Last updated 4 January 2001
The League of Gentlemen is a show set in the village of Royston Vasey somewhere in the north of England, a place populated by a galaxy of bizarre characters, all of whom are played very cleverly by just four main actors. Since it started about two years ago it has gained cult status and recently some very respectable prime time TV slots, also giving us the phrase "local shop for local people".
I have watched a fair few episodes of the show, the first one from the first series and so far most from the second, and I would be the last to deny that it does have genuinely amusing moments, or that its creators and chief actors, particularly Steve Pemberton, have real talent. In particular, and most obvious, is the ability with which the four men switch among their different male and female personae. Why, then, am I coming down so hard on the League?
The problem is really that the quotient of sick humour is too high. Under the cover of sophisticated post-modernism and obscure references (anyone apart from me know who the Nicky Chinn was that the former rhythm guitarist of Creme Brulée referred to?) there is really a huge iceberg of toilet humour, and worse. The mad couple who run the "local" shop were highly amusing at first, but somehow they seem less funny now that we know they are actually an incestuous marriage, that they have a monster son locked in the attic, and we have seen Tubs pulling her knickers down and urinating into a petrol tank. The "local" joke itself unfortunately also starts to wear thin after repeated airing in each episode. If you don't like drag humour or cross-dressing then the sight of the amphibian breeder and his pre-Raphaelite wife, the latter a male with wig, stuck-on breasts and a thick mat of pubic hair around the crotch, will nauseate you. And if you like animals and have any of your own then the fatal ineptitude of the local vet, far from having you in stitches, will probably cause you distress. As for the predatory homosexual German teacher Herr Lipp, it's hard to see how anyone can find a character who in real life would be labelled a pervert and a wolf funny.
Interestingly, this raises an aspect of League of Gentlemen: it is certainly not PC. Thus we have Pauline's only sidekick Micky, a rather retarded and ugly youth: Herr Lipp, as mentioned above: and the Mediterranean lecher "Pop", a character so loathsome I confess I found myself hoping someone would take a gun to him before the end of the series. In fact, madness and sexual deviancy seem to feature heavily in the program.
To be fair the show does have its comic moments, as well as its pathos. The sketch in the restaurant where frustrated executive Graham pulls a gun in order to get his hapless colleague to reach the punchline was quite funny. You can't help feeling sorry for the former 70s musician from Creme Brulée, stuck as a hospital orderly with his mid-decade haircut and glasses, while the jobless Job Search Officer Pauline, with her pathological attachment to her pens, is also something of a masterpiece. But their chief characteristic, as I noted, is that they are pathetic, although at least not as grotesque as some of the others. Alf Garnett, a 60s icon of comedy who was also repellent and pathetic at the same time, had some sort of quality that these sad losers lack. The League of Gentlemen reminds me in some ways of South Park, another cult comedy which can be amusing but whose main tendency seems to be to desensitize us to our normal feelings.
I have made a search of the Net to find articles on the League, but apart from the BBC's spiel I only found three entries initially, one of which was about the book of the series and the other a review of the four performers (Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith) doing their show at the Edinburgh Fringe. The show seems to have picked up some international awards, however, so it looks set to run.
At the end of the day a review is an opinion, even if a considered one, and I welcome other opinions apart from my own. your own to us if you have a view.
UPDATE 4 JANUARY 2001: A number of people got a bit hot under the collar about this review. It is my opinion, but it is only an opinion, and a few folk have E-mailed in protest at it. Maybe I was a bit hard on the League, and I apologise if I offended anybody. I'll try to watch it again at some point this year and take a fresh look at it. Each to their own! Thanks to everyone who expressed an opinion, even if we didn't agree.