Rating: 
Summary: A Comedy Lifeline
Review: As an expat Englishman living in the US (Washington DC) I was overjoyed to find Comedy Central airing a very dark and disturbing British comedy, "The League of Gentlemen". The show starts in good form with a strange and eery soundtrack. The humour is top class and clearly in the best tradition of the British comedy tradition. It combines the best elements of the Pythonesque with more traditional pantomime and the Northern comic style of Morecombe & Wise or Reeves and Mortimer. I haven't enjoyed a TV comedy this much since Fawlty Towers. You HAVE to get this DVD.The League of Gentlemen is delighfully in poor taste, totally irreverent, and yet the characters are endearing, despite their homicidal and psychopathic peccadilos. The show will rank with Monty Python and Fawlty Towers as a masterpiece of British TV comedy.
Rating:
Summary: One of the funniest shows I have every seen!
Review: One of the most brilant,funny Britsh comedy shows I have every seen! The writting is superb and the team is very talanted. I recomed for all, if you like Monty Python you will love The League of Gentlemen!
Rating:
Summary: Best comedy of last year? Possibly.....
Review: This is a superb BBC comedy series, that is well acted and simply too funny. What makes it so great is the orginality of the whole series - be warned it is very bizzare, but therein lies it's charm. As the name suggests there are no women actors in this series, any women charachters are played by the 4 male leads. This DVD includes the entire first series, which is the best of the two. The second series of The League of Gentlemen was a bit *too* bizzarre, and not really that funny. The show is in the style of a comedy sketch show, but there is an ongoing storyline of Benjamin's attempts to escape the bizzarre town of Royston Vasey. This DVD is well worth a purchase if you are looking for something a bit different, or if you are just looking for something hilarious. This series hasnt been broadcast in America, as far as I know, but in the UK it has won several awards. BUY IT NOW.
Rating:
Summary: Ignore all the BBC crap you usually see on PBS...
Review: Unless you have been lucky enough to catch the League Of Gentlemen series on Comedy Central, or, indeed, are a Brit like me who caught it on BBC 2 last year and this, you probably won't be bothered risking your hard-earned on this vid. If you stopped reading my review here I wouldn't blame you either. But please read on. Ok, it's comedy, but what *kind* of comedy is it? It's a very, VERY black comedy, presented in mini serial format. Based around a somewhat inward-looking village in Northern England called Royston Vasey, the series follows Royston Vasey's rather odd inhabitants, very similar to that of a soap opera. Nothing groundbreaking so far, I know. But what makes this series stand out from the crowd of other BBC also-rans ("Keeping Up Appearances" and "One Foot In The Grave" spring instantly to mind) is the quality of the show. Each episode plays out with all the cinematographic flair of a classic movie. A major contributing factor in this would be the use of 35mm camerawork throughout. The original musical score runs almost the whole length of each 28 minute episode and changes to reflect the situation onscreen, often quite upbeat, but every so often rather sinister. The comedic acting is absoultely brilliant. The League's three actors (the 4th member is the producer) have obviously spent countless hours watching classic horror films, as each of them delivers line after line of hilarious dialogue, overshadowed by sinister expression, and over-play. The three actors play all the characters - A voodoo-like circus ringmaster, a German homosexual tour guide with murderous tendancies; a bizarre, almost creature-like, shopkeeper and his even stranger wife; the butcher who's most popular product, his "Special Stuff", is an addictive and secret 'something' only shared amongst a few of the villagefolk; a Job Centre Restart Officer who wallows in her ability to downput her 'Jobseekers'; the Cab driver - a big hairy bear of a man who wears a hot pink mini-dress and stilettos... etc etc... This Vid/DVD I would only recommend if you have in the past laughed at something you knew deep down you really shouldn't have. It's that way. If you are the above kind of person, though, You won't find anything, comedy-wise at least, as cutting edge or refreshingly new and entertaining as this. If you do buy this, you'll want to tell your friends to come over and see it for themselves before the end of the first episode. I guarantee it.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Things I've Seen in Years!
Review: My sister introduced me to "The League of Gentlemen" a few months back, and I have to say I haven't laughed as hard in a long time. I would personally describe the show as a hybrid between "Kids in the Hall" and "Northern Exposure." It's a mixture of sketch comedy performed by men (often playing women), but set in a quirky town in northern England in which almost anything can and does happen. However, although it has elements of "sketch comedy," it's not just a series of unrelated skits like, say, Saturday Night Live. It's a coherent whole of scenes in which recurring characters (all played by the same small group of actors) appear and play their part in a bizarre and outlandish world. I have a feeling that if a person just doesn't "get" or just doesn't like English comedy, they may well not enjoy "The League of Gentlemen." However, I think for a person whose tastes run toward things like "Monty Python," "Kids in the Hall," "Northern Exposure" and "Twin Peaks," this will be right up their alley. The humor is dark and unforgiving. The social commentary is at times biting. It's the sort of show that you know if they ever tried to replicate it in the USA, it would be ruined by the censors and network executives who would never allow the various extremes that appear in "The League of Gentlemen." And, at least in my opinion, it is the bizarre extremes to which the show goes that make it worth watching in the first place. It's very clever and ghoulishly funny.
Rating:
Summary: Bizarre, gruesome, utterly original comedy...
Review: The League of Gentlemen is quite literally in a class of 1. There is simply nothing like it but itself. If you imagine a more coherent version of Monty Python's Flying Circus, then take some PCP, you might get the idea... it is gruesome, vicious, and brilliant comedy. Really, comparing it to Monty Python only makes sense insofar as they are both truly crazy in a way that winds up funny... they are nothing alike, aside from maybe some similarities in the underlying mindset of the players. Oh, and the damn Brit accents. Attempts to describe it to someone who hasn't seen it are bound to fail. It simply must be experienced to be believed. It is funny and brilliant, but also horribly "wrong" and just plain bad in a way that makes you want to take a shower after watching it, or soak in a heavily chlorinated pool for a while.
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Summary: ONLY ON REGION 2 DVD PLAYER
Review: Having read all the reviews for the League of Gentlemen,i am surprised to see the amount of ppl complaining that the Region 1 version is not available in USA.I invested in a multi-region DVD player,not much more expensive than your standard players,and i am now able to purchase mail-order USA region 1 movies (e.g Troma films).Why dont the ppl who are complaining about this matter just buy a region-free DVD player too....there...problem solved. Trust me,the 2nd series of The League of Gentlemen is better than the 1st as there are new and more bizarre characters aswell as all the rest you have seen b4...more bizarre,more sick,more funny....NOW GO OUT AND BUY A MULTI-REGION DVD PLAYER...NOW ;-)
Rating:
Summary: Soap Opera + Grotesque Comedy = Surreal Genius
Review: Please welcome "The League of Gentlemen", the comedy troupe who have brought one of the only decent comedies TV, British and American, has seen for a long, long time. After turning from a stage sensation to an award-winning radio show in their native England, the League brought TV audiences to their own little Northern England village, Royston Vasey. And nothing would prepare the viewers for the weird and wonderful delights they would bring. And like the best comedy shows, it is unbelievably compulsive, like a really good soap opera. The first series introduces us to some wonderful, original comic monstrosities: Tubbs and Edward Tattsyrup, owners of the isolated 'Local Shop' on the moors overlooking the town; Pauline the restart officer, who abuses and berates her 'jobseekers'; Dr. Chinnery, the town vet who subscribes all of his patients accidental death. The list is endless, and yet all of them are given their moments to shine, not only as caricatures tailored to make you laugh but also as genuine characters whom you feel sorry for. The last episode of the series eschews some of the laughs and injects some actual pathos into the show, and finishes on a high that is both funny and ultimately very touching ... there won't be a dry eye in the house. The reason the show works though is because of the talented troupe behind it, the core reason why the show exists in the first place. With co-writer Jeremy Dyson watching over them, cast members Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith each earn kudos for bringing all of these characters so vividly to life, and for rendering them as whole characters rather than some cheap laughs. And they take full advantage of the visual medium, as well as the budget of the TV show, to bring us some wonderful costumes and makeup on the characters, as well some clever-clever referencing to some past works of horror ("The Wicker Man" and "The Shining" to name a couple). As for the DVD, everything remains intact from the Region 2 version, which I bought last year, including a wonderful commentary from the League and series director Steve Bendelack and a few deleted sketches. Watch out for the second series double-disc edition (which I have, ha!) which has the 'local gossip' and the 'missing' scenes, as well as a behind-the-scenes documentary and music videos(!). And yes, the second season itself, as well as the Christmas 2000 special and the recent live show in England, continue the characters through to some weird and wonderful places! And, no, "you'll never leave" ...
Rating:
Summary: The Best of British
Review: If you like the witty and often macabre humour the British are renoun for this is one of the funniest comedies I've seen since Black Adder.
You really need to watch it more than once as you'll often be laughing and miss the next gag.
As the series progresses, they do get darker, and are less "ha ha" funny and more "thats sick" funny.
Everyone I've lent my copies to have loved them and you'll find them laughing with you as you parry with some of the classic lines,...." Yes....Can I help you", " Spread eagled on pillows", " Okee Pokee...." etc etc
Rating:
Summary: DVD format troubles
Review: This show is great, as are some other British comedy shows done in a similar satirical style, particularly Brass Eye, Jam, Trigger Happy TV and I'm Alan Partridge (first series where he's living in a hotel). But I wish British broadcasters would make these available on a North America-compatible format. League of Gentlemen is the only one of these I've found so far that I can use. If any British broadcasters are reading this, please, please speed up making these gems available here too.
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