One of the darkest, most inventive and maybe even one of the most loved British sketch shows of all time was up for entry to the Cultural Toolbox today on The Sunday Show.
The BBC sitcom/sketch show The League of Gentlemen, a bizarre journey through the mysterious northern English town of Royston Varsey, was another of the Cultural Toolbox inductees to divide our judging panel, with Shane Coleman firmly in the camp that wonders the cult following was warranted, and John Fardy proudly displaying his cult membership card.
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“Whether you like it or not, you’ve never seen anything quite like it” was how John Fardy described the show, and when you sample even a few minutes of the show it’s hard to disagree. For the uninitiated, John Fardy described it as “like an English d’Unbelievables, but much darker”.
The show was the creation of the comedic quartet of Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and came to TV following a run on stage and radio. It would run for three series, following a dozen inhabitants of Royston Varsey, mixing elements of surreal comedy with horror – sometimes exceedingly dark. That darkness is on fulls how in these clips, with the second in particular showing some of the show's gothic elements.
The show borrows heavily from horror cinema, with UK horror classic The Wicker Man directly referenced at one point, and hovering above much of the series’ ambience.
Although it paved the way for shows such as Little Britain, John Fardy told Shane he feels The League of Gentlemen has “slipped under the radar a little bit”, and become more of a cult hit rather than the major mainstream hit other BBC comedies were.
There were three series of the TV show, finishing in 2002, but it returned in 2005 for a film – which failed to reach the same heights.
Despite its relatively short run and somewhat niche audience, the show was a critical hit, being ranked in the Observer’s 50 funniest acts in British comedy in 2003, and with the Papa Lazarou, the demonic circus master character who “collects” people’s wives, ranked in several ‘top sketches of all time’ lists in the British press. Becoming a cultural phenomenon in his own right, Lazarou is perhaps the best example of how the show mixed the mad with the funny, and the audience loved it.
