Still a league apart as comedy legends return to region
FOR FANS of the acclaimed comedy quartet The League of Gentlemen, it has been 12 long years waiting for their joint return to the live stage.
But after a well-received return to television last December with three special episodes, Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith are heading back to their roots with a 31-date theatre and arena tour.
The group have strong links to Yorkshire, having all met while studying drama at the now-defunct Bretton Hall College of Education in Wakefield.
Dyson, who helps write the show but stays off-stage due to a selfconfessed lack of acting skills, grew up in Leeds and lives in Ilkley, while Reece Shearsmith is originally from Hull.
Their tour will include a performance in Shearsmith’s home city on September 4, while the dates also include shows in York, Leeds and Sheffield.
Focusing on the weird and wonderful inhabitants of Royston Vasey, whose motto is ‘You’ll never leave’, the new tour will bring back to life dozens of quirky, strange and often quite scary characters who have become part of popular culture since their screen debuts back in 1999.
Between them, the four men have enjoyed enormous success with other projects since The League of Gentlemen’s original run finished back in 2002, but they say it has been a fantastic experience venturing back to the world of Royston Vasey together.
Gatiss explains: “The lovely thing is we are doing it because we want to do it and not because we have to do it.
Many reunions tend to be for the money and have a sense of desperation about them. But this isn’t like that. We have talked for ages about doing something again because we never split up. We just stopped doing it. So it’s very special to be doing it with a happy heart rather than a sense of obligation.
Pemberton adds: “The extraordinary thing is we were all friends before any of this even existed. It’s all grown out of our friendship. The fact that we are able to keep working together, having known each other for 30 years is very moving. A lot of people don’t get to do that.”
Dyson says writing for the stage is a different discipline to scripting the show for television.
“What I’ve always loved about the live shows and what still defines them now is the rigour and discipline that they impose on the writing. From the very beginning, we had a rule that only one prop or item of clothing was allowed to define a character. When we started in the mid-1990s with a residency at the Canal Cafe Theatre in London, it had a tiny dressing room, so everything had to go in a carrier bag. That meant you really had to think about the character when writing it.”
Shearsmith says their work as The League of Gentlemen lends itself to live performances.
“The League of Gentlemen was never better than when it was live. The thing that surprised people was the theatricality of it. It was properly thrilling to be in the audience. There was such horror and silence and awkwardness – which were then broken by laughter. We managed to manipulate the audience into feeling really uncomfortable and then breaking it with a big laugh. It was palpably brilliant when we had those moments.”
The tour begins in Torquay on August 11 and travels across the UK until September 29. Gatiss says: “These characters have endured so well because people have remained really fond of them. That is such a thrill for us. The fans are really excited to meet these characters again that they haven’t seen for 15 years. It’s wonderful. Frequently the best part of it all is seeing the audience.”
To book tickets, visit https://leagueofgentlemen.live.