ARE YOU LOCAL???!!! (League of Gentlemen, The)

Member Name: millwallcris1885

Product:	League of Gentlemen, The
Date:	09/11/09 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wonderfully macabre comedy

Disadvantages: Nothing

Lets get things nice and sparkling clear before I begin this review; I am a massive fan of the League of Gentlemen.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith pitched this dark comedy to the BBC executives. I imagine it going something like this...
"Well we've got this idea for a show. Its set in a fictional northern town named Royston Vasey. The local shop is owned by an inbred couple who are searching for a bride for their son who is half man, half monster. The local doctor is actually a modern day Sweeney Todd who is feeding human meat to his unsuspecting customers. Are you with me so far? Good, there's more. The taxi driver is the victim of a botched sex change operation and the town is visited by the mysterious Papa Lazarou: a demented circus master who enslaves the town's women, making them his wives, renaming them all Dave and then turning them into animals for his circus."
The amazing thing is that the BBC execs said 'yes' and thank God they did because what followed was 3 series of unrivalled surreal, macabre and hysterical brilliance.
It's difficult to compare this show to any other comedies because it is just so original in its conception. Recently the BBC made a mini-series called Psychoville that is probably the most similar show to the League of Gentlemen. However, in my opinion it was a watered down sanitized and poor imitation of the show.
The show is set in the fictional town of Royston Vasey (which is actually the real name of famed blue comedian Roy 'Chubby' Brown).
Series 1 begins with the introduction of Benjamin who is coming to Royston Vasey to visit his Aunt and Uncle (part time nudists and breeders of toads, FYI). Although Benjamin only intends to stay a few nights, the town and its cast of psychotically conceived characters seem reluctant to let him go. As the sign on the outskirts of the town ominously states, "Welcome to Royston Vasey, you'll never leave!". The plot snowballs from there and we are introduced to the weird and wonderful world of Royston Vasey in a gloriously quirky style.
All of the towns characters, from the demented shopkeepers to the members of the secret S&M club, are vividly drawn by the shows writers. I often think that to create such a bizarre cast of characters, the writers must have been forced to watch endless re-runs of the Jeremy Kyle show, while being fed a diet of LSD and heavy barbiturates. At its roots the town of Royston Vasey is an ironic microcosm of small town Britain. But the image has been allowed to shift and distort in the mind of its creators before being unleashed on the viewer. The result is a mutant hybrid of ironic social commentary and surreal farce. It is a dark, dystopian vision that is steeped in lashings of agonisingly funny comedy. Itt is one of the few programs to literally make my sides hurt from laughing so hard.
The League of Gentlemen is undoubtedly my favourite comedy series of all time. It is original, warped and most importantly hysterical. I have the series 1-3 box set at home and it is amongst my most treasured of possessions.

N.B. - Inevitably the cult success of the show spawned a film, which was for me a huge, huge disappointment. It pails against the high standards of the TV series and that is why I am only mentioning it as a footnote to this review.

Summary: I wholeheartely recommend this to you all!!!