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Critically acclaimed and rapidly breeding a cult following, the bizarre BBC television series The League of Gentlemen is to sitcoms like The Good Life or even Friends what David Lynch's films are to Frank Capra movies. Instead of the usual one-family-in-suburbia or group-of-pals set up, Gentlemen centres on the whole town of Royston Vasey. A Northern village of, to say the least, eccentric characters, the weird people of Royston Vasey look like they've been intermarrying for too long and are suffering from a particularly demented variety of xenophobia that drives them to extremes of tetchiness and psychosis. There's the local shopkeepers Edward and Tubbs, who go to murderous lengths to ensure their shop remains for local people only; the Denton family, toad-breeders obsessed with maintaining their household rituals at all costs; inept veterinary surgeon Dr Chinnery, who's never yet saved a patient; Barbara, the local transsexual taxi driver (one of the show's more well adjusted characters); Pauline the demonic Restart Officer at the local Job Centre; and Lance, the sadistic owner of Lance's Joke Shop which sells poisonous sweets and the ever-popular finger in a matchbox (with a real finger), among many others.
Mark Gatiss