If it’s gruesome laughs you want, the Gents are still Leagues ahead
When the in-laws turn up later this week for the holidays, and you wonder aloud how long they’ll be staying, the answer you don’t want to hear is: ‘Just a few days — or months . . .’
The League Of Gentlemen (BBC2) specialises in spine-chilling banalities. That one was delivered by ‘Pops’, the lecherous Greek with wandering hands and a tea-strainer moustache: released from prison on licence for murder, he’s come to stay with his son and teenage granddaughters. And if that sounds creepy, the Gentlemen are just getting warmed up.
But the show’s revival won’t be around for long: the final episode is tonight. For fans of the horror sitcom, back after a 15-year lapse, it’s not so much a resurrection, more the involuntary twitch of a corpse.
Of course, the three-part return has nothing to do with nostalgia. Its stars — Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss, who play all the main characters — are not revisiting Royston Vasey, their benighted town on the moors, because they want ‘closure’.
Quite the opposite. This miniseries is a prelude to a live tour, climaxing with three nights at the Apollo in London. And by coincidence, tickets go on sale today.
You can’t blame the trio. They missed out on comedy’s big money jackpot by a whisker — unlike Little Britain, another darkly hilarious BBC series that came a couple of years later, in time to provide stars David Walliams and Matt Lucas with huge paydays from arena shows.
Whether the Beeb should be party to such a blatant tie-in is another question. They used to be scrupulous at Broadcasting house about avoiding any appearance of advertising. not any more, it seems.
Cashing in or not, the Gentlemen have maintained the macabre standards they set at the turn of the Millennium. Old favourites are here, though many of them have aged badly. Pauline the job centre bully (Pemberton) has dementia . . . or she did have until Geoff the psychotic SAS wannabe (Shearsmith) paid a visit.
Tubbs and edward (Pemberton and Shearsmith again) still run the ‘local shop for local people’ from a derelict flat: it’s at no.9, a nod to the recent series of playlets written and starring the actors.
Barbara the transgender cabbie has had the best line so far. She dismissed the trendy LGBT tag (Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans): ‘I prefer ACRONYM — Actively Considering Reassignment Or not Yet Made-your-mind-up.’
There’s more wit in that one line than we heard from the dozen micro-celebs on Britain’s Favourite Biscuit (C5).
Desperately filling airtime were people such as Sandi Bogle, hal Cruttenden, Jesse McClure and nina Wadia. Who? even the voiceover, by Jane horrocks, dismissed them as ‘rent-a-quotes’.
But there’s no denying the genuine fame of the biscuits they were tasting and ranking — with the Wagon Wheel at no10 and the chocolate digestive, naturally, at no 1. Some people do take their biccies seriously.
A long and dull debate was had about whether to pronounce Bourbon as ‘burrben’ or ‘borrbon’. Then they did it again with nice: is it ‘nyce’ or ‘neece’?
The foreman of the factory where they make Wagon Wheels was even more rigorous. Leading the camera down the production line, he announced: ‘This is where we fully enrobe the wheel in chocolate.’
But the prize for biscuit-speak nonsense went to Vanessa Feltz. nibbling a miniature hobnob the size of a Malteser, she declared it was ‘neither fish nor fowl’.
Quite right — you should never dunk poultry.