The League of Gentlemen (TV and film series, first aired 1999)

 

Channel 4’s “100 Scariest Moments” list, #24:

 

 

The League of Gentlemen

(TV and film series, first aired 1999)

 

Before I get to what this is, I better explain what it isn’t.

 

It is not the Crime novel, “The League of Gentlemen” by John Boland (first published in 1958). It is not the popular film of the same name, based on the novel and Wittern by Byon Forbes and Directed by Basil Dearden (1960). It is not the wonderful SF,F&H comic book series, “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” inspired by the film, written by Alan Moore and Illustrated by Kevin O'Neill (first published in 1999). It is not the terrible film, based on the comic, Written by James Dale Robinson and Directed by Stephen Norrington (2003).

 

This is it an absurdist TV series, walking the borders of Sketch-Comedy, Sitcom and Soap-Opera. It’s from England, has an abundance of Horror elements, but confusingly doesn’t include a League of Gentlemen in any of the plots or among the characters. The misleading title was actually the name of a stand-up comedy troupe formed in 1995 and made up of the show’s four Writers, Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith. Three of the Writers, Gatiss, Pemberton, and Shearsmith, play almost all the Character in the series, including female ones. Across even a few episodes, these three had to juggle a dozen-or-more roles, often requiring substantial physical transformations. Dyson, who had little faith is his skills as an Actor, appeared in frequent cameos.

 

It's set in the fictional town of Royston Vasey, allegedly based of the real town of Alston, Cumbria. As all the residents are insane, mostly unattractive, have weird ideas about sex, a goodly number might be members of a Cannibal Cult, and two are definitely Serial Killers, I certainly hope no one from Alston ever watched it, because they might get their feelings hurt. The actual filming was mostly done in Hadfield, Derbyshire, perhaps out of fear of thin-skinned Serial Killers of Alston might take revenge on Cast and Crew.

 

It is a reimagining of an earlier, well-regarding but short-lived, radio series from the same creators, “On the Town with The League of Gentlemen” (first aired 1997). On the radio, the town was called Spent, renaming it Royston Vasey was a reference to the given name of Comedian Roy Chubby Brown, famous for his offensive humor and who became a regular guest-Star on the TV show.

 

It's comedy for a certain taste, as on-line Critic called “Camus” wrote, one’s enjoyment “depends if you enjoy watching voluminous gallons of giraffe 'issue' being ejaculated onto 'a load of old biddies.'” It proved that there were a lot of people like that in the UK.

 

In addition to being very funny and enormously popular, it has of some historic significance too. Sketch-Comedy had mostly disappeared British TV, the legacy of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” (first aired 1969) was being allowed to die, but “The League of…” was key to its revival. Later I’ll bring up a list of English and Australian TV shows that got embroiled in a controversy here in the USA, all of them were following in the footsteps of “The League of…”

 

“The League of…” was groundbreaking in its integration of a huge array of continuing storylines, stand-alone skits, strange and subject-less dialogues, and quick sight-gags, and how the offensive-for-it’s-own-sake humor played against other skits that were emotionally moving. You feel for the residents of the town, you often root for them, or cry with them, even the worst of them.

 

In the first episode, two young men come to town for a hiking holiday. Benjamin Denton (Shearsmith) arrives first, passing a sign that reads "Welcome to Royston Vasey. You'll never leave!" and is soon passing missing person signs stapled to telephone poles that get progressively more absurd with each episode. He’s to spend the night with his Aunt Val and Uncle Harvey (Pemberton and Gatiss), who prove to be, well, weird, with lots of strange rules, an obsession with toads and hygiene, and too much interest if he’s masturbating or not. By the second season, he is effectively their prisoner.

 

But he’s the lucky one. His late-arriving friend, Martin Lee (Gattis), stops at a store with the sign “Local Shop” even though it’s far from any other houses. He is immediately accosted by the owners, Edward and Tulip Tubbs (Shearsmith and Pemberton), a married couple, whom we later learn are also brother and sister and keep the monstrous child of their incest in the attic. They have pig-noses, very bad teeth, easily offended, paranoid of outsiders ("This is a local shop, for local people, there's nothing for you here"), and Serial Killers. They murder Martin, and then a Police man who drops by (again, Gattis), and in the next episode, they kill two more people (one of them, again, is Gattis, he dies a lot in this series). The Tubbs are among the series most popular characters.

 

Meanwhile, in the center of town, there’s local butcher Hilary Briss (Gatiss), the leader of the Secret Society of lovers of a very special kind of meat.

 

Then there’s embittered, unsuccessful, rage-a-holic businessman Geoff Tipps (Shearsmith).

 

Then there’s the worst Social Worker in history, Pauline Campbell-Jones (Pemberton). Her workshops for the unemployed seem designed to make impossible for her clients to ever get a job.

 

Then there’s Dr. Mathew Chinnery (Gatis), a worse Veterinarian than Pauline is a Social Worker, killing an average of one beloved family pet every-other-week.

 

Then there’s also the Vicar, Bernice Woodall (Shearsmith), who doesn’t believe in God, yet still feels the need the need to berate her ever-shrinking congregation for their sins.

 

Then there’s Charlie and Stella Hull (Pemberton and Shearsmith), a profoundly unhappy and codependent married couple,

 

The second season introduces Herr Lipp (Pemberton) a pederast Tour Guide, from Germany, whose thickly accented, broken English, is a string of terrible double-entendres.

 

Also introduced in the second season was Papa Lazarou (Shearsmith), an Evil Clown and Circus Master, always looking for the unknown “Dave,” and always preying on old women. He proved almost as popular as the Tubbs, though only occasionally appearing. He became the center of a really stupid Netflix controversy which I’ll get to later.

 

The full list of loonies is too long to explore here. Critic Scott McDonald called them “peerlessly vile and entertaining characters.”

 

With the three lead actors playing so many roles, the rest of the cast, playing only one character each, were generally only another three or four people per episode.

 

In the UK “The League …” is a phenomenon, the franchise has repeatedly returned to radio and live-stage (season three was delayed because of a stage production), a much beloved X-Mass special, a feature film, charity specials, and several books. Though there hasn’t been much new in a while, the creators continue to talk about bringing it back, but that seems unlikely because the success of the show put them in such demand for unrelated projects. All have huge and diverse resumes now, but a USA audience would know Gatiss the best, he’s Co-Creator and Cast member of the huge international TV hit, “Sherlock” (first aired 2010).

 

Gatiss grew up Sedgefield, Durham, across the street from a Psychiatric Hospital built during the Edwardian Era. "That place definitely had an effect on me. When I was little, we would go over the road and watch films with the patients, and I remember being more concerned with looking at frightening shapes in the shadows than whatever was on the screen. People would routinely get out of their seats and shuffle toward you, like in ‘Dawn of the Dead.’ Obviously, I got used to it, but I think it helped me to develop quite a strong fascination for Northern Gothic."

 

Dyson, who grew up in Leeds, made the case, "We are the living embodiment of every accusation that was slung at us: 'You'll never make anything of yourself because you sit on your arse watching television all day.' We have succeeded precisely because we did sit on our arses and watch television all day." His SF,F&H obsession were expressed early, in school, "My essays would start like, 'A day at the beach', but then giant squid would appear..."

 

As they are all Media Stars now, this quartet is interviewed a lot. Journalist Brian Viner jokingly complained in 2000, “Aged between 30 and 33 they are, most disappointingly, affable, charming and ordinary, related only by the odd dimple or slight mannerism to their gallery of grotesques.”

 

There were good production values in the first season, better-still thereafter, its limited budget deftly stretched by having only three people play most of the roles in the cast of thousands, and relying little on studio-sets but filming mostly on-location, often even for the interior scenes. In other words, it’s made in a classic cinematic fashion where a low-budget is made to look good by working harder than most others in their price-range. Steve Bendelack Directed almost every single “The League of…” episode and film. Rob Kitzmann was the most common Cinematographer. Adam Windmill the most common Editor.

 

As the description above suggests, it was dark in the first season, then darker still (all for the better) as time went on. The second season (2000) featured a terrible plague of deadly nose-bleeds and the town descending into hysteria. The third season (2003) featured more rigorously hammered-out interlocking story structures and the death of major characters.

 

In between seasons two and three was the “Christmas Special” (2000), easily the most beloved of the various incarnations. Horror themes were already present, but best-realized here. The main source of inspiration was the Amicus Anthology films from the early 1970s, especially, “Tales from the Crypt” (1972).

 

The Tubbs are in some of the advertising of this stand-alone, but don’t actually appear, but other favorite characters do. Central is Bernice, alone is her Church on Xmas Eve, hating the Holiday, and annoyed that, one-after-another, people keeping showing up at her door looking for solace. Each has a morbid tale to tell.

 

In the first, Charlie has been having prophetic dreams that Stella is trying to destroy him through Voodoo magic. The Amicus films were often influenced by EC Horror comics (EC started publishing in 1944, shifted focus to Horror comics in 1947, the most notorious of which, “Tales of the Crypt” was first published in 1955, but that business plan already in its twilight because the company was bruised and beaten by censors in 1954 and 1955, and soon all of the titles disappeared except for the humor magazine “Mad,” first published in 1952 and still with us today). This tale, fantastical but still the most naturalistic of the stories, had the fewest explicit EC references, but the most EC in tone, right up the ironically well-deserved fate that befalls the venal wife.

 

That one was entertaining enough, but paled in comparison to the next, a contemporary-Gothic evoking the best of the Hammer House of Horror, which had been Amicus’ primary competitor during both studios’ heyday.

 

Desperate Matthew Parker (Shearsmith in the flashback scenes, Andrew Melville while with the Bernice) shares how he was traumatized long-ago while visit to Duisberg (which is in Germany, except it doesn’t actually exist). He was there to join a Church choir, and stayed with Herr Lipp. Matthew becomes increasingly uncomfortable with Lipp’s poorly disguised sexual compulsions, and increasingly convinced Lipp was a Vampire. There are signs that point to Lipp being a Monster, like the shadow Lipp casts on a wall as he walks up the stairs, an image borrowed from “Nosferatu” (1922), and in Lipp’s dialogue, like "The absence of love is the most abject pain!" from “Nosferatu’s” remake (1979) and also “I never drink... wine..." from “Dracula” (1931).

 

The young man suspicions are not entirely wrong, and the climax is both horrifying and hilarious.

 

The next visitor is our notoriously incompetent Veterinarian Matthew. It seems that his professional problems are the result of a family curse, and the story flashes back to Victorian England with Matthew’s ancestor Edmund (Gattis again) running afoul with a pair of Supernatural Monkey Balls.

 

All these stories have the cheery cruelty that we expect from EC and Amicus, yet they somehow restore Berenice’s faith in Jesus and Christmas, and she’s overjoyed when a final visitor, Santa Claus, appears…

 

Except it isn’t Santa.

 

When the true identity of the Santa is revealed, all the League-fans hooted with joy. This is one explicitly references the most famous of the EC Horror stories, one which was also adapted by Amicus.

 

The Christmas Special was the best-looking of the various “The League of…” incarnations, better even than the bigger-budgeted feature film, and the production faced the challenge of being scheduled during the wrong time of year to have snow on the ground. On roof-tops, the snow was added digitally. On the ground, fake snow was spread.

 

And the chemicals in the fake snow killed the Real-World grass, creating quite the scandal at the time. Luckily, the Christmas Special wasn’t filmed in Hadfield, so this didn’t get them barred for important filming locations for season three.

 

The obligatory laugh-track, that most TV Producers hate, was dropped by the third season, and that was definite improvement. The style of writing also changed, the characters were progressively given more substantive arcs, some finding unexpected love and compassion in themselves, while others finding the exact opposite.

 

After the third season came the feature film, “The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse” (2007). It opens with a man desperately searching through a house while suspenseful music plays – but soon proves that the man was only looking for his cell-phone, and the music was the ring-tone.

 

This man proves to be Jeremy Dyson, the member of the foursome of Writers who is only very rarely scene on screen – except it’s not him, it’s Actor Michael Sheen playing him. The League is now playing with themes borrowed from Playwriter Luigi Pirandello: in the context of a fiction, the Authors face the Characters they’ve created. For the fictional-Dyson it’s the Tubbs and Papa Lazarou. It doesn’t go well for him.

 

What’s happening is that the Writers have moved onto a new project, and because they’ve turned their backs on Royston Vasey, that Universe is starting to fall apart.

 

Vicar Bernice is aware of a Prophesy that foretold this and recruited Veterinarian Matthew and now former Social-Worker Pauline to travel into the Real(-ish) World with her to save their homes and existence. They don’t seem qualified, but after a series of improbable errors (par-for-the course in Royston Vasey) it’s a different trio, murderous Butcher Hilary, Pederast Herr Lipp, and failed Businessman Geoff, who get sent, and things seem even more hopeless.

 

They don’t have much of a plan, but finally decide it would be a good idea to kidnap Real(-ish) Pemberton and have Lipp impersonate him. Hillary and Lipp prove full of surprises. Hillary shows courage and leadership-skills and comes up with a pretty good plan, while Lipp finds redemption as a good father and husband (better than Pemberton).

 

But Geoff, well, stays Geoff, and screws everything up by writing himself into the League’s new script as the Hero and getting sucked into that Universe. He’s suddenly in the court of William III of England (ruled England from 1689 – 1702) where he runs afoul with Devil-Worshipping Catholic Plotters (Gatiss, Pemberton, and Shearsmith) and their ally, the Necromancer Erasmus Pea (David Warner). When the characters in that script escape into Royston Vasey all seems lost.

 

It’s an impressively complex script given its short 92-minute running time. It deftly juggles three different worlds (maybe four) and in the choice of giving only three of the regular characters most of the on-screen time, it provides richer character arcs than previously sketch-based incarnations. It begs comparison to the thematically similar “The Purple Rose of Cairo” (1985) and though it didn’t have the Woody Allen film’s Class or Critical adulation, I found it more heart-felt.

 

Warner was a great addition, playing essentially the same character as he did in Terry Gilliam’s “Time Bandits.” Gilliam, of course, was a central figure in “Monty Python’s Flying …” to which “The League of …” owes an enormous debt.

 

It even brings up a few profound philosophical issues, like does free-will really exist, but doesn’t take them too seriously, it merely states that it doesn’t and moves on.

 

The Computer FX are both impressive and deliberately cheesy. Digital editing allowed on actor play at least three Characters in-frame simultaneously (“It's hard on your face," complained Pemberton because of the hours of makeup in-between each set up). Meanwhile, the CGI Monsters are made intentionally cheap-looking, recapturing the old-school feel of Ray Harryhausen’s Stop-Motion marvels

 

And there were a few Holiday Specials after the, but I haven’t seen them.

 

Now, for the incredibly stupid Netflix controversy. It concerns Black-face and certainly provides proof that “Cancel Culture” is real, and poisonous.

 

Ok, Black-face is, usually, offensive in the extreme. Black-face was an important feature of the influential KKK propaganda film “Birth of a Nation” (1915), rare in its achievement that it can undeniably be held responsible for real-world Murder and Terrorism. A decade later there was the radio-show, “Amos and Andy” (first aired in 1928) which, though not as hate-filled as “Birth of a …,” was an extremely patronizing White-vision of Black USA. I also think it’s great that since about 1943, any production of “Othello” (play first performed in 1603) that featured a White Actor in Black-face gets a scolding.

 

Still, it’s important to remember that all Actors are impersonators, and though an Actor switching races is a tool for re-enforcing negative stereo types, but can be used for the reverse as well. Not long after “Birth of…” Actor Buster Keaton frequent wore unconvincing Black-face while surrounded by Black Actors to mock racial stereotypes. True, Blackface allowed White actors to steal roles from Black actors, but it does (rarely) go the other way too: remember how good Eddie Murphy was in “Beverly Hills Cop” (1984)? That role was written for Sylvester Stallone (thank God Stallone turned that one down).

 

Black-face is a tool for offensive content, but it’s the content that counts more than the Black-face. The Black-face in “Birth of a…” would be merely embarrassing now had it not been, on-top-of-that, a KKK propaganda film, it was the content is what made it among the most despicable of all film masterpieces. And there was a clumsy attempt to bring “Amos and Andy” on TV (first aired 1951) and the fact that the characters were now played by Black Actors didn’t make it any less offensive than the all-White radio-cast. Also, though it is virtuous that “Othello” is no longer done in Black-face, the title character was likely not intended to be Black African, as we view him now, but a Berber; also, both Orson Wells and Sir Lawrence Oliver both gave fine “Othello” performances post-1943 (1952 and 1963 respectively). that are now unfairly denigrated. And what about Linda Hunt in “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982)? She pretended to be not only Asian, but male, and gave us unimpeachable art. Should I also throw in that female dog in the “Lassie” franchise (first film 1943) was always played by a boy?

 

Worse still, Papa Lazarou isn’t even Black-face is the normal sense.

 

Here’s what happened. Black-face became unacceptable in the US before it was in England, and a lot of English Skit-Comedies had White guys cast as other Ethnic groups long after this were frowned upon elsewhere; hell, English-style comedies cast men as women so often, it’s a surprise that people like Tracey Ullman ever found employment (is that why she moved to the USA?). A lot of it was offensive in content, and when these shows started getting broadcast on streaming channels, they raised ire. The key titles here are Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ “Little Britain” and “Come Fly with Me” (2003 and 2010 respectively) and a bevy of TV series made by Australian Comic Chris Lilly, the oldest being “We Can Be Heroes: Finding the Australian of the Year” (2005), all of which were influenced by “The League of…” I haven’t seen these, so I can’t really speak to how offensive they were, but their reputations are dire.

 

But Papa Lazarou isn’t a White Actor playing a Black Character, the Character Lazaroa is a White guy. Lazaroa only has make-up on his face, not his hands, and he describes himself as being either Eastern or Central European in origin (maybe, it’s immediately suggested he’s lying about that, and later suggested he’s not actually human). As pointed out by Shearsmith, “It was not me doing a black man. It was always this clown-like make-up and we just came up with what we thought was the scariest idea to have in a sort of Child Catcher-like way.” The Child Catcher is a legendarily scary-comic Villain from the movie “Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang” (1968).

 

This is a show with a lot of offensive content, but Cannibalism, Serial Murder, Cruelty to Animals, and an indescribable array of Sexual Perversions, never seemed to bother anyone, only the Racism that wasn’t even there. And, apparently, the only people offended were in the USA. “The League of …” was reported to England’s Broadcasting Standards Council only once, and the show writers proudly boast, "we got off."

 

Trailer for TV show:

 

The League of Gentlemen - trailer - YouTube

 

Feature film:

 

LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN APOCALYPSE TRAILER - YouTube