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Eric Morecambe was the man whose TV work brought sunshine to millions. But when he embarked on a late second career as a children’s writer, things took a more... nocturnal turn.

“He’d always been fascinated by vampires,” recalls Eric’s son Gary, whose memory of his father from the time – bashing away at an old typewriter, pipe clamped between his teeth – is gratifyingly on-brand. “He loved Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee in the Dracula films, so that’s why he chose the subject.”

Now, almost half a century on, the book wot Eric wrote – 1982’s The Reluctant Vampire – has been transformed into a sitcom, with fang-sharp scripts by Neil and Rob Gibbons (brothers best known for spending the past 16 years giving peevish voice to Alan Partridge). For executive producer and ex-BBC head of comedy Shane Allen, who first discovered Morecambe’s book as a child, it’s the culmination of a lifelong dream.

“My main worry was, ‘You’ll never get a child actor to pull this off,’” Allen tells of casting the lead role of Val, the vampire prince who’s shocked to discover he’s actually – whisper it – human. “Then the first show I made after leaving the BBC was Am I Being Unreasonable?, where I met Lenny.”

Lenny being Lenny Rush, the gifted young actor whose performance in that comedy drama bagged him a Bafta, aged 14. “Suddenly, it felt feasible,” says Allen. “Because of Lenny, and also the success of Ghosts. Throw in this year’s Eric Morecambe centenary, and everything started falling into place.”

“Even though I was born 25 years after he died, I knew the impact Morecambe and Wise had on my mum and dad,” Rush says. “When I started working on the show, I sat down and watched The Lost Tapes on the BBC. They were great.”

Eric Morecambe died in 1984, aged 58, after suffering a third heart attack. But he’d already expressed an interest in seeing The Reluctant Vampire and its 1983 sequel The Vampire’s Revenge adapted for the screen. “I hope Eric would be proud of what we’ve done,” says Allen. “It’s such a lovely, warm thing to have one of his last wishes finally come true.”

Here, the team tell how they took the story from page to screen...

Gary Morecambe – Eric's son

My dad wrote The Reluctant Vampire while getting over heart surgery. I remember him being excited but nervous. He always felt, because he hadn’t had much education, that he was stepping into a grey area. The TV adaptation has been a slow burn. I first discussed it with ITV and the BBC in 1990 – I’ve gone from being in my late 30s to 70. I thought, ‘Maybe the stars will never align on this.’ But eventually they did.

Shane calls me a script ‘consultant’. I love that word, because it doesn’t really mean anything. I just wander around and smile a lot. But Neil and Rob Gibbons have done a fantastic job of making it a contemporary piece. I’m sure Dad would have loved what they’ve done with it. He’d also understand that, as decades go by, values change.

Lenny Rush is such a wonderful talent. He’s got funny bones, which is what people always say about my dad. But he also brings pathos to it. He can be in a lot of discomfort, because of his dwarfism, but he battles on. And he brings that pain to the character, in a way.

Dad would definitely have gone on to write more books – the Morecambe and Wise bandwagon was coming to an end. They might have done one more Christmas special if he’d lived, but writing was where he was going. And he didn’t feel he was treading on Ernie’s toes. Ernie was very supportive of his writing.

Seeing all the love for my dad during his centenary year has been wonderful. To be honest, though, that love has never gone away. But I’m really looking forward to seeing how The Reluctant Vampire is received. I know Dad would have been absolutely thrilled. It’s over 45 years since he first had the idea, so for it finally to be coming out as a series... He’d have been chuffed to bits.

When I was growing up in Belfast, I borrowed The Reluctant Vampire from the library opposite my granny’s house. I became properly obsessed with it, renewing it over and over again. Then I bought the paperback, which I still have. Years later, I was controller of comedy commissioning at the BBC when Simon Farnaby told me about Ghosts. There were a lot of reservations around that show – was it too much of a CBBC thing? But I thought it might be just the pre-watershed comedy we needed to bring back a family audience. And it just flew.

So then my mind turned to my favourite book as a kid. We approached Eric’s estate, and Gary Morecambe told us it was one of his dad’s ambitions that somebody would make a film or TV series of the book one day. I thought Neil and Rob Gibbons would be a great fit.

Ghosts was our North Star throughout. We wanted to have jokes for mum and dad, but also the same heart and warmth. With this, you’ve got big, fantastical, funny characters, but you also want it to have depth. One of the questions in The Reluctant Vampire is, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ And it’s about not fitting in, which is a very teen experience. Lenny does that thing of being caught between two worlds so brilliantly. There’s also a bit of an allegory with Lenny having a disability. We don’t lean on that, but there’s a couple of jokes about his height that Lenny insisted on.

I hope the show will be a long-runner like Ghosts. That’s the dream. For me, it’s the ultimate passion project. I still have to pinch myself that it’s finally happened.

Shane first mentioned the book to Rob and me about four years ago as a possible vehicle for Lenny. And as soon as we got our hands on a copy, we saw what he was so excited about. Putting a brilliant comic actor like Lenny in the ultimate high-pressure situation, and surrounding him with the daftness of Eric Morecambe... it writes itself. Although annoyingly, it didn’t.

The main premise is so strong, it allows for a bit of riffing, so we were able to take the core of the book and build a sitcom around it. We wanted to be faithful to the manic spirit of Eric’s work, rather than regurgitate it into six episodes. Thankfully, Gary agreed and gave us free rein to make something that hopefully captures the essence of his dad’s book while also feeling like its own thing.

It’s a privilege to pick up existing characters – be they Alan Partridge or ones created by Eric Morecambe – but you have to treat them like you would any other character and write what you find funny. As soon as you start working to a template, or worrying about meeting fans’ exact expectations, you come unstuck. We kind of wrote it for Lenny, in that we always knew he would play Val, and it’s useful to have him in your mind’s eye. But what’s great about Lenny is he’s incredibly versatile, with a razor-sharp comic mind, so you’re not trying to write to a narrow brief. You know he’ll nail whatever you give him. For a writer, that’s a godsend.

I missed the first call about The Reluctant Vampire because I was at school. My mum and dad told me about it when I got home, and I loved the idea, but it went a bit quiet for a couple of years. And then suddenly... ‘We’re doing it!’

As soon as I read the scripts, I loved Val. He’s a bit of an old head on young shoulders – like Ollie in Am I Being Unreasonable?, he’s someone who’s a bit stuck in the middle. I think that’s what Shane means when he talks about me playing people who are caught between two worlds.

I did insist on having some jokes about my height. It’s not about taking the mickey out of yourself, but you do need to be able to have a laugh. The original plan was to use my Segway, but I wanted to show I didn’t need it – that I could run through a forest, being chased by vampires. And also because there’s got to be a separation between the vampire and human world. Vampires on Segways? I don’t think so.

The last few years have been a bit of a blur. I’ve finished school now, so I’m a full-time actor. Now that I’m 17, my agent is very keen on finding more age-appropriate roles. I could probably still play a five-year-old, but that’s not what I want.

I hope we get to do more of Vampire, though. There’s so much more to explore. And for Shane to say I was the key to unlocking the show is just so lovely. Imagine if I’d said, ‘No, I’m not doing it!’ As for Gary Morecambe saying I have funny bones like his dad? That’s amazing. What a compliment.

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The Reluctant Vampire starts Sunday 4 October at 6.40pm on BBC One

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