The League of Gentlemen thread

I'm not sure if anyone outwith the UK will ever have seen this tv show, but here goes anyway.
The League of Gentlemen is a surreal, very black comedy set in the fictional village of Royston Vasey. All of the main characters, of both sexes are played by the same handful of actors, and in many ways it resembles Monty Python, though it's much darker in tone.
It's more than just a comedy, though it is very funny, because there are some genuinely moving scenes, Les when he discovers that he's been dumped by the rest of the band, as well as some moments where you veer between laughter and being a little afraid, for instance the Papa Lazarou character.
It's resolutely politically incorrect, and includes just about every taboo under the sun, from transexuality, to incest, and cannibalism.
My own favourite characters are Pauline, the sadist who runs the local job club, Mr Chinnery the world's unluckiest and most useless vet, Edward and Tubs with their local shop for local people and Legs Akimbo, the worst ever travelling community theatre.


Edited title.

 

League of Gentlemen was one over here in the US for a while, but they took it off...I guess we just don't understand your "British" humour.....I for one, loved it though......yes, it did remind me of a darker monty python

 

What's all this ruccus? We'll have no trouble here!

 

The new series of The League of gentlemen was on BBC 2 this week, and if the opening episode is anything to go by I think this could be the best series yet.
Killing off two of the main characters from previous series in the opening credits and tinkering with the show's usual format could have left them with egg on their faces, but it was just as funny and surreal as ever.
The sadistic, power mad G.P who patronises all his patients and forces them to play ridiculous parlour games for their medication looks like a winner already. It's refreshing to see a comedy that's not afraid to be a bit strange or in dubious taste, particularly at a time when the standard of sit-coms on British tv has reached an all time low.

 

I love this show. They aired 1st Season in Croatia about a year ago. my favorite is that guy that ownes those stores and is really sick when comes to his sons girlfriend or people who live in his apartments.

P.S. What main charaters? Not the local shop freaks or those frog fanatics?

 

I was not overly impressed with the first episode of the third series as the new characters felt a bit too normal and the more sit-comlike attitude towards Pauline, Mickey and Ross was a bit too conventional for me. Hopefully things will pick up tonight where the one-armed joke shop owner gets entangled in some creepy surgery...

The two main characters supposedly killed off were indeed Tubbs and Edward who, after coming back to life in true Carrie style, got run over by a speeding train. The Dentons (the "Toad" loving witches) will not be making a comeback in the third series though the travelling company of "Legs Akimbo" will.

 

I missed the first episode of the new series, but I think The League of Gentlemen is brilliant. By the way, does anybody that Mark Gatiss might be producing a new series of Doctor Who? Now that would be interesting!

 

He is not going to be prodcuing it though he might be involved in it in one way, shape or form.

 

Well, he has written several books and one or two audio plays, which have all been awfully good, so hopefully he will be involved. I think quite a number of fans want him to play the Doctor, but I'm not sure I'd approve of a fan of Doctor Who playing the Doctor. Seems rather perverse to me! But he'd make a splendid job of it, I think .

 

I am not that bothered about Dr. Who to be honest so not fussed either way.

Interesting episode tonight though. Will anyone be watching it?

 

I apologise for hi-jacking the thread, and if I inadvertently profited from your childhood, too.

 

No you haven't done ither: it's just that for me Dr. Who comes after even stuff like Stargate SG:1, which, in itself, is the nadir of human endeavour.

Will you be watching tonight's episode?

 

Well, last night's episode was **** as well.

A disappointing series so far...

 

We Americans - I would say "Yanks," but I come from the South, and we don't like us them Yankees - have had a limited exposure to the League. There was, apparently, a limited run of Series 1 on Comedy Central, and I caught Series 1 on BBCAmerica.

The good news is, Series 1 is now available on Region 1 DVD. I have it. Oh, yes, I have it.

Certainly the funniest thing I've seen in a while, at the level of Monty Python and Mr. Show. There's so much to love...

("Aqua Vita" comes immediately to mind.)

...but I must make note of one thing: my girlfriend is going into Vet School. So, for obvious, twisted reasons, I have a special place in my heart for Mr. Chinnery.

"Was he a very old turtle?"

 

The scene with the cow in the last episode is the coup de grace, though.

I can watch Tubbs and Edward till cows come home.

 

Please try and put the discussion into more of a discussion. Just talking about the show isn't what this board is for.

I've heard about the show myself. What is the general reaction of it to the public? Or perhaps I'll word that better : How does the public generally react to this show?

 

the way a new bride embraces the husband's manhood

The public like it,though it has a cult following. It has a very twisted sense of humour hence it is never really going to be heralded by the public like other shows.

 

In the spirit of discussion, here's a interesting question:

Do you think the League will be funny in a generation's time? One could say that the series is based on shocking the audience (Aqua Vitae, the vet, the priest, the cab driver, etc.) and that shows become less funny once the shock of the thing wears off.

(In my opinion, South Park has already suffered this fate. In an attempt to shock the audience week after week, it has ceased to be funny.)

In other words, is the League's comedy based merely on shock value? If it's not (and I believe it isn't), what ELSE is so gripping about it?

 

I find "The League" To be hilarious, though it is nearer Horror then conventional humour!

All the subtle (and less subtle!) references to other films, the characters, the plots...! Amazing.

There is a good interview in this months SFX magazine with them, about how they are apporaching this series, what else the'd like to do, (A horror film!), and how, with only one appearance in the second series, Papa Lazarou has reached Iconic status...


"Your my Wife now....!


UKS

 

Why will the league of gentlemen stand the test of time? As a fan I'm obviously biased but I think there's far more to the show than mere shock value, although it is shocking enough. The recent episode, the first I've seen in a few weeks as I've been on holiday was as ribald as it was hilarious. Suffice to say it involved a sexual triangle and a beauty salon/ massage parlour, and various other bad taste, but funny jokes.
I think one key to the show's success has been the quality of the acting, and the fact that the same core of three actors, and Jeremy Dyson, who appears occasionally and writes, have been involved from the start. It's that rarest of beasts, a show that combines horror and comedy, with a liberal sprinkling of surreality.

 

I think that the idea of cross-breeding comedy with horror/poignance makes the League a very rare beast indeed, and the subject matter IS extremely unabashed.

Consider the guy who keeps offending the disabled members of the community(one of my favourite characters), the damn-near violent and insecure homophobe who is the lynch-pin of Legz Akimbo, and the classic Best Man's speech by Geoff("My mum got better, but your Mum died!"). Certainly doesn't pull its punches.

I thought the notion that Ross had grown so bitter and twisted as to become everything that he once hated(stopping himself short by a hair's breadth of calling Micky 'Dole Scum') and having sex with Pauline as a way of manipulating her, made the opener to season 3 a very powerful work of drama indeed.

However, while it breaks new ground, it must be said that it could simply end up being swallowed by a widening genre, as more and more shows come up with similar ideas and tread the same waters in the near future. It may well be that it does not stand the test of time if it continues in the same vein and loses the original focus of seasons 1 and 2, which was comedy. Getting the laughs.

Already, a certain degree of originality has ebbed away. Consider the arm transplant. I thought that episode was crap. It's been done before, and it wasn't funny or remotely engaging when the idea of a new organ or limbe still possessed by its original owner was first bandied about. It's just a crap story that you don't believe or find vaguely entertaining. Always was, always will be, and I was dumbfounded to see a group of fellas like Dyson et al scripting such passé and over-subscribed claptrap in 2002!

I didn't watch the four episodes that came after that, as I was just so bitterly disappointed by how such a terrific show - a work of genius - could be so horribly and inconeivably mutilated by something so miserably dull-witted and boring; a theme that's been stale in sci-fi and horror for decades.

I'll probably buy Season 3 on vid so that I can watch the other five episodes and find out what was in the last four, but that one was bloody awful.

This is what worries me. I saw it as the first sign that the show had begun to flag, and it will be episodes such as this one that make the programme look dated EVEN NOW, let alone in ten or twenty years.