Teenage comedy prodigy Lenny Rush on ‘The Reluctant Vampire’: ‘It was a dream job’

In recent years, few comedy stars have had a rapid ascent quite like that of 17-year-old Lenny Rush.

He was the slightly unreliable and sinister son of Daisy May Cooper’s lead in Am I Being Unreasonable? which netted him a well-deserved BAFTA for Best Male Comedy Performance.

But it’s The Reluctant Vampire which was netted Rush his biggest role to date. In the BBC adaptation of Eric Morecambe’s classic, he stars as Valentine, the son of two leading Dracula-esque parents in the form of comedy royalty Tom Davis and Fleabag’s Sian Clifford. Val, as we soon learn, isn’t quite the blood-thirsty creature his parents had envisaged him being. The result is a classic family sitcom, albeit with one hell of a gothic twist.

“What’s quite clever is that on the surface it’s about vampires and humans and they’re clashing and it’s a bit of a silly premise,” admits Rush. “But it’s also about how teenagers can make idiots of themselves and as the show goes on it pulls on your heartstrings a little bit too.”

The show, then, spearheaded by Partridge stalwarts Rob & Neil Gibbons, feels like a comedy classic in the making…

Check out our whole interview with Lenny Rush below.

We learn pretty early on that Val can’t fly, but you, sir, can definitely drive. Congratulations on passing your driving test recently!

Thank you! I’ve got an adapted car and I love it. I did my McDonalds rite of passage drive yesterday with my mate.

Congratulations on the show, it’s incredibly fun. When did you realise it was something special?

Well the fact it’s Eric Morecambe’s work originally makes it special immediately because he’s such a comedic genius. And then the Gibbons Brothers got on board and they’ve done a lot of Partridge which I’m a huge fan of. It was a dream job.

But also one packed with comedy legends. Were you starstruck?

Oh yeah I’m a big fan of everyone. I love Tom Davis and of course Joe Wilkinson, Asim Choudhury and Sian Clifford are great. I loved Fleabag and I was starstruck, but quite quickly we all just got on and I forget that they were these big people I’d watched on telly for years.

What did you see in Val that made him a relatable character to you?

I loved his personality, and the way he was written. I probably saw a bit of myself in him I guess, I loved that he’d try and keep his cool the best he can and try and stay calm, but you know when he’s freaking out a bit because he makes a sarcastic comment and he gets a bit bite-y with people!

With the cast you’ve assembled, did you get any decent tips from comedy greats?

I remember Tom gave me advice and he basically said that if you wanna make your other cast members laugh, that’s the goal, and then you know you’ve done it. But it doesn’t even have to be explicit advice, just watching them and seeing the process was brilliant. What I loved about it was that everyone in that has got their own sense of humour in it and it creates this incredibly funny show!

In episode one, how prepared are you for people to see you kissing that pumpkin in such a sensual way?!

Honestly, reading in the script alone was laugh out loud, and then got to the moment and I was like, oh, I’ve actually got to kiss this pumpkin. It’s my first on-screen kiss and I don’t think many can say that their first onscreen kiss is with a pumpkin.

Val is a bit of an outsider. Was there any other shows you looked at in order to inhabit that side of him?

I was so lucky because it was just already so brilliantly written, but my comedy inspiration is Ricky Gervais, and it’s weird making this sort of comparison because Val is a really nice kid and he’s struggling to fit in a bit, but I think of David Brent. He’s not the nicest guy, but also not a monster and you feel a bit bad for him. It’s the awkwardness of trying not to be awkward, which makes it even more awkward, and I guess there’s a bit of that in Val, you know, he’s just tripping up and there’s multiple times throughout the series when he nearly outs himself as a human in front of vampires and vice versa. But yes, I probably shouldn’t have been watching The Office because I wasn’t old enough, but I genuinely think that David Brent is just one of the greatest characters out there.

So you grew up watching The Office and now *you’re* the star of a BBC sitcom!

It still doesn’t feel real. It’s bizarre and the weirdest thing was, I got cast as Val, and I was like, wow, that’s amazing, but then what was just so mind boggling to me was the other people they were getting like Joe Wilkinson and Tom, Sean, Asim, I feel so lucky.

Would you want to make your own sitcom?

I’m already talking with a couple of production companies about writing something and I’d love that, you know, something that is your own . Reluctant Vampire is the first thing that I’ve done where I’ve been in it from the beginning and seeing production, you know, seeing the stages of it. I’d love to do something in future. Fingers crossed!

Any bucket list directors to work with?

There’s a few! My dream is that I’d love to be in a Christopher Nolan film. The way he shoots things with IMAX cameras is so interesting and I think he’s the best filmmaker out there at the moment.

I mean I’m probably a year too young to be watching it, but I also watched The Boys on Prime Video and one of my favourite ever performances is Anthony Starr as Homelander.

I think he’s so clever, the fact that, you know, it’s just a superhero show, but the way he plays him so horribly. Homelander rarely raises his voice or he’s obviously angry and it’s just the subtle things he does. I think he’s incredible and I think he’s on par with Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight and I’d love to work with him. He’s incredible.

Could you see yourself going into the superhero world, be it The Boys or any other Supes project?

Oh yeah, definitely, yeah. I could be a low budget Ant-man, and they wouldn’t need to spend any money!