The League of Gentlemen - C/D? (now with added Psychoville)

It's not that the new stuff was disturbing, just kind of off-putting and underwritten

What kind of offputting?

Would have liked to see the butcher. Cant think of many other absences but I'm sure there was.

I hope they return to this in some fashion, I'd be sad if there was no more Papa Lazarou.

Agree that this was fanficcy and very much all setup and no payback. Felt like some plotlines were just too slight or something - an extra episode would have allowed them to breathe. The whole Benjamin plot was just an excuse to reference a bunch of old horror movies but was tonally off and just didn't go anywhere

Didn't think the Hallowe'en Inside No 9 was the work of genius some quarters are making it out to be, mainly because I remember Ghostwatch. The one touch of genius was Reece directing everyone to his Twitter and the live content there.

Maybe it was more effective if you'd been following all the set-up but I don't habitually read The Sun, watch The One Show etc. To be fair, Reece was telling us all to.

If I hadn’t been trying to tweet a pic of the screen I’d have turned off because I r idiot

i wonder if OPS were warned about it in advance?

i hadn't seen that bobby davro clip before.

I still can't work out which bits were legit 'live' or if somehow ALL of it was. It was an insane feat of trickery and planning.

I'd like to say all of it, but I think the night vision stuff probably wasn't - too much potential for things to go wrong running about in the pitch black, particularly with respect to timings.

That was pretty bold, assuming people wouldn't switch off in frustration/go and make a cup of tea like I did at the start of the repeat.

The bits in the dressing room were certainly live as they flickd through what was actually on the other BBC channels at the time.

I liked that they portrated themselves as massively unsympathetic.

I watched recently this on iPlayer. The creepiest moment was when my laptop died during the final "Sorry we're having problems with the broadcast" message.

I've never seen this show before - any standout other episodes?

Best advice I can give us that all episodes have a twist which in I think 90% of instances is obvious to anyone who's watched anything much that would get referenced on the Creepy British TV etc thread. A couple are telegraphed really early on and you just have to go with it.

My picks (in no order):

Tom and Gerri
A Quiet Night In
The Understudy
Nana's Party
Seance Time
The Devil of Christmas
Riddle of the Sphinx
Diddle Diddle Dumpling
Zanzibar
Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room

12 Days of Christine is the award winner and the canon pick but I don't actually think it's much cop.

the one they started showing as a replacement was quite effective. "A Quiet Night In" (S01E02)

the others that jump out at me from the episode lists are:

"The 12 Days of Christine" (S02E02)

"The Riddle of the Sphinx" (S03E03)

but it's generally quite watchable.

> but I don't actually think it's much cop.

xpost!

My issue with it is that the twist is so transparent from the start that I can't take it seriously. It's well acted and shot, I'll give you that, but to my mind Tom & Gerri and Bernie Clifton mine similar territory more effectively.

Oh yeah, I did watch that Christine episode but blanked it out. You're right, the ending was quite obvious. Also a bit of "we are comedians but this our SERIOUS ARTISTIC one" worthiness.

Nah there are loads of good ones, but the WE ARE BEING CREEPY NOW ones are typically the worst.

My ten would be:

Sardines
A Quiet Night In
Last Gasp
12 Days of Christine
Nana's Party
The Bill
The Riddle of the Sphinx
Zanzibar (probably my #1 overall)
Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room
Once Removed

The most recent one isn't even in the top 20 best episodes.

The Harrowing, Private View and To Have And To Hold are all worse.

I have a soft spot for the Elizabeth Gadge one because it's the only one played as an overt comedy.

That's the worst of the lot I think, there's a real feeling of rejected LoG sketch about it.

Yeah, I'm aware I'm swimming against the tide there.

I enjoyed that one.

I commented on the UK Comedy thread, but I watched this Sunday night and found it a bit 'will this do?' It was almost worth it for the Bobby Davro clip.

I've only dabbled, but my favourites have been

A Quiet Night In
Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room
Once Removed
The Riddle of the Sphinx

The rhyming one in the hotel was so far onto the whimsy scale I don't quite know how I made it through.

(wasn't that hotel one based on some shakespeare?)

It was all in iambic pentameter. It was clever and inventive but it was so damned pleased with itself! Farce? FARSE, morelike.

I realise I'm not being entirely rational.

If anyone was thinking out of nostalgia, or even boredom, watching the last live show on iPlayer (the Beeb screened it last night) then for the love of Christ don't. Absolutely execrable. Shockingly bad.

A day later I'm still annoyed at just how bad/lazy this was. To save you the effort:

The conclusion of the reunion specials (Tubbs in the photo booth, 'wife mine now') plays on the big screen then Edward and Tubbs sing a version of 'Papa Can You Hear Me' from Yentl.
Gatiss does the bingo caller monologue from the reunion shows. (Familiarity makes this less successful than the first time it was on,but it's still excellent.)
Bernice appears on the big screen 'backstage' reading a question from the audience to which her answer is basically "suck it up, snowflake". (More on this later.)
Herr Lipp gets two people from the audience to read out German phrases that sound a bit rude as homophones in English. (Which completely undoes the excellent work in the movie.)
Dr Chinnery slices the face off a panda with a laser. (No, it really is just that. No real setup or routine to go with it to speak of.)
Bernice appears on the big screen 'backstage' reading a question from the audience to which her answer is basically "suck it up, snowflake". (More on this later, again.)
Aunty Val is getting married again, Papa Laz is doing the ceremony. (It's about 5 interminable response of call & response blackface ooga-booga and monkey dancing. Really.)
Benjamin recalls a morning when Uncle Harvey pissed on him, Aunty Val shit on him, he spewed on Harvey who then got a massive hard-on. (Medical terms make everything funny, right?)
Les McQueen sings a song about his failed life in music. (Jeremy Dyson appears on the big screen during it, in probably the least embarrassing part of the whole endeavour.)
Bernice appears on the big screen 'backstage' reading a question from the audience to which her answer is basically "suck it up, snowflake". A guy in the audience claims it's fake shock so she comes out from round the back and shoots him with a crossbow. (Then leaves without a punchline.)
Pauline reveals her dementia and death were faked for the insurance. She kills Ross and then her and Mickey have sex. (The big joke in this part is her spitting spunk after a blow job into a glass.)
Tubbs has a nightmare after a Scottish Theresa May steals away Edward because of something to do with her fanny that I can't remember. She snaps back to the present, her and Edward reprise the Yentl song and he blows up the mine. (With no jokes.)

Piss poor.

God when was this, performed?

Last year, post-reunion tour.

I enjoyed it when it was actually live, although the first half which was mostly classic sketches was definitely better and perhaps we were carried along in the momentum. They were never very good at gross-out humour and I remember thinking it didn't translate well to being at the back of a theatre.

Sounds like they only screened the second half of the show?

Apparently the first half was a greatest hits thing in black tie? So yes, just the second half.

Inside #9 starts again on monday

I like the characters but that just felt like fan service to me.

Yeah but pretty lovable fan service. My partner has never seen Psychoville and still enjoyed it.

I've got to admit I did a little cheer when he showed up at the door.

thought the referee one was great but that psychoville one was dire. see also the league of gentlemen specials, they're much better off putting plenty of distance between themselves and that cartoon grotesquery (which I did like back in the day)

Ah no, I love a bit of cartoon grotesquery every now and then!

Agree the LoG specials were rubbish.

been reading reviews of last night and there clearly seems to be a clamour for new psychoville material so I should probably just say that it's not for me

Referee one was tremendous.

payoff was tremendous

Yes! Haven't really paid attention to these guys for ages and very much enjoyed that referee story, even if you can see the writing process a bit too clearly at times. The punchline was excellent.

Never seen Psychoville so didn't recognise that last night but it was less good because same old obsessions they've already worn out. Didn't hate it tho.

The best five or so Inside No. 9s are up there with the best British telly of the last ten years but the self-consciously creepy ones are usually the worst.

it's the one everyone mentions but i'd put 12 days of christine up against any half hour of british telly ever. i cried

I loved Psychoville but it didn't really translate to a one-off here.
Loved the ref one.

there's a podcast for each episode of the new series, inside inside no. 9

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0824y01

Rewatched League with its new 'jokes of the time' warning (which seems strange attached to the reunion specials) and the first two series really feel like radio forced into the telly.

It's funnier than I was worried I might find it, but an awful lot of the humour is in the 'laugh at the grotesques' category, like some modern freaks how. Gatiss' monologues are a treat though.

I've also realised the opening titles are formatted directly like Chopping Mall, which I'm not sure I've heard the connection before. Will bring it up with them when the twitter strike is over.

That new Inside #9 was something.

Did you like? I'm a sucker for this kind of clever-clever meta stuff but could easily imagine it seeming insufferable to others.

I enjoyed it a lot, but then I'm (as are Pemberton and Shearsmith) a fan of pantomime and music hall which are very closely related. I'm also a sucker for 'your expectations were confounded and thence the humour arose' so the Genoa/Chicago/Alaska joke was my highlight.

I wouldn't be surprised if many found it exceptionally annoying though, especially the ultra-meta stuff from Gemma Whelan.

i'd've put the meta episode later in the series. seemed odd to start there.

it was a "clever" excuse to have tons of dad-jokes (and I liked it)