You must have been sleeping under a rock for the last ten years. It’s a comedy that is at times moving, often funny and nearly always darkly disturbing. It makes me LOL with a big ELL Oh ELL.
Critically acclaimed… a cult following, the bizarre BBC television series The League of Gentlemen is to sitcoms like The Good Life or even Friends what David Lynch’s films are to Frank Capra movies. Instead of the usual one-family-in-suburbia or group-of-pals set-up, Gentlemen centres on the whole town of Royston Vasey. A Northern village of, to say the least, eccentric characters, the weird people of Royston Vasey (actually, the real name of lewd northern comic Roy Chubby Brown) look like they’ve been intermarrying for too long and are suffering from a particularly demented variety of xenophobia that drives them to extremes of tetchiness and psychosis. There are the local shopkeepers Edward and Tubbs, who go to murderous lengths to ensure their shop remains for local people only; the Denton family, toad-breeders obsessed with maintaining their household rituals at all costs; inept veterinary surgeon Dr Chinnery, who’s never yet saved a patient; Barbara, the local transsexual taxi driver (one of the show’s more well adjusted characters); Pauline the demonic Restart Officer at the local Job Centre; and Lance, the sadistic owner of Lance’s Joke Shop which sells poisonous sweets and the ever-popular finger in a matchbox (with a real finger), among many others. Most of the characters are performed by the three core members of the group, sporting a disturbing variety of prosthetic demi-masks and latex make-up, who started the concept off with a stage show and then transferred it to radio before taking it on TV, which may explain why The League of Gentlemen seems blithely oblivious of normal sitcom conventions and has a stately air of surrealism that feels like The Archers as written by playwright Eugene Ionesco. Brilliant stuff. —Leslie Felperin“
As I said for Psychoville: If you dont get it then just dont watch it… but if you like dark humour and can imagine a cross between a monty-python, the shining, Stephen Kings IT and days of our lives then you might just enjoy it. Or if you are a confirmed nut-job then you will deffo enjoy it.
TV Episodes: 101 Welcome To Royston Vasey 102 The Road To Royston Vasey 103 Nightmare in Royston Vasey 104 The Beast of Royston Vasey 105 Love Comes To Royston Vasey 106 Escape From Royston Vasey 201 Destination: Royston Vasey 202 Lust for Royston Vasey 203 A Plague on Royston Vasey 204 Death in Royston Vasey 205 Anarchy in Royston Vasey 206 Royston Vasey and the Monster from Hell 301 The Lesbian and the Monkey 302 The One-Armed Man Is King 303 Turn Again Geoff Tipps 304 The Medusa Touch 305 Beauty and the Beast (Or, Come into My Parlour) 306 How The Elephant Got Its Trunk Specials: The League of Gentlemen Christmas Special The League of Gentlemen Live at Drury Lane Movie: The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse