Several years ago, Shepard Ritzen, of the great Thrift Store Music blog, came to me and said, “You have to watch this show!” He dialed it up on BBC On Demand, and I watched this dry, bizarre documentary about people working in an office for this total douchebag of a boss. And so, months before it became a breakout hit, I learned of “The Office”. Later, when heading out for a day in Philly, Shep sat me down and showed me a few clips of this weird hairless fellow and his buddy doing sketch comedy. The hairless guy, who looks like a potato, was wearing a huge blonde curl wig and dressed like a fourteen year old girl, and she starts blathering on about “Yes, but no, but yes.” And thus, I was introduced to the hilarity that is “Little Britain”.
So when Shep talks, I listen.
Earlier this year, when he came out for a visit to Los Angeles, Shep was telling me that I have to get my hands on something called “The League of Gentlemen”. He described it as my kind of thing, it mixes horror with sketch comedy. So I said, sure, why not, I’ll add it to the Netflix Queue.
As I’ve said before, while I’m working at the office, and if I’m alone, I’ll fire up a video on the streaming Watch Instantly. Since the League was available, I decided to start watching it. Holy shit, I didn’t get anything done that day.
I can’t believe this series has not caught on over here, or at least that I haven’t heard more people fauning cultishly over it. It’s definitely a generation or two stepped down from Monty Python or The Kids in the Hall, sketch comedy featuring the same four or five actors playing various characters, most of which are women, and not pretty ones at that. But The League of Gentlemen takes it to another level.
Because not only are these a couple of guys playing an army of characters in and around the same tiny village of Royston Vasey, but there’s a through line. It’s as if someone took a gothic horror piece, something like Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, and did it up as a comedy with four guys playing all the parts. Because despite the laugh out loud comedy and the sketchy vignettes, its got an actual storyline, one that arcs through each seasons six episodes, and through the series as a whole.
You actually see these characters evolve and emerge beyond the simple throw away jokes or laugh lines. You feel for them when terrible things befall them, and oh, my fucking god, do terrible things happen. It’s a really gruesome series, and I can see the overthetop grotsequerie throwing people’s tastes off. In one episode, a through joke occurs with a dog. A man on a bicycle is letting some kids pet his dog. Then he rides off, dragging the protesting dog behind him. Later, we see him riding past, the now long dead dog dragging behind on a rope. Even later, we see him dragging the dead dog, this time being pursued by a pack of wild dogs. Then, just the frayed rope. It’s horrible, but horribly true to the spirit of the show. One character commits suicide at his surprise birthday party because he thinks people forgot about him. Yeah, it’s fucking dark.
There are three series of six episodes each, and one Christmas Special that takes place between series two and three. If you liked KITH and Monty Python, this is a must-see. But only if you are ready for this to take you to a really uncomfortable level. Because of some of the storylines are pretty grim. But always, always sickly and disturbingly funny.
