Following their brief return in 2017, The League of Gentlemen announced a much-anticipated live tour. The big question being, after all this time, do Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith still have the old magic to creep us out and make us belly laugh at the same time? Was the loop of Neil Sedaka’s Greatest Hits playing as the audience entered a sign that the League has mellowed, or just luring the audience into a very false sense of security? STARBURST went along to the Leeds Arena to find out.
The audience were treated to two very distinct halves: the first half consisted of the League’s members all dressed out in tuxedos and giving the audience some of their most well-known sketches, this included Go-Johnny-Go-Go-Go-Go, the card game no one knows how to play, a well-know audition for orange juice with a certain Pam Doove (“ESHCOOOO MEEEE…!), Legz Akimbo theatre doing ‘Perve Swerve’ (a play about paedophilia), Pops meeting his son’s new girlfriend, and Patricia and Olive at the dating agency. Meanwhile, the second half involved more costume and continuity from the 2017 specials; Edward, seeking to save Tubbs from the ‘Wife Mine’ all through the medium of song; Mr Chinnery trying to remove cataracts from a panda (what could possibly go wrong?), Mickey and Ross paying their last respects at Pauline’s funeral (that is until she turns up!) and Herr Lipp giving us his take on learning German to two unexpecting members of the audience.
The League of Gentlemen absolutely nailed it! The blend of the ‘greatest hits’ as it were gave the audience exactly what it wanted and the continuity of the series in the second half was equally as strong and left the audience laughing and cheering (even Tubbs wasn’t going to listen to the local Tory candidate!). The sheer dedication from the stars of the League with the quality of the writing, the detail in their work (if you were eagle-eyed, you would’ve spotted Jeremy Dyson!) the slick move between scenes and costumes, and even the corpsing of all three actors at one point or another in the show, just added to the sheer joy.
Some have suggested that this may be the last output for the team as is, if this was the case, this tour has definitely been the way to go out with a bang!
