The League of Gentlemen

This series premiered on the cable TV station "Comedy Central" in the United States. It was chopped to death, and shown out of sequence. This was sad for the audience it should have attracted, it didn't and fell by the wayside. Luckily, at the same time my cable company went digital and I got the BBC. Thank goodness because I got to see "The League of Gentlemen" in order, complete and uncut.

"The League of Gentlemen" troupe is right up there with England's "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and Canada's "The Kids in the Hall". But..a warning.

"The League of Gentlemen" though are one step beyond. It's not only about dressing in drag and lampooning the cultural ills, it goes deeper and much, much, darker. I can tell many of you now -- it will offend certain groups of people, it will enrage others. But remember, its only comedy..dark, dark comedy. If that is not your thing, don't watch. If you think you KNOW dark comedy, watch this -- if you get angry and upset, then you don't quite know DARK COMEDY.

These guys got it right, and right on the button. They are brilliant, they are excellent and I enjoyed each and every character creation. There's a COMPLETE story that is told here from episode one to the end. You cannot watch this one episode at a time, willy nilly, that is one of the charms of this series. Watch it in order. See how creative and stylish and deeply disturbed these guys are. No one and nothing is out of bounds. That, my dears, is "dark humor". Bravo!

My roommate's English girlfriend gave him a DVD of the League of Gentlemen. Being a huge fan of Monty Python (own the entire series on DVD), Black Adder (likewise), Fawlty Towers (likewise), and The Young Ones (likewise), I was greatly intrigued by the stories I had heard of this series. Then I watched it. Oh my goodness. When I first saw Monty Python, I thought it was bizarre. Then the Young Ones came along and upped the ante. But the denizens of Royston Vasey set the bar so high that I doubt it will ever be topped. Half the time you're watching LOG you're laughing because it's genuinely funny, the other half of the time you're laughing because you can't believe what you've just seen. This series is Stephen King meets the Twilight Zone meets Stanley Kubrick meets Monty Python. It's easy to be funny, and it's easy to be bizarre and sinister, but to combine them and be all of that at once is truly a feat of genius. So, providing you've got a taste for the dark and strange, settle down on the couch with a nice glass of "aqua vitae" and watch this series. Oh, and don't take your pet turtle to the vet.

The League of Gentlemen are Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. The latter 3 act and write while Dyson writes. In 1999 the quartet unleashed their eponymous TV series on us.

Every town has "odd" people – the suicidal army reservist, the toad fancier or the butcher who seems to take his job too seriously. And then there is that couple who keep themselves to themselves. And turn out to be brother and sister!

Roston Vasey is the real name of blue comic Roy "Chubby" Brown (who appears as the mayor in series 2). It is a mystery why the League chose his name as the fictional town in this series. But in Royston Vasey, being odd is the norm. With most of these characters played by the 3 acting Leaguers.

Series 1 is essentially a series of sketches set in "Vasey". Most of the characters do not interact other than in opening sequences although several are transported in the taxi of local transvestite Barbara. A very hairy man who is waiting for "the operation" and regales her customers with details of what is to come. This series is mostly offbeat comedy with a few blacker moments thrown in.

While there is a tenuous story holding series 2 together it carries on in a similar vein. Some sketches abandon the humour to explore a darker side. And the BBC makeup department are kept busy providing facial disfigurements for a number of characters. "Vasey" really needs a good dentist.

Series 3 is more of a "comedy drama". Each episode dealing with an individual character and a theme running through the end of each episode.

At first I was disappointed with series 3 as I wanted more of the same. The "best" characters are killed off and series 3 concentrates on minor players. On reflection though, each story stands up in its own right. A brave move which works.

Sick humour? Fantastic humour with good stories? The L of G pushed comedy in a new direction.

What a great great series. You know, there has never been anything like this and I don't think there ever will.

If I were to have been told about the project, I don't think I would have known what to expect. Imagine what the original script must have been like. With the finished product like this, imagine the creative process!!

But seriously, this is a unique product. I am not sure what these guys are on but it sure works.

The base of this series is that we all have our version of Royston Valley. The fact that it is a horrible place and the perfect setting for a horror story. To make it a comedy is a work of genius. It is one of the few programs that I can watch again and again.

The League of Gentlemen is one of the most consistently entertaining series of recent years. Without a doubt, its finest hour (literally) came in the Christmas Special. This hour-long TV movie is based on the Amicus "portmanteau" horror films of the 1970's (cf. Tales from the Crypt, Asylum, The Uncanny et al.). Typically, these films would see a host (generally Peter Cushing) encounter a series of hapless individuals who would relate their horrific experiences, before the "unexpected twist" framing-story climax. This Christmas Special sticks religiously to that formula, with lugubrious vicar Bernice lending an unsympathetic ear to cheese-dreaming Charlie, vagrant Matthew and incompetent vet Dr Chinnery. Each of the three tales is as darkly comical as we've come to expect from the League, with Charlie's tale mixing line dancing and voodoo, Matthew's tale spoofing Hammer vampire movies, Romero's Martin and German expressionist films, and Chinnery's tale a piece of classic Victorian melodrama involving a cursed pair of monkey's testicles. But what raises this special far above the level of a beautifully made and affectionate pastiche is that all the tales (and particularly the first two) are not only genuinely frightening, but more convincingly so than most of Amicus' own efforts. The gory, unremitting horror of the climax of Charlie's tale, and the truly creepy sequences set within the Lipp household in Matthew's story have a real power to them. And the final, terrifying twist - 'It's nice to see you again, all grown up...' - is one of the most disturbing moments in TV history (no wonder it ended up in Channel 4's Top 100 Scary Moments programme).

Lavish, dark and compelling, The League of Gentlemen Christmas Special stands alongside Threads and Ghost Watch as innovative and frightening television, and is perhaps the best one-off programme made by the BBC in the last decade.