Brilliant

albm

I remember seeing a few episodes of "The League of Gentlemen" on Comedy Central a few years back.

It came on after "Strangers With Candy", one of my favorite programs, on Monday or Tuesday night. I remember being confused and a little freaked out. And I remember laughing so hard it hurt.

Unfortunately, Comedy Central, in their infinite wisdom, canceled "Strangers" and ceased showing "The League of Gentlemen". I was hooked, however, and was excited when I found out Series One was available on DVD. After waiting forever for the other two series and the Christmas special, I finally broke down and bought an all-region DVD player online. A few weeks and steep shipping fees later, I had the entire series, the Christmas special, and the live show on disc- just about a month before BBC wised up and released region-1 versions. The point is, patience is a virtue and good things come to those who wait.

Actually, the real point is "The League of Gentlemen" is so good, so funny, so unique and bizarre, so totally in a class of its own that I went out of my way, and spent a fortune, just to get my greedy little paws on every black, wretched episode. And I'd do it again. "The League of Gentlemen" has long since surpassed even "The Kids in the Hall" as my favorite television program, an impressive feat if you're familiar with the Kids' work.

If you haven't seen "The League of Gentlemen" (and if you're an American, you probably haven't), the show centers on the bleak town of Royston Vasey, and the people who call it home. The first and second series were presented in a traditional sketch/sitcom format, with a laugh track. Even as early as then, however, you could see a streak of cinematic flair- there were the sitcom studio sets, and then there was the filmed location footage; the epic, sweeping score; the subtle, quiet, clever jokes that flew entirely over the heads of even the enthusiastic audience (there are long stretches during the second series when you can even forget they're there). There were the characters, so freakish, so mind-bendingly different from American sitcom characters. Instead of Rachel or Chandler you had Pauline, the egregious forty-eight year old lesbian restart officer, and Mickey, the retarded monkey, her prized pupil. Will and Grace? Not in Vasey. Instead there was Tubbs and Edward, the inbred, murderous shopkeepers. And the Dentons? The Dentons- toad-obsessed Harvey and Val, their twin daughters Chloe and Radcliffe, and Benjamin, the token normal one- make the Munsters look like the Waltons. And I'm not even going to mention Papa Lazarou.

So we've established that the show is brilliant. But then came the Christmas special, and it took "The League of Gentlemen" to a higher plane, a level above brilliance that simply must be seen to be believed. For the Christmas special the Gents ditched the laugh track (perhaps Tubbs and Edward were dispatched to "take care" of the audience) and the sketch format. The special, and the third series after that (which is, to me, their masterpiece), were darker, scarier, bleaker than anything that had come before. When something can frighten you beyond words (Keith Drop ripping off his skin to reveal Papa's sinister face), make you shudder in revulsion (amatuer magician Dean Tavalouris getting his hand singed with a lit cigarette) and yet still make you laugh uncontrollably (Judith and Alvin's ludicrous rendezvous at the appropriately-named Garden Center)- and when that something is a half-hour television show...well, that's just special. "The League of Gentlemen" gets my nomination as the funniest, most striking series television has ever produced. I Can I Can't.

score /10

albm 25 October 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1201589/