorism!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(With extreme petulance, adjusting his crooked mortarboard)

The Faculty hasn’t awarded a First Class in this specialty since the Wars of the Roses... or since the Wi-Fi went down during the Great Strike. We are the pioneers of the urban night. In the end, we achieved the impossible: we got Mrs. Higgins from the Registry to stamp our clearance forms without making us come back the next working day.

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Shaking with rehearsed rage, making his little axolotl hands wobble like jelly)

Yes, of course! What poverty! I mean, what a marvel! What a blessing to have been your supervisor... it was a complete disaster, I mean, a display of genius full of grace! You had the Master himself as a witness, and he wanted nothing to do with theoretical frameworks! And now look at the collateral damage. My amphibian hands are dissolving from sheer professional envy! I am a victim of my own success as an elite tutor!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

Don’t be like that, Master. Thanks to Mrs. Higgins pulling strings, we are going to Transylvania, all expenses paid—including per diems for a three-fang hotel. We’ve been invited to an international symposium of desiccated mummies. Do you want to hear the title of our paper?

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Eyes wide, feigning absolute indignation)

A paper? Higgins? The bureaucratic mummy at Window Three who’s worked here for eighty years and eats nothing but custard creams for breakfast? How the devil did you get official stamps from her, let alone... funding?! Three fangs?!

VICTORIA

(With a wicked little smile, winking exaggeratedly)

Ah... well, the stamps and signatures were exchanged for... you know, some very special end-of-term favors. Mrs. Higgins is, you know... very... fluid.

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Leaping forward dramatically, scandalized like a clutching-pearls dowager)

Aha! I see you are very awake, children! Favors here, favors there! Handing out favors and hopping into bed with the first mummy who asks for your National Insurance number and two passport-sized photos, but with me, nothing! With the whole faculty union, but not me! What a humiliation for my bloodline!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Completely bewildered, taking a step back from Nosferatu’s damp smell)

But... you, Prof... Master... you wanted nothing to do with us. We didn’t know we were on your list of private... public papers! You sent us to the Dean and threw chalk at us... the old-fashioned dusty kind...

VICTORIA

Yes! We didn’t know you... also had a craving for our operational favors. I mean, if you want, we could do an exhibition for you, like a TikTok Live, so you don’t blush, and you watch us and we watch you... no?

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Making an exorcism gesture with his cartilaginous hands, shooing them away)

Ah, Vade retro, monsters with ill-gotten connections! As if there were any well-gotten ones. Get back! Impure creatures! Go to Transylvania and deceive the ancestors! Leave this poor, miserable, dehydrated, and thoroughly bored vampire in peace! Now I shall be completely alone... thank God.

(An awkward pause for one second, he looks at the ceiling)

...Well... you know what I meant. Now leave me. Get out of my sight!

(Victoria and Edgar Allan shrug simultaneously, blow a loud kiss to their thesis, and then blow another one to the distressed professor, who immediately wipes his face. They float out of the room, bursting with happiness and high-fiving their mortarboards.)

 

(Once the door clicks shut, the gothic music cuts dead. Professor Nosferatu instantly changes his posture: he relaxes, stretches out with total comfort, drops the furious facade, and flashes a malicious smile of absolute victory. He pulls out a top-of-the-line iPhone from his battered tweed and dials rapidly.)

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Voice entirely relaxed, festive, like a best mate calling from the pub)

 

Master? Yes, it’s me... Nosfe... Oh, mate, it was a roaring success. Hook, line, and sinker. We’ve gotten rid of the intense little lovebirds. Shipped them straight off to Transylvania on a budget airline with layovers in three different countries; those mummies won’t send them back until the next century. (He lets out a wicked chuckle) So, what’s the plan? Is the end-of-the-millennium bender in the crypt still on for nine? ... Excellent. Yes, I’ll bring the little blood-mixers. Tequila? Ugh, no, terrible for my stomach... I don’t have gut flora, mate, I have autumn moss... My heartburn lasts two hundred years and then I start spitting fire. I’ll bring a nice Chilean red. Perfect... Cheers, old boy.

 

(Nosferatu hangs up with flair. On the table sits an old, gross plastic cup of coffee. He picks it up with refined elegance using his cartilaginous axolotl fingers, pretending it’s a Murano glass goblet. He toasts flirtatiously to the audience, takes a long sip, and winks.)

 

(The deafening bass of Helena by My Chemical Romance blasts back in to shatter eardrums. The neon lasers return, sweeping the stage with absolute madness.)

 

(From the corner of the stage, LEO strolls slowly across, staring at the chaotic light show. He takes a tiny nibble of a suspiciously herbal-looking brownie.)

 

LEO

(Looking out at the audience before the blackout)

Bloody hell, this brownie from the faculty meeting is dead fibrous. Smells like weed, too.

 

SUDDEN, TACTICAL BLACKOUT.

 

POST-CREDITS SCENE: CHERWELL TV NEWS

 

LIGHTING: The lights come up halfway. The stage is mostly empty, exposing cables and backstage props. LEO stands facing the camera. He has a cardboard logo taped to his hoodie that reads: "CHERWELL TV: The Channel Nobody Watches." He holds his headset mic pressed to his lips.

 

LEO

(Speaking into the camera with the tone of a bored, lethargic amateur reporter)

Evening, uni lads and ladettes. Leo here, reporting for Cherwell TV. We interrupt our broadcast of depressing Russian existential poetry to bring you an exclusive. The mystery of the faculty corridors has been solved. The two most insufferable students in the Classics department are off to Transylvania... and not exactly on a standard Erasmus exchange. Let’s see if we can get a statement before they get packed into the budget airline’s overhead bins.

 

(VALERIA and EDGAR ALLAN run into frame, carrying the giant thesis tome and a pair of battered suitcases tied together with Edgar’s scarf. They are wearing their plastic fangs and are ridiculously pale.)

 

LEO

(Shoves his plastic spork into their faces)

Right then, guys, for the college TikTok... How does it feel to have hacked the system, scored the stamp from Mrs. Higgins, and won a trip abroad without having finished a single book all term?

 

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Adjusting his welding goggles, puffing his chest)

Please, Leo! We didn’t hack the system, we re-semanticized it from a neo-gothic, subversive paradigm. Transylvania awaits us for the International Congress on Mummification and Blood Indexing. The Master gave us his blessing... and his laundry to drop off at the dry cleaners in Bucharest. We are the absolute elite of philological terror!

VICTORIA

(Snatching the headset mic away from Leo to speak directly into the lens)

And we want to make it absolutely clear that we have formally submitted Form 4-B for "Absence due to Institutional Vampirism" at the registry! Let the Proctors try to mark us absent—the Academic Board already has digital scans of our fangs! Let's go, Edgar, the X90 bus to Heathrow doesn't wait for the undead!

 

(Victoria and Edgar Allan sprint out of frame, dragging their suitcases and making fake bat noises: Flippy, flippy, flippy!)

 

LEO

(Left alone in front of the camera. He lowers the microphone-bulb. Suddenly, his lethargic expression drops, replaced by deep, nostalgic sorrow. He stares at the door they just exited.)

LEO

(Voice breaking, genuinely moved, speaking to the camera as if it were a diary)

Man... They left. Everyone either dies or graduates in this bloody place, mate. And what about me? I’m stuck here, smelling of damp stone, eating cold noodles, and owing three modules. (On the verge of tears) I wanted to be an apex predator of Renaissance poetry too! I wanted the rare Oxford sun to burn my millennial aura at the Gloucester Green bus station! Why doesn't anyone ever bite me? What’s Edgar got that I haven’t? I’ve got a cracking attitude and my jacket is 100% sustainable!

 

(Out of nowhere, PROFESSOR NOSFERATU re-appears, crossing the back of the stage in his giant velvet robe. He is distracted, scrolling aimlessly on his latest iPhone.)

 

LEO

(Spots him and throws himself to his knees, crawling dramatically across the floor to hug the Professor’s ankles)

Prof! Prof Nosfe! Please! Have mercy on a humble retake student! Vampirize me too, governor! I promise I’ll format your entire bibliography in APA 7th Edition, and I’ll bring you a proper spicy kebab every Tuesday! Make me your servant of Oxfordshire!

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Stops dead. Tries to shake him off with his clumsy newt hands, horrified)

Unhand me, young Leo! Let go of my institutional footwear! You know nothing of the high bureaucracy of the night!

EDGAR ALLAN SMYTHE-BROWNE

(Poking his head out from the wings, indignant)

Oh please, Leo, have some dignity! It would be an absolute disaster. For starters, your blood type is probably "O Positive." Super common, zero refinement, probably tastes like lukewarm store-brand cola. A high-ranking vampire cannot digest that.

VICTORIA

(Poking her head out next to Edgar)

Besides, Leo, you don’t have the administrative profile for it. To be undead at Oxford you need specialized premium health insurance, an updated tax declaration, and you haven’t even handed in your passport photos for your Bodleian library card yet. They’d padlock your coffin shut on the third day for lacking the proper stamps.

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Nodding in agreement)

Exactly. Furthermore, young man... you are far too... "relaxed." Vampirism requires a dramatic posture, existential suffering, a profound hatred for daylight, and an equal hatred for updated syllabi. You spend your entire life smiling and eating corn out of a cup. You would make a dreadful immortal. You’d completely ruin the aesthetic of my faculty.

LEO

(Wiping away a tear, resigned but flashing a cheeky grin)

Alright... but what if I put on a really long scarf and get depressed on Thursdays? What about that? Perhaps? Perhaps I pass the old academic filter then, Master?

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Stares at him for a second, breaking the fourth wall with a look of 'well, at least this one brings me food'. He looks back down at Leo with condescension)

...Go and read Virgil first, young man. If you pass your Linguistics resit on Monday... perhaps I shall consider it. Perhaps I will give you a minor, purely administrative test-nibble. But only if that kebab comes with extra chili sauce, extra garlic mayo, and loads, loads of cheese... lactose-free, because...

LEO

(Eyes wide, happiness restored to 100%)

It’s a deal! Thanks, Master! I swear I’ll even buy your Chilean red wine from the Tesco Express!

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU

(Shooing him away with the axolotl hand as he walks off)

Yes, yes, sod off! And bring me an artisanal blood-orange soda! The ones in the glass bottles with the metal caps. You can't find them anywhere these days, but you're capable of anything.

 

(Nosferatu, Victoria, and Edgar Allan disappear into the dressing rooms for good.)

 

LEO

(Stands up from the floor, dusts off his trousers, and straightens the Cherwell TV camera. He gives his noodle cup one last, deafening, insufferable scrape with his plastic spork: SCRRRRCH!)

 

LEO

(Staring right into the lens with a victorious smile)

Well then... that concludes another broadcast of Cherwell TV. You heard it here, lads: if you’re going to sell your soul to a millennial vampire, at least make sure you pass Linguistics first. And read Virgil... Virgil is well good, I swear. Reporting for you, Leo... the next great Lord of the Night of Slough. Cheers.

 

(Leo smacks the camera off, his hand reaching directly for the lens.)

 

ABSOLUTE FINAL BLACKOUT.

 

PROFESSOR NOSFERATU: ACADEMIC FARCE © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0