July 15th, 2005
Are you local?
The League of Gentleman is a dark British comedy chronicling the lives of an array of bizarre characters that reside in the sheltered town of “Royston Vasey”–”You’ll never leave!” It has won numerous awards over a wide media: radio, stage and TV. So the next logical step was obviously a film, though the cult following were a little apprehensive (it was one of the cult following that introduced me to the series). I could understand why, as The League of Gentlemen is primarily a sketch show, albeit with a loose plot. Some of the characters don’t interact with each other at all, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to work.
The League of Gentlemen are: Jeremy Dyson, Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith, between them they play all the characters of Royston Vasey, impressive since getting the camera trickery right must take a long time. It even surpasses the Eddie Murphy shenanigans in The Nutty Professor, seemingly a lot of thought goes into the attire of The League of Gentlemen characters, and it definitely shows, as they all look so different. It works so well, in fact, that I didn’t catch on that a lot of characters were played by the same actors when I first started watching the TV series. I’m a bit rubbish with faces, and names, and names to faces.
I’m not sure how someone who hadn’t seen the series would react to Apocalypse. A lot of the characters only have cameos, and while they are welcome to fans, the casual film goer wouldn’t really appreciate mad Papa Lazarou, or Micky. It also relies somewhat on some previous knowledge of the “meat” incident with Hillary Briss, to properly understand his role in the film.
Maurice: You mean… you don’t eat the special stuff?
Hillary Briss: Someone has to stay in control.
Well, that was really just an excuse to put in a funny quote, but in certain parts of the film Briss does show his devious side, previously employed in keeping the high demand for the “special stuff”. Moreover, as long as you don’t worry about understanding every single reference and in-joke, I’m sure any person can enjoy Apocalypse. Needless to say, if you are a fan of the odd–almost surreal, then try and see this film at all costs.
The plot is quite good, so I’ll try not to spoil it. Though there was something that Tubbs said in one of the TV episodes that might give you some inkling of what it is all about:
Tubbs: You lied to me Edward. You lied to me. There is a Swansea… and other places.
The plot did allow scene gallivanting, keeping in tune with the sketch-nature of the series, but sometimes the characters suffered when they had to be serious to keep things moving. The office scene nearly halfway into the film was even slightly boring. However after that, things quickly picked up and things once again ventured into the surreal with Jeff discovering the story on the computer. The “human house” was just plain weird, the biggest laughs from the audience came just from a simple on-screen–”ooh!”
Herr Lipp stole the show as the homosexual German with the canny ability to form a pun-a-minute with his native tongue struggling with English. In the series he is one of the largely one-dimensional characters; it was very interesting to see his character fleshed out in the film.
I have only one real criticism of Apocalypse and that is there wasn’t enough of Tubbs and Edward! Nevertheless, if you’re getting tired of seeing films that don’t have houses made out of live humans, suspicious butchers selling “special stuff”, and very stiff upper lips, then you really do owe it to yourselves to see Apocalypse.
July 26th, 2005 at 11:53 am
The DVD won’t be released till October, but sadly I’ll probably wait till it’s out to buy a copy, rather than go to the cinema.
I love the first two League of Gentlemen, and got really rather weirded out by the last few episodes of the final season but I’ll most definitely want to see the Apocalypse.
Tubbs, Edward and Papa Lazarou have gained a particular place in our hearts at home, so we’ll be hopelessly attracted to the DVD like a moth to the flame…
“Edward, Edward! Look, chiiiildrrren!”
“They’re not children, Tubbs! They’re monsters!”
July 26th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
So sad when I thought T&E had been killed off.
Heh … crazy.