The League of Gentlemen Live Again!
O2 Arena London, 23rd September 2018
The Tourist really dislikes the O2 Arena. Awful sound, brutal lighting, terrible sightlines, cavernous, uncomfortable seats, no water, sh*te loos. Pretty much pointless choosing to “see” anything there. Still sometimes, as here, you have no choice.
And this, to repeat,was the League of Gentlemen, in the flesh. Mandatory. So off we trooped the SO, BD, LD and a couple more “local people” (really). Thanks to a cavalier approach to timing from yours truly, reasoning nothing ever starts on time there (this did), and a bloody ridiculous trek all the way round the Arena to get back to where started from for our allotted entrance, we snuck in late.
Still pretty easy to get into the swing of things with Go Johnny Go Go Go first up. The first half sees our three heroes in evening dress running through some classic sketches with blackouts whilst the furniture was re-arrranged. The second half is more ambitious with set and costume changes, with assistance from pre-recorded video to brings things together, (and get characters on and off stage). Now I am going to assume that you are either a fan or not. Either way there would be no point in my rabbiting on about the detail of the evening’s proceedings. Some sketches and sequences worked better than others, the same way that some characters make some of us laugh more than some others. For me the highlights were Legz Akimbo, (with Reece Shearsmith at his bitter best in Olly Plimsolls), Pop (especially when Steve Pemberton goaded Shearsmith into corpsing), Mordant Mick and Herr Lipp. Especially Herr Lipp with a bit of audience participation. For BD it was probably Edward and Tubbs, complete with musical theatre number, for LD it was Pauline and for the SO, as it always has been, it was Pam Doove.
That is the way it has always been. I get that some find LoG dark and disturbing. Not me. Though the third series does get a little weird I accept. The SO kept BD, and then LD, away from Royston Vasey for many years until they were “ready” and MS said he found it a bit scary at first. Just as well then I wasn’t in charge of their viewing as to me it is just funny.
What is interesting in seeing the LoG now, in this live show and in the recent three new episodes, after some sixteen years since the original three TV series’ came out, is not how grotesque it is, too much exposure to think that, but actually how direct it is. Not the often unreconstructed nature of the comedy, that was part of the point, but actually how rooted in comedy history so many of the set ups are. Which is what makes it so funny. An absurdly camp German trotting out a string of preposterous double entendres is not radical in any way. It is though one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The dark heart of comedy I suppose.
Now we know that Messrs Gatiss, Pemberton and Shearsmith, and, in his own way the silent partner, Jeremy Dyson, have all gone on to copious writing and performing success, on big and small screen and on stage, and in other guises. They are all brilliant in their very different ways. Which means that this is not some desperate revival show done for cash. And they were never going to dash off any old tosh. Way too clever for that. They all look like they are having a ball in the show but I have to say that Steve Pemberton, who let’s face it always nabbed the best of the grotesques, had the most presence.
Special stuff.
At Home He Feels Like A Tourist 