NADJA (What We Do In The Shadows)
Obviously a list of favourite undead characters would have to include a vampire, and while I love all the WWDITS vampires and am pining for Nandor and Guillermo to just kiss already, Nadja is my favourite in that world.
Natasia Demetriou is some sort of comedy genius, it’s brilliant to see her breaking into America. I think I like Nadja so much because has such fun being a vampire. Even when she’s swooping in to rescue the boys she still gets to be silly, as well as a genuinely scary, powerful vampire. She’s so funny, SO sexy, and who wouldn’t love a character who gets so frustrated with living in a house full of men that she creates a best friend using a doll and her own ghost?
ROBIN (BBC Ghosts)
I am only allowing myself one ghost. I could easily fill this list just with characters from the BBC’s Ghosts, as Pat & Fanny are incredibly funny and Captain has all that wonderful pathos, but Robin is something extraordinary.
A lesser comedy would have made a grunting, id-driven dead caveman a one-note punchline machine, but thanks to Larry Rickard’s nuanced and intelligent performance, Robin carries the weight of the show’s emotional core – its sadness and enduring human love – on his little hairy shoulders. The one to make you sob as he assigns stars to the dead, as well as the one to deliver jokes about bums. BUM!
RAVI (iZombie)
Again, only allowing myself the one zombie. iZombie’s Ravi is only half a zombie really, if this list were coming from the head rather than the heart I would choose the show’s perky protagonist Liv. But a, I just really love Rahul Kohli, I mean look at him, and b, what they did with Ravi’s zombiism was really interesting.
While developing a cure for zombiism between work as a forensic pathologist (as you do), Ravi volunteers himself as a human test subject and the vaccine doesn’t quite work, leaving him with a zombie ‘time of the month’ – a few days every four weeks feeling under the weather, moody and having weird cravings – same, Ravi, same. Oh, and the only thing that makes him go Full Zombie Rage Mode is people trying to use medical science for personal gain. What a dork. I love him.
RIMMER (Red Dwarf)
He’s dead, but he’s still kicking about, so he counts. Rimmer is essentially an electronic ghost, and quite a nightmarish – and prescient – situation.
SciFi stories before and after Red Dwarf have pontificated about the ethics of electronically bringing back the dead, but Rimmer’s the only character where that question has gone on to ask ‘and what if technology brought back the universe’s most annoying co worker?’ I’m not going to beat around the bush – Arnold Judas Rimmer was an early crush for teen Gabby. He’s an arsehole, but he’s so sad, and ultimately so redeemable. Look at his fond, brave, self sacrificing behaviour on the Holoship. He’s a sweet guy, deep down. VERY deep down.
DEATH (Discworld)

OK FINE, Discworld’s Death isn’t exactly undead. He is an immortal personification of mortality, but I’m counting him since he is a mobile skellington, to which the rules of mortality do not apply. He fascinates me so much, and he sums up what I love about undead characters as a whole. A great undead character is a reflection of mortality, of the joys of human life, brief as it is.
Pratchett’s Death does this, and the contradictions of his character seem to reflect the wonderful contradictions of life. He is in charge of death, and in part defines life, yet he will never live or die. He has no heart, yet he can be heartbroken. He is to many a terrible fate, and to many others a welcome friend, a kind and caring gentle relief. He rides a pale horse, whose name is Binky. And that just sums up everything I love about the lightness and joy of Pratchett’s world.
Cursed Under London is out now from Farrago Books.