Jane Wilkes' call centre desk is far from dull. As she answers the phone, clients probably don't realise she is surrounded by vampires and monsters.

Jane's workstation is a shrine to characters from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the cult television series about a High School student chosen to fight vampires and save the world.

A life-long goth who dresses every day in purple and black, Jane got a taste for the programme half-way through the first series of Buffy seven years ago.

When offshoot Angel started three years later, she was similarly hooked.

In the series Angel, a bad vampire turned good after being given a soul though a gipsy curse, leaves former love Buffy to fight evil in Los Angeles.

Together with her husband Jonathan, also a fan, Jane has every Buffy and Angel episode on DVD and the couple named their cats, Xander and Anya, after characters in the series.

Now Jane, 42, who lives in Seven Dials, Brighton, hopes to meet characters from Angel and Buffy this weekend, including one of her heroes David Boreanaz, who plays Angel, when the actors come to Brighton for a three-day convention.

She said: "What first attracted me to Buffy was the amazing visual style of the show."

For Jane, the vampires and monsters, while fun, and even sexy at times, symbolise the hurdles and problems we encounter in life.

She said: "It shows if you do the right thing on behalf of other people you can overcome anything, even vampires and monsters."

Jane is not the only person to see many levels in Buffy and Angel. The programmes are now part of media studies courses and there are books which analyse the shows.

She said: "I've always found vampires fascinating. It's the crossover between life and death. Vampires move through the world of the living and the dead - there's something special about them."

The final series of Buffy has now finished but Jane said it was not the end for her.

She said: "I was really upset when I heard it would end. But when it actually happened it was strangely uplifting. For Buffy it's about moving on. She can do anything she wants to do.

It's something for people to take away from it, to inspire them."

The David Boreanaz European Event 2003 will take place at the Brighton Centre from Friday to Sunday.

For more information, visit www.jealousevents.co.uk