The League Of Gentlemen - Live At Drury Lane

Starring: Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton Director: Steve Bendelack Original UK Premiere: 1999 Dvd Release: 19th November, 2001 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Region 2 Encoding

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The League of Gentlemen is a troupe of British comedy performers & the name of their stage, radio & latterly television series. The show, which is a cross between a sitcom & sketch show, details the bizarre goings-on in a fictional Northern- English village, which in the radio series was called Spent & on television Royston Vasey. The stage show began in late 1994 & soon the team adopted their name from the Jack Hawkins movie, The League of Gentlemen & took the Perrier award for comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1997. The same year the radio series On the Town with The League of Gentlemen, debuted on BBC Radio 4 & won a Sony Award for the first series. In 1998 the show transferred to television & quickly acquired a cult following. There has been one six-episode series on radio & three on television. Along with The Fast Show the series is credited with the revival of the sketch show format in BBC Comedy & its influence can be seen on the later series Little Britain.

DVD Extras: Not a great many extras here, but a couple of additional scenes are welcome. We get Benjamin & the Dentons at breakfast, familiar from Series 1 of the TV series, plus demented newsagent owner Pop & his dynastic ambitions for his two sons. There's also the Big Woman phone message which first appeared in the League's radio series, multi-angle versions of two sketches , Web site links & a screensaver.

What do you think this is... Dick Whittington? shouts Reece Shearsmith in The League of Gentlemen, Live at Drury Lane, the West End version of the BBC2 series, Youll be wanting to see men dressed as women next! Reece is, needless to say, dragged-up to the nines at this point. The first half of the production, which Shearsmith, alongside Mark Gatiss & Steve Pemberton took to Drury Lane in March 2001, sees the trio revisit their Perrier Award winning show of 1997. Clad in tuxedos, the League explore a public schoolboys love of theatre & smut with sketches that border on post-modern: football fans chant Ooh-ahh, Ophelia during Hamlet; a Restoration comedy turns into a Faustian pact; Artic explorers battle repressed homosexuality. The second, & funnier half sees the action move to Royston Vasey, as Tubs looks over the audience & coos we cant kill them all. The favourite characters transfer to the stage brilliantly, thanks to swift direction & filming that captures every macabre expression. Herr Lipp, looking like Richard Whitely in twin set & pearls, is a scream, & the closing mystery of Who Shot Pauline? is heaven for any League fanatic.

Mark Gatiss is a British actor & writer. He is best known as a member of the sketch comedy team The League of Gentlemen, which initially began as a stage act in 1995, transferred to BBC Radio 4 as On the Town with the League of Gentlemen in 1997 & then arrived on television on BBC Two in 1999. The latter has seen Gatiss & his colleagues awarded with a BAFTA Television Award, a Royal Television Society Award & the prestigious Golden Rose of Montreux. He met his League of Gentlemen co-writers & performers at Bretton Hall drama school in his late teens, which he began attending after finishing school & having spent a gap year travelling around Europe. Outside of writing & performing the three television seasons to date of The League of Gentlemen, his other television work has included writing for the comedy-drama revival of the telefantasy series Randall & Hopkirk in 2001 & Script Editing the popular sketch show Little Britain in 2003, in both of which he also made guest appearances.

Editors Choice: The League Of Gentlemen, Christmas Special, The League Of Gentlemens Apocalypse, View DVDology

Steve Pemberton Is a British comedy writer & performer, most famous as a member of The League of Gentlemen along with fellow performers Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss & co-writer Jeremy Dyson. Pemberton graduated from Bretton Hall Drama College with a BA in Theatre Arts. His previous work has centred mainly around fringe theatre, being a founder member of 606 Theatre & he has produced, performed in & directed stage productions. Pemberton has written for Variety International & has been the assistant editor of the International Film Guide since 1990.

Editors Choice: The League Of Gentlemen, Christmas Special, The League Of Gentlemens Apocalypse, View DVDology

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