The League of Gentlemen started life, as so much of
BBC's comedy output does, as a
radio show. Unfortunately I have never experienced this incarnation of the show so cannot pass
judgment on it.
The television series was given glowing reviews on its initial appearance about three years ago. It explores the lives of the inhabitants of Royston Vasey, an insular and foreboding Yorkshire village, filled with deranged and sinister characters. The cast regularly appear in drag and hideous makeup prosthetics, and are clearly influenced in no small part by The Kids in the Hall.
TV critics made much of its 'dark' style, which revolves around an ensemble of grotesque characters performing increasingly frantic and unhinged setpieces, often involving violence, gore and that comedy favourite of pretending to be a bit mental. In the first series this material (which offers little scope for character development or subtlety) was interspersed with some slower scenes (such as the Job Centre sketches, Creme Brulée, and the excellent Video Shop Teenagers) and a loose plot involving rum goings on in the local butcher's. It wasn't always pleasant viewing, but it was very enthusiastically ridiculous and was capable of raising some laughs.
Unfortunately, success went to the cast's heads. The second series, assured of a warm critical reception and video release, was incredibly lazy. The show reached its nadir with the 2000 Christmas Special, which I was unlucky enough to catch the first few minutes of. The show was by this stage fixated on unlikely male homosexual relationships (purely as a device to belittle the characters and indulge in artless double entendres), fat women, spiteful "offensive" jibes (that only served to make the cast look more pitiful), and endless, miserable scenes of non-sensical violence that descended far below slapstick.