Chubby Brown Town (League of Gentlemen Season 1 Boxset (DVD))

Member Name: SWSt

Product:	League of Gentlemen Season 1 Boxset (DVD)
Date:	27/03/09 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Inspired characters, brilliant, surreal humour

Disadvantages: A few weak, overused characters, quality of episodes a little uneven

How do you even begin to describe The League of Gentlemen to someone who has never seen it? I suppose the closest you can get is that it's an alternative sketch show, linked by fact that all the characters live in the same village. It's a parody of the absurdities and parochialism of small town life, with narrow-minded, bigoted, self-obsessed and downright grotesque characters around every corner. Welcome to the village of Royston Vasey, whose inhabitants include a transsexual taxi driver, a toad obsessed couple, a sadistic unemployment officer and two shop keepers who fear anyone who isn't "local" (i.e. from the village).

It's this wide diversity of characters which gives League of Gentlemen both its strength and its weakness. Some of the characters are very funny indeed and offer the opportunity to be recycled endlessly in different situations, each more absurd than the last. It's clever comedy because (as with Little Britain) you get to know exactly how they will react and are waiting for their catchphrase to come out. It's funny enough when you meet these characters the first time around. When you know what to expect, it actually makes it funnier, because the viewer is in on the joke.

The downside to such characters is that some of them don't work and are either not funny to start with, or quickly become tired and lose their appeal. For me, the most obvious examples of this include the "Mafia" newsagent and Mrs. Levinson and her cleaner. Many of the sketches featuring these characters feel overlong and only raise the occasional titter, whereas the stronger characters have you laughing helplessly. Thankfully, each episode contains at least 5 or 6 different sketches, so if you don't like the current one, you can console yourself with the fact that it will be over shortly. Similarly, there are a handful of characters which you love, but who only crop up occasionally, that you wish were better used. That said, the characters are so varied that the chances are people will disagree over which ones work and which don't, giving the opportunity for endless disagreements over who is the best character!

What works particularly well is that the characters develop over time. Although the individual sketches are self-contained, there are themes running through them and the characters are gradually built up. This adds an extra dimension to both the characters and the show. In addition to comedy, the writers also manage to add a surprising amount of pathos, tragedy and sympathy. Although the characters are all obviously grotesque and highly exaggerated, it's nevertheless difficult not to feel some sort of emotion (whether pity or anger or sympathy) for all of them at some point.

Some of the characters are over-used. There are certain staples that appear time and again and, although a fresh spin is put on them each time, there are occasions when you feel they have wrung just about as much as possible out of a given character or situation. Admittedly, that was less of an issue with Series 1 than Series 2, but it is still present.

Where The League of Gentlemen proves particularly successful is in its style of humour. For the most part, it adopts a very surreal style which won't be to everyone's tastes but will delight those who "get it". And there's the rub: The League of Gentlemen is definitely an acquired taste. If you get it, you'll think it's brilliant, inspired, and hilarious. If you don't, you'll think it's self-indulgent, unfunny, crude rubbish. It will divide audiences and if you don't like Episode 1, stop there, because the other 5 episodes in the series are just more the same.

League of Gentlemen bears repeat viewing. The first few times you watch it, you concentrate on the more traditional "jokes" - on the things the main characters are doing or saying. As you watch it again, you realise there are cunning little in-jokes or background jokes scattered throughout the series and you only begin to notice these once you've seen the episodes a few times. This is particularly true of the opening credits which are never the same two episodes running.

Where it falls down is in the slight unevenness of the episodes. Parts of the series are rib-ticklingly funny, other amusing and some will raise the odd smile. Episode 2, for example, is probably one of the weaker episodes with only very limited laughs and seems to lack the sparkle and wit of many of the other episodes. With this first series it appears the writers were using the audience as guinea pigs - throwing a load of characters at them to see which ones they took to. It's very noticeable that some of the weaker characters already mentioned made only limited appearances in later series/episodes, whilst the ones that established themselves as fan favourites frequently re-appear.

No consideration of The League of Gentlemen would be complete without looking at the performances of its lead characters. Virtually all the main parts are played by the writers, particularly Reece Sheersmith, Mark Gatiss and Steve Pemberton. Despite a limited cast, there is a huge amount of variety amongst their characters: in the way they look, sound and behave. All have genuinely different feeling personalities and, whilst they are clearly played by the same people, the different personalities and sheer amount of makeup used makes them feel different. They even manage to make reasonably convincing (if rather grotesque) women. This adds to the central idea of the programme that here is a highly inbred village isolated from the outside world.

The League of Gentlemen certainly will not be everyone's cup of tea. You definitely need to have a rather skewed view of the world and an appreciation of surreal humour to understand it. If you do get it, though, you will be delighted by the grotesque characters and the witty, if weird scripts that make up each episode. If there really was a League of Gentlemen, this lot would the Champions every year.

Basic Information
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The League of Gentlemen
Series one first broadcast 1999
6 x 30 minute episodes

© Copyright SWSt 2009

Summary: One way or another, it'll never leave you