The comedy show that’s still in a League of its own
What better tonic in this season of suffocating schmaltz than the return of The League of Gentlemen (BBC Two)? Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s macabre comedy, a cross between The Twilight Zone and Monty Python, took us all back to the fictional town of Royston Vasey last night for the first of three anniversary specials. The famous Royston Vasey sign used to read “You’ll Never Leave”, and sure enough it was like we’d never left.
It’s always tricky to bring back comedy that was funny and cultish back in the day, because what was once edgy and weird tends to become assimilated over time. Here, the writers moved the story on by introducing an overarching narrative in which changing county boundaries threatened to write Royston Vasey out of existence altogether. With this potential death-by-bureaucracy established, they then brought in a visiting journalist (Lyndsey Marshal) as a means to go around and meet the panicking locals.
And what locals: Royston Vasey remains a surreal cesspit of slackjawed grotesques, from Tubbs and Edward and their local shop for local people (the shop is gone but they’ve moved to a condemned council block); to Pauline Campbell-jones, the job centre worker who hates “dole scum”; to the creepy connoisseur of teenage boys, Herr Lipp.
But 15 years away from our screens hasn’t blunted the Gentlemen’s comic bite, either. Rather than just wheel out the old favourites and let fans sing back the lines, there was a regular supply of new, good jokes, including a couple of the type of sight gags that indicate that the writers are as sharp as ever – one that particularly stood out featured a dogwalker with both dog and owner sporting a veterinary cone on their heads.
Moreover, whether or not it was the writers’ intention, Britain in 2017 is quite possibly more of a Royston Vasey-ish slough of despond than it was in the early Noughties. Seeing Benjamin Denton (Shearsmith) heading out of town on a train to visit a place that he didn’t understand and that, as a result, he found deeply troubling, was to witness a shockhorror version of the economic and cultural clash that’s riven this country these past 18 months. If that sounds a little po-faced for a comedy, don’t worry – next to Benjamin sat an entirely nude Gatiss as Auntie Val, who then stood up to open the window and rubbed his/her hirsute nethers in Benjamin’s face. Wicked, unrepentant and more horrifyingly relevant than ever, The League of Gentlemen remains in a league of its own.
Christmas, according to Mary Berry, is “the perfect excuse to indulge in everything you like”, which is presumably why a Bake Off-less BBC is indulging us with lashings of Mary Berry this year. Yes, we like Mary very much but, with her Country House Secrets just having finished, her Christmas Party (BBC One) last night and her reunion with her old Bake Off muckers on Christmas Eve for Mary, Mel and Sue’s Big Christmas Thank You, we’re looking at a very Mary Christmas indeed.
Still, if anyone is worthy of overexposure it’s Mary Berry, because as her Christmas Party showed, she can breathe life into even the stodgiest pudding of a format. Last night’s hour saw her inviting four celebrities – Alex Jones, Adil Ray, Darcey Bussell and Fearne Cotton – into her home to cook up a feast. Berry would produce something splendiferous and highly calorific, and then the celebrity would suggest a recipe of their own – quivering all the while at the thought of having to cook under the supervision of the reigning TV cookery queen.
If recipes are your thing then there were plenty of good ones here, but as TV it was a programme without a single new idea in it. And yet somehow the interactions between Berry and her guests were entirely riveting. In one glorious moment, Jones tried to add a bit more booze to her Christmas cake saying, “One for the road, Mary?” – only to be instantly slapped down by a school ma’amish Berry saying, “No, we’re not having one for the road.”
This continued throughout, with Ray offering to tell Berry about this thing called Twitter (“No. I don’t do that”) and on into Cotton expressing concern that chocolate roulade was beyond her abilities (“You’ll find out young lady”). It was wonderful to watch the celebrities so desperate for the approval of this mildly disapproving mother figure – a mother figure, however, who still insisted on doing her own washing up.
The League of Gentlemen ★★★★★ Mary Berry’s Christmas Party ★★★★