29.01.2008

Buying now

If you have any signed merchandise that you want to sell contact us and we will make you an offer.

08.01.2008

Dog days

Nothing to do with the League but if you have a dog have a look at a new website, Friends of Fido it sells amazing Dog Accessories as well as an amazing lead that stops dogs pulling, the Gentle Leader.

3/1/2008

Happy new year!

This isn't a new article but it is good reading regardless, enjoy!

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20000217/ai_n14290478/pg_1

18/12/2007

Reece Shearsmith tells why he's relieved that his latest TV role is so different from the freaks and grotesques he plays in The League of Gentlemen If anyone in that gallery of grotesques known as The League of Gentlemen could be described as handsome without the macabre make-up, then Reece Shearsmith is your man. The Michael Palin of The League, he is, at 38, the youngest and the most boyish-looking away from the cameras. On screen, he's only too unsettling as the lascivious, glistening-toothed lady vicar Bernice Woodall, or the snouty-nosed, homicidal shopkeeper Edward Tattsyrup, who is incestuously married to his sex-crazed spinster sister Tubbs in Royston Vasey, the kinkiest village in Britain. But, as himself, the affable Shearsmith looks surprisingly wholesome when I meet him at ITV's London headquarters, until I suddenly catch him scrutinising me with a slit-eyed stare (a gifted cartoonist, he sketches all The League's characters before they reach the screen). "I either get parts where I'm the lovable straight man, the eyes of the audience, or I'm a psychopath," he says. "I really like the idea that people can see me in both those lights." Indeed. In his latest role as a lovable straightman at the centre of his first mainstream television comedy, Shearsmith couldn't be further away from the psychopathic tendency that has served him so well. Anyone expecting him to do a Basil Fawlty as the assistant hotel manager presiding over spiralling chaos in the feature-length Christmas at the Riviera will encounter a hapless Manuel type instead - which was just the change he needed. "It was a relief to get away from the darkness of The League and play just one character instead of many, which is exhausting. And the gentle humour is very different to what I'm used to. We shoot ourselves in the foot sometimes in The League; it starts off funny, and then we deliberately twist the knife and make you feel uncomfortable. I sometimes think, 'Wouldn't it be nice to get some laughs out of something that has got heart?' I love Graham Fellows's John Shuttleworth persona because there's not a malicious bone in it. Being hard in comedy is easy because then you are hiding behind a cynicism that you think a lot of people will share." The League was always a gloriously cynical in-joke. It began as a dinner-jacketed throwback at the Cockpit Theatre in 1994, earned itself a radio show, and then transferred to television after winning the Perrier at Edinburgh in 1997. Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss were three friends from the North who had discovered a mutual interest in the Gothic while studying drama at Bretton Hall College in Wakefield. Four years after they had gone their separate ways, Gordon Anderson, who now directs Catherine Tate but who then ran the 606 Theatre Company with Pemberton, suggested they should get together on some sketches with the fourth Leaguer, Jeremy Dyson (who no longer performs but co-writes the scripts). "We never had a masterplan," says Shearsmith. "We just wanted to wrong-foot the audience with the name, the tuxedos, all very Establishment, and then do sketches that would subvert all that." The result spawned three TV series and two tours, a feature-length film, numerous awards and such celebrity fans as Paul McCartney, Tom Jones and Michael Palin (who likened it to his Ripping Yarns). Before disbanding in 2005, The League also ushered in the seemingly unstoppable television vogue for warped comedy that Shearsmith now calls "old hat". He readily admits that The League polarised audiences. "Some people found our programme really unwatchable. But, unlike the relentless torture porn of something like that horrible film Hostel, we never set out to shock; in fact, we would censor ourselves too much. We were going to do something violent to Barbara the transvestite taxi-driver, but we decided that letting the audience see her chopped-off member falling down the stairs would be too much. "I'm getting very squeamish in my old age. I could hardly even bear to watch that Borat film because it was so excruciatingly embarrassing for the people involved that I couldn't believe Sacha Baron Cohen's balls of steel. And, since having children, I find that Steve and I have got softer." (Shearsmith lives with his wife Jane and their two children - Holly, five, and Danny, three - just round the corner from Pemberton and his family in north London.) But not too soft, diehard League fans will be relieved to hear. Not only will Shearsmith be seen alongside Andy Serkis in the horror-comedy film The Cottage next March, but he and Pemberton have written a new BBC2 comedy series to be filmed next September with the giveaway title of Psychoville. Shearsmith will play a "very angry" children's party entertainer and Pemberton a man obsessed with serial killers. "I would hate to think we had suddenly got too soft, because it has some great shocking moments," says Shearsmith. As for The League, they are the slumbering undead who, so he assures me, will rise again. "They are in their tomb, waiting for us to resurrect them - probably in another film. We didn't tire of it, we just felt we should have a big break because, creatively speaking, we were at the bottom of the well. And one of our bugbears is that people don't regard us as actors. It's that old thing about comedy being perceived as slighter, more frivolous than straight drama." Which was why they all peeled off to do different projects, with Shearsmith playing Leo Bloom twice on stage in The Producers and also Jacques in a West End production of As You Like It, which marked Sienna Miller's theatre debut. The only one in his family with a showbusiness gene, the Hull-born Shearsmith was an artistic, solitary child, who spent his early years quietly decapitating his Action Men, buying records of Hammer House of Horror theme music, and being obsessed by The Omen, Alan Bennett, Victoria Wood and Edgar Allan Poe. His father works in the building trade, his mother is a doctor's receptionist, and his brothers are a fisherman and a carpenter. "But they are all very proud of The League, however odd it might seem," he says. "I still pinch myself that I'm having this fantastic life. Perhaps it's the Northerner in me, but I'm a pessimist; I still think that I'm going to be found out and that it will all stop tomorrow. You would think The League was one of the greatest showreels you could present to casting directors, but, in a weird way, we're quite anonymous because of the range of characters we play. So I'm still pathetically humble in auditions." But there's nothing fumbling about Shearsmith's deceptively innocent brand of humble. As his cartoonist's eye rakes me over with another sly scrutiny, I can't help thinking what a wonderful Uriah Heep he would make. 'Christmas at the Riviera' is on ITV1 on Christmas Eve.

20/09/2007

Get your bidding boots on!

Paul, the man who does fantastic things at the Gents Local Cinema, the Phoenix has asked me to help promote this:

Following our recent event with the Gents, we've been given the original Dr Majolica plaque from the Christmas Special by Steve. He's given us permission to sell it on ebay. Bid Here

All proceeds go to the Phoenix Cinema Trust 05/09/2007

Local Show - Phoenix Cinema event with The League of Gentlemen taking place this Sunday, 9th September, starting at 2.00pm

The League will be talking about their influences & introducing one of these influences, the film \'Theatre of Blood\' as well as their own Christmas Special, seen on the big screen. They will also be signing copies of their new book \'Book of Precious Things\', a collection of short stories, film scripts, tv shows, poems & even songs...of things that have inspired or influenced them. Tickets are £15.00 each. http://www.phoenixcinema.co.uk/films/sundayrep/index5.htm

31/8/2007

Jeremy and the Small wonder!

Jeremy Dyson is doing the 2007 Small Wonder short story festival. The event is on 22nd September and the link is www.charleston.org.uk/smallwonder/.

League of Gentlemen’s Shearsmith to star in ITV1 hotel comedy

Published Thursday 30 August 2007 at 14:10 by Matthew Hemley

Reece Shearsmith and Pam Ferris are to appear in an ITV1 comedy drama set in an Eastbourne hotel that has been left in the hands of a hapless assistant manager over Christmas

Christmas at the Riviera, made by Hotel Babylon producer Carnival Films, stars The League of Gentlemen’s Shearsmith as the assistant manager Ashley Dodds, who, left in charge at the last minute, is determined to make it a festive holiday to remember.

However, his plans go wrong when the guests start arriving and soon seasonal goodwill is put to the test.

Ferris plays man-eating divorcee Avril, alongside Warren Clarke as the cantankerous Maurice and Alexander Armstrong as Reverend Miles Rogers.

It has been written by Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni.

ITV director of drama Laura Mackie said: “Justin Sbresni and Mark Bussell’s lively and captivating script combines their talent for high comedy with poignant drama and captures all the highs and lows of the festive season.”

Carnival Films managing director Gareth Neame added: “This comedy drama film for Christmas, with its prestigious cast and creative team, further underlines Carnival’s commitment to build an exciting and diverse range of drama productions.

25/8/2007

I am aware that most of the visitors to this site are what some people call the youtube generation...Facebook, myspace etc...but how do you take really good pictures of you and your friends without having your camera stolen by a drunk idiot or how do you stop it falling of a wall whilst you are fiddling with the timer?

XShot is how. Imagine holding your arm out to take a photo of you and your friend...it's a bit rubbish, too close! Imagine a friend with 37 inch...arms! XShot is that friend!

Visit http://www.xshot.co.uk to see what I am on about! Or Visit http://www.xshotpix.co.uk

24/8/2007

21/8/2007

From Debs:

The two book signings planned for 4th September at Waterstones, Leadenhall Market and Borders, Oxford Street have been POSTPONED as one of the Gents has TV commitments that he can't get out of.

PLEASE NOTE...this does not effect the Phoenix Cinema event on Sunday, 9th September which is still going ahead as planned.

Mark in the Guardian

As one-quarter of The League of Gentlemen, Mark Gatiss is used to playing odd characters - great practice for his stage role in All About My Mother. He talks to Sarah Dempster

Well, of course it is. Gatiss's imagination thrives on such peculiarities. From The League of Gentlemen's hapless, unemployable Mickey Michaels to Nighty Night's sexually stunted Glenn Bulb, his characters are often bleakly hilarious fusions of the strange and the wrong.

Today, sitting in a quiet corner of the National Theatre's artificial turf lawn, Gatiss cuts a rakish figure. Resplendent in a flapping, 1930s-style pinstripe suit and fetching brogues, there is an air of Boy's Own mischief to the chap, a dandy-in-aspic glee that echoes that of Lucifer Box, the all-quipping, all-boffing secret service hero of Gatiss's literary period romps The Vesuvius Club, The Devil in Amber and still-in-the-planning Clawhammer (in which a now-elderly Box finds himself up to his walloping libido in 1950s naughtiness).

In much the same spirit of adventure, Gatiss's latest role is that of a forthright transvestite called Agrado in the Old Vic's production of All About My Mother - Pedro Almodóvar's beloved paean to female resilience. The rehearsals, he says, are going "swimmingly". His fellow cast members - who include Diana Rigg and Lesley Manville - are "just wonderful". And yet a cumulonimbus hovers on his otherwise tranquil horizon.

"Word came from Madrid," he confides, sotto voce, "that Pedro wants me to lose weight." Clearly, this is preposterous. The man is thinner than rhubarb. And yet, having seen snaps of Gatiss dressed as volcanic redhead Agrado, the Spanish director was apparently insistent. "I know from my experience on the League that you can get quite ... boxy," he says. "I've got to have a prosthetic chest and the more you build out, the bigger you become. Nobody's saying I'm fat. But basically, I'm off the bread."

Now 40, Gatiss's voice is as warm as a recently vacated bath chair, his northern inflections softened by his many years in London and an outlook that always reached far beyond the terraced rooftops of his Sedgefield, County Durham childhood. His CV bears testament to this ambition, his enduring fascination with nostalgia and grotesques, and the overriding, shining importance of Not Just Doing Any Old Rubbish. "I'm very lucky," he says. "I always used to say, in the olden days, when any kind of career looked like a pipe dream, that the thing I'd really like to do is become well known for something and then, as a result, be offered all kinds of different things. And that's exactly what's happened. That was my dream plan - I never thought it would ever happen. It's amazing how the League has opened so many wonderful doors."

Roles in The Wind in the Willows (as Rat), BBC4's live remake of The Quatermass Experiment (as a worried boffin), the excellent Fear of Fanny (as the titular Cradock's downtrodden husband) and Starter for Ten (as Bamber Gascoigne) have demonstrated his versatility, but it is his involvement with the multi-award-winning League of Gentlemen that continues to generate the loudest online burble.

Persistent forum-generated rumours that the troupe has called it a day are met by Gatiss with a mock-theatrical sigh. "We haven't split up. We're on a sabbatical. We had lunch the other day. But it's difficult at the moment because we're all doing different stuff."

Will there be future projects with fellow Gentlemen Steve Pemberton, Jeremy Dyson and Reece Shearsmith? "I certainly hope so. I mean, Steve and Reece have written a new BBC2 thing by themselves (Psychoville), so that's interesting. I don't want it to be seen as the League, or only half the League, as it were, but I suppose that's inevitable. But we all want to do something together.

"When we sort of paused, we'd been working together continuously for almost 12 years, from the beginning of our Fringe life to the film (The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse). I would never have been able to do a show like All About My Mother because we never had three months off. So I think it's a lovely thing to step off the treadmill. And because we've all done different stuff we'll come back with different experiences. Then it'll become a total pleasure to reform, rather than, 'What the hell are we going to do next?'"

Television remains a constant source of passion for Gatiss, its highs ("Upstairs, Downstairs is wonderful!") and lows ("I want to write a drama about ratings - the whole system is fucking bollocks!") negotiated with equal gusto. Above all, however, is his love of Doctor Who. "In a way, it's been the spine of my career," he says. "It was my first TV memory and I always wanted to be in it and write for it. In the interregnum, in the dark days, I wrote Doctor Who books [he has written four to date]. And then when it came back, Russell [T Davies] asked me to write for it. And now I've been in it as well [as Professor Lazarus]. So it's all fantastic - hah-hah!"

His home life displays a similarly chipper disregard for convention. A few years ago, Gatiss decided to build a Victorian laboratory in a spare bedroom. "We had this fabulous room, blood red, beautiful fireplace. I bought all the furniture, chemical bottles and a fantastic wax head of a Nubian boy with a fez on it. All original. Amazing stuff. But then all I ever did was show it to people. I'm not quite sure what I thought I was going to be able to do with it - turn back time or something. It was a folly. At one point, I toyed with the idea of covering it in cobwebs and then just showing people it through the keyhole. But it was a case of be careful what you wish for. I wanted a laboratory as a kid; then I had one and just thought, 'Oh'. So I dismantled it. I've kept nearly all of the stuff, though. It's around the house."

Does his partner, Ian, share his affection for such monstrosities? "He ... tolerates it," says Gatiss, affectionately. As, presumably, does the couple's rumpled, sensible labrador, Bunsen. "He is extraordinary. He's the light of our lives."

The next few months will see the genial multi-tasker juggle a flurry of new projects - a situation that Gatiss ("not a workaholic, but nearly") is "very comfortable" with. The BBC are planning to adapt his Lucifer Box novels, he will "possibly" write an episode for the fourth series of Doctor Who, and there will be appearances in Consenting Adults - a BBC4 drama based around the Wolfenden report - and Andrew Davies's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility: "I play John Dashwood, who has a terrible wife called Fanny. Yes, another Fanny! It's my fate. What have I done to deserve them?

"As long as I'm able to write and perform stuff that gives me the same excitement as I've always felt, I can't imagine wanting much else," says Gatiss, smoothing out the creases in his voluminous trousers in preparation for a suitably dandy-ish evening stroll. "To be able to sit down and write, 'Interior: Tardis'. Or write a very spooky ghost story. They're the same preoccupations I've had since I was little. That's what makes me happy".

All About My Mother is at The Old Vic from August 27. Box office 0870 060 6628.

oldvictheatre.com

17/8/2007

The League of Gentlemen's Book of Precious things

Available to pre-order Here

"The League of Gentlemen" have been making audiences laugh for years, but what makes them tick and what is behind their dark, twisted humour? In this book, all four members have assembled a stunning collection of prose, poetry, sketches, lyrics and classic film scenes to create a very special "Book of Precious Things". "The League of Gentlemen" was critically acclaimed when the first series was shown on BBC2 in 1999. Already known from their radio show "On The Town...," the League were much discussed, with their unique mixture of very black comedy and harrowing social observation set in the fictional town of Royston Vasey. With a mind-blowing mixture of influences from "Hammer Horror", "Carry On" and Martin Amis to Monty Python, Shakespeare and Victoria Wood, the League are utterly unique and more than a little disturbing!

12/8/2007

The Signs are back!

From today on you can now order the Welcome to Royston Vasey - You'll never leave! Road Signs, exactly the same as before, quality and quick delivery!

The first twenty ordered will receive a FREE League of Gentlemen Gift bag containing a mixture of merchandise from Beer mats and badges to ?? Well one will contain a Signed Apocalypse DVD! (Winners name will be avaulable after 31st September)

Click on the Advert at the top of the page or just buy now!

Book signings

Although its a while before the event I thought advanced notice would
be a good idea so anyone wanting to go has time to arrange travel,
getting time off work, college etc...

There are TWO signings on Tuesday, 4th September!

The League of Gentlemen

Jeremy Dyson, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith

The "League of Gentlemen"'s Book of Precious Things

WATERSTONE'S LEADENHALL MARKET

Tuesday, 4 September 2007, 12:30PM

The League of Gentlemen team will be signing their new book, a
collection of comedy sketches, films, songs and poems that inspire
them.

Further details: 020 7220 7882

Waterstone's Leadenhall Market
1-3 Whittington Avenue
London
EC3V 1PJ

The nearest two tube stations to Waterstone's Leadenhall Market are
Monument tube (5 minutes) or Bank (6 minutes). For railway stations,
Fenchurch Street Railway Station (6 minutes) or Cannon Street Railway
Station (8 minutes)

**I think the reason Mark can't make is because 'All About My Mother'
has its official opening night on 4th Sept...**

Then in the afternoon...

BORDERS, OXFORD STREET

Tuesday, 4 September 2007, 5.00pm

Borders,
197-203 Oxford Street,
London W1D 2LE

Tel: 0207 292 1600

**NB: Only books bought on that day at those particular shops will be
signed by the gents**

**Other items of memorabilia that fans want to get signed may be
limited to one**


Then on Sunday, 9th September there is an event for fans at the
Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley from 2-6pm with three of the Gents
(Reece won't be there unfortunately)

52 High Road, East Finchley, London N2 9PJ

Details to follow!!!!

Deborah

4/7/2007

Mark Mark and Mark...

The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss will join Diana Rigg and Lesley
Manville the cast of Samuel Adamson's stage adaptation of Pedro
Almodóvar's Oscar-winning 1999 film All About My Mother, which is at
the Old Vic from 4 September (previews from 25 August) to 24 November .

As part of the League of Gentlemen, Gatiss won the Perrier Award for
comedy, a BAFTA and the Golden Rose of Montreux Award. The troupe's
acclaimed, cult BBC2 TV show spawned two live stage productions and
one feature film. He previously appeared in the West End in Art,
along with his fellow Leaguers, Reece Shearsmith, who made his
musical debut in The Producers last year, and Steve Pemberton, who
makes his in The Drowsy Chaperone this month (See News, 22 Jun 2007).

As previously reported, the All About My Mother cast also features
Colin Morgan, Joanne Froggatt and Charlotte Randle. The play is
directed by Tom Cairns and designed by Hildegard Bechtler, with
lighting by Bruno Poet and sound by Christopher Shutt. It features
the film score by long-time Almodóvar collaborator Alberto Iglesias
supplemented with new stage music by Ben and Max Ringham.

And more...

Mark Gatiss is among the judges for a new screenwriting competition.

http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/17329/ex-eastenders-writer-
jordan-launches

And still more...

Mark was on Jonathan Ross's Radio Two show on Saturday (30th June). It's on
Listen again, about 48:30 minutes in and he's on for over 20 mins. He talks
about his new play, some stuff about the TV version of Vesuvius Club (no,
he's not playing Lucifer!), and the fact that the Gents are doing a "Most
Haunted" special.

Really lovely interview, with Jonathan chucking in a load of gothic
references. Mark sounded like he really enjoyed himself.

Tara

26/06/2007

I'm Agatha Christie with Attitude

Mark Gatiss is contemplating the nature of his hero, the decadent dandy and thoroughly patriotic secret service agent Lucifer Box. 'He has to be a bit of a rotter,' he says thoughtfully, swirling his coffee conspiratorially, 'but not a complete shit.' Box, whose adventure-laden period pastiches have jumped from the Edwardian era in The Vesuvius Club, published three years ago, to the glamorous but extremism-tinged Thirties in The Devil in Amber, which is about to come out in paperback, is definitely 'on the side of the angels', according to his creator. 'He's terribly vain and quite callous, but he's fun and you can't help but like him. It's a definite decision for him not to be too nice; that just gets in the way.'

For Gatiss, probably still best known for his membership of the terrifyingly inventive comic ensemble the League of Gentlemen, but more recently seen playing opposite Julia Davis as Fanny Cradock's husband Johnnie in Fear of Fanny, as Ratty in The Wind in the Willows and sharing an on-screen clinch with Thelma Barlow in Doctor Who, one suspects that not being nice - or at least indulging in high-calibre mischief-making - is one of the great pleasures of writing fiction. In person, he could barely be more affable, articulate and open - our conversation ranges from memories of grim episodes of Seaside Special in the Seventies to his scepticism about the contemporary novel, barring favourites Sarah Waters and Beryl Bainbridge; from why he thinks the English might go to pieces if the country ever won the World Cup again to his admiration for Agatha Christie. He is forthright, but rarely less than generous. On paper, though, one continues to sense that what he relishes most is the opportunity to be naughty.

There is, for a start, the prodigious amount of sexual success that Lucifer enjoys - with both men (most notably in The Devil in Amber with a bellhop called Rex, whose 'bum looked dashed appealing in those tight blue trousers') and women (The Vesuvius Club's cheesily named young lovely Bella Pok). Then there's Box's relish for violence, slightly more easily achieved in the first novel, when he was a young blade, than in its sequel, in which he is middle-aged 'but still has to do a lot of derring-do'. In the third of the series, which Gatiss plans to call Clawhammer, we will pick up the action in 1952, when Box will be in his seventies, although one imagines that, even if the flesh is weak, the spirit will be more than willing.

Originally, all three novels were to be set in the early 1900s, but: 'When I finished The Vesuvius Club, I just had an idea in the bath, as I usually do - it's the only place I have ideas. I'm not sure if it's been done before. Flashman goes through the ages, but actually to do three definite jumps like that... as soon as I had the idea I just thought it was a very interesting framework, to look at a character who in the first one is almost arrogantly, smugly self-confident, and then suddenly to pull the rug from under him - he's old, he's got people snapping at his heels, he's got an unsympathetic new boss.'

The other great attraction was that Gatiss could draw on a whole new set of influences. Where The Vesuvius Club had tuned into its author's love of Sherlock Holmes, garlanded with a liberal smattering of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, The Devil in Amber was firmly rooted in the occult potboilers of Dennis Wheatley. 'For me, one of the most exciting things about planning the book was precisely that strange and indefinable collision between Nazism and Satanism. It's to do with the paperback covers of Dennis Wheatley books when I was little. My dad had them all. He loved them. He'd collected them since he'd been in his teens himself and he had book-club editions and then, later on, those big fat paperbacks that always had naked-breasted girls, black candles and goats on them. I couldn't look at them, I was so frightened. And then a swastika in the background. A huge influence is Raiders of the Lost Ark, because it's tapping into exactly the same thing. The Nazis are still frightening. They're not clownish Nazis like in a Tarzan film. They're made more frightening by the fact they might have something supernatural on their side. I think it's just amazingly evocative.'

The Devil in Amber centres on Lucifer's attempts to foil fascist Olympus Mons in his bid for world domination, in which he is aided by an army of Amber Shirts and none other than Lucifer's estranged sister Pandora (remember Bella Pok and work it out). But caperish though the novel undoubtedly is, Gatiss was anything but casual about researching it. Aside from Wheatley and John Buchan, he also read acres of material by and about the Mitfords and the diaries of 'Chips' Channon and Duff Cooper, not just mining for historical material but in order to pick up the exact nuances of language and atmosphere. He recalls a phrase from a Boy's Own-style magazine called Chums that captures exactly what he was aiming for: 'He was at Mafeking with Baden-Powell and knows a thing or two.'

For Clawhammer, he plans to immerse himself in early Ian Fleming - and more. 'I think it would be fun to move it into that Sovietish world of spies. I love all that, all those le Carre and Fifties and Sixties films. The Harry Palmer films, they're great, even though they were meant to be the antidote to Bond. I love the sort of wet-newspaper, going-down-the-shops kind of feel to it. And although obviously you don't want to lose the fun, I think it would be quite nice to have an Edwardian in the Fifties, in Austerity Britain.'

Describing himself as a 'retro addict', Gatiss admits that one of his favourite writing moments was devising the spoof advertisements from the Bunsen Book Club, which decorate The Devil in Amber's flyleaves: With Vinegar and Brown Paper by Ariadne Oliver (a nod to an Agatha Christie character ), 'Terrier' Masterson Hits Out by 'Slapper' and Edward Fleisch-Cutter's Up Pluto's Core. But affectionate in-jokes aside, there is something significantly more substantial about Gatiss's emergent writing career than that of many actors and comedians who churn out a novel between telly gigs. Not least, one senses, a thoughtful engagement with English culture's treatment of danger, masculinity and change. He may describe the moment in the late Eighties when his first Doctor Who novel was accepted - he has had four published in all, and has subsequently written two episodes of the show's latest incarnation - as the most exciting day of his life, but one suspects that it is unlikely to be the pinnacle of his literary career. Time alone, as the good Doctor himself might reflect, will tell.

The Devil in Amber (Pocket Books £7.99) is published in paperback on 2 July. To order a copy for only £3.99 click here.

Steve on stage!

Steve Pemberton, best known as one quarter of comedy team The League
Of Gentlemen, joins the cast of The Drowsy Chaperone from 10 July.
Pemberton replaces Bob Martin as Man In Chair, the show's narrator.
This is the second time in the space of a year that Pemberton has
been seen in a London musical. Over the Christmas period he played
the narrator in the Rocky Horror Show at the Comedy.

Pemberton previously appeared in the West End in Art at the Whitehall
(now Trafalgar Studios), opposite his League Of Gentlemen colleagues
Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith. On screen he appeared in three
series of The League Of Gentlemen, which he also co-wrote, plus
Blackpool, Gormenghast and Benidorm.

The Drowsy Chaperone opened at the Novello on 6 June. It follows Man
In Chair, a fan of old musicals who cheers himself up by playing the
recording of his favourite musical, 1928 comedy The Drowsy Chaperone.
As he does so, the tale of a starlet about to give up fame and
fortune for married life comes to life in his living room.

Pemberton joins a cast that also includes rising West End star Summer
Strallen and musical theatre royalty Elaine Paige.

http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/news/display/cm/contentId/94525

New Film Cells available

I have sourced some extremely rare film cells of Steve Pemberton in the film 'Lassie' these are on a first come first served basis as I only have 15 sets. A set is 3 strips of five film cells showing Steve in various scenes!

£15 delivered

6/06/2007

Behind the scenes clip - never before seen!

Unofficial Behind the scenes

Jason

22/05/2007

SALE NOW ON!

If you head over to the Signed section of the merchandise I am having a bit of a clear out!

The Local shop models are also reduced and for a limited time only I will send 3 free film cells with all orders!

20/05/2007

THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN co-writer Jeremy Dyson is updating the fairytale Three Billy Goats Gruff for the BBC.

His modern-day version features 'Billy Goat' a boyband made up of brothers Connor (Paul Nicholl) and Dean Gruff (Mathew Horne) and their mate Rafiq Bhavani (Nick Mohammed).

They’re enjoying local success in Northern clubs, but crave pastures new, fame and fortune.

The twist of the tale? In this world, trolls live side-by-side with humans and Billy Goat are unfortunate enough to have a threatening troll as their manager, Grettongrat - played by Bernard Hill.

He eats mice as snacks and has got the lads locked in a watertight contract!

“I've always loved The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” says writer Jeremy Dyson.

“This was my favourite fairytale and like any good story, it resonates today – people wanting to achieve more, discovering if the grass really is greener on the other side.”

The production is one of four modern updates of fairytales commissioned by BBC1. Filming is now underway in Northern Ireland.

03/05/2007

I just want to let people know of a Meet Up for fans taking place
at the Canal Cafe Theatre on Friday, 17th August, between 12pm to
6.00pm...

There is a MySpace site set up by my fellow organiser...

www.myspace.com/leagueoflocals

You can find details about the day & how to contact the organisers
to reserve a ticket (its limited to 40 places due to the size of the
Canal Cafe & there are now only a few tickets left...) in case anyone
is interested in going.

Deborah

28.4.2007

A round up of news...

Gatiss thriller heads for TV

Ben Dowell
Friday April 27, 2007

MediaGuardian.co.uk

The BBC is developing a TV drama based on The Vesuvius Club, the
period thriller by League of Gentleman actor and writer Mark Gatiss. Gatiss's book revolves around dandyish hero Lucifer Box, a
fashionable Edwardian portrait painter with a sideline in espionage.

The Vesuvius Club concerns itself with the mysterious deaths of
several scientists, leading Box to penetrate a secret Neapolitan
crime ring.

The BBC hopes that a successful adaptation could lead to a second
drama based on Gatiss's sequel The Devil in Amber, as well as a third
which he is writing.

Both books, Gatiss's first non-Doctor Who novels, are narrated by
Box - painter, secret agent, bisexual rake and resident of Number
Nine, Downing Street.

Gatiss's third Lucifer Box book would make a "neat trilogy",
according to a BBC source.

The project has not yet been cast but it is envisaged that Gatiss,
who dressed as a dandy on his publicity tour for The Vesuvius Club,
will play the hero as well as write the adaptation.

The Vesuvius Club, was published in 2004 and won a best newcomer
nomination in the 2006 British Book Awards.

A BBC spokeswoman confirmed the project was in development, but said
that the project was in "too early a development stage to comment
further".

There is also an article on Mark in this weeks Radio Times.

Reece to lead in new film

Producer Ken Marshall
Director Paul Andrew Williams
Starring Andy Serkis, Reece Shearsmith, Jennifer Ellison
Filmed March - April 2007

Synopsis: David and his youngest brother Peter arrive at a desolate
cottage in the middle of the night. When Peter goes out to the car
and opens the trunk we see an unconscious Tracey bound and gagged
inside. Tracey is the daughter of underworld boss Arnie and they've
kidnapped her for ransom. Not long afterwards a car appears at the
cottage: it's Andrew, the black-sheep brother of Tracey who is hoping
the money they extort will allow him to leave his domineering
father's life for good. What none of them realise is that two of
Arnie's henchmen, the Oriental Thugs, have followed Andrew to the
cottage. They are desperate to inflict pain on the kidnappers but
Arnie tells them they have to wait patiently. However, they never
anticipated having to deal with somebody lurking in the darkness: The
Farmer. Who will survive and what will be left? And what are those
scraping noises coming from under the trapdoor in the kitchen?!

06/02/2007

The Abbey - ITV1 Wednesday 14th Feb

Well, you girls out there are getting Reece for Valentines...

'The Abbey', the pilot show starring Reece as the rehab clinic's
doctor, Dr Darren, is being shown on ITV1 on Wednesday, 14th February
at 10.00pm

After a spectacularly public nervous breakdown, faded ex-rocker Marianne Hope opens a retreat for those worn down celebrities needing to shelter from the spotlight. But while she is off cleansing her chakras, manager Tony may not have the best of intentions towards the recovering addicts at The Abbey. Can the one medical professional on site Dr Darren find time to help the nymphomaniac pensioner, crack addict DJ and suicidal MP's wife. Or will one meltdown for the waiting tabloid cameras?

Starring: Morwenna Banks, Omid Djalili, Reece Shearsmith, Russell Brand

24/01/2007

New Gents Project...almost!

LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN stars Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith are returning to the BBC with new comedy Psychoville.

Steve told us: “It’s a character comedy mystery in which different characters are linked in a strange way. It’s been inspired by shows such as 24 and Lost.

“It’s being developed for the BBC and we’re busy writing scripts for it and plan to appear in it.”

But he admitted there are no plans for a League Of Gentlemen return to Royston Vasey, home of the "local shop for local people." The BBC comedy ran for three series and there was a spin-off film.

Steve added: “I think that it’s wrong to say that it’s completely finished, but we feel that it’s time to leave it to one side.

“But some of the characters could re-appear in other projects. It’s hard to leave behind something which is so established.”

Fellow League Of Gentlemen stars Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson are also  working together on other ideas but all four are also developing their own projects.

Steve himself is appearing in two new ITV1 comedies Benidorm with Johnny Vegas and The Bad Mother’s Handbook with Catherine Tate next month.

So...whilst not entirely a Gents project it is as close as we are going to get for now! By the way, psychoville is the name the Japanese gave to the Original series!

Mark and the Penguins!

BBC Four programme highlights for the Winter/Spring schedules
includes 'The Worst Journey in the World' featuring Mark & some
penguins...

Its called 'The Worst Journey in the World' & features Mark in search
of penguin eggs.

Here's some blurb about it:-

BBC Four's Edwardian season also looks back to the time when, prior
to Captain Scott's fateful journey to Antarctica in 1912, Scott and
his men spent two years conducting scientific experiments in that
harsh environment.

One such task saw three men set forth in the snow, facing the
harshest of conditions and risking their lives and their sanity - all
for a penguin egg.

In The Worst Journey In The World, Mark Gatiss tells this often
overlooked story of epic endurance."

Benidorm - 1st February

New sitcom, starring Johnny Vegas & Steve Pemberton, set in the Spanish
package holiday industry where customers at the all-inclusive Santiago
apartments are determined to get value for money.

Characters include swingers, Jacqueline (Janine Duvitski) and Donald (Kenny Ireland); Kate (Abigail Cruttenden) and Martin Weedon (Nicholas Burns) who are going through a rough patch in their marriage, Lancashire's depressed pub
quiz champion Geoff Maltby (Johnny Vegas); hair salon owners Gavin
(Hugh Sachs) and Troy (Paul Bazely); and Janice and Mick Garvey (Siobhan Finneran and Steve Pemberton), a Yorkshire couple on their first holiday abroad with their teenage daughter Chantelle, eight-year- old son Michael and Janice's mum Madge (Sheila Reid). Made by Tiger Aspect; written by Derren Litten.

The first episode will be broadcast on February the 1st at 10pm on ITV.

Comedy Map of Britain

Starting this Saturday on BBC2 at 10.10pm the first of a six part series where comedy heroes of past and present visit the places that have played a major part in their lives. Broadcasting legend Alan Whicker narrates an animated journey around the UK, pinpointing the special places that have inspired and affected our major comic talents.

This is the series that Steve & Reece went up to Hadfield for in late November & were driven around in Babs Cab!

The first part is about the West country & features Michael Palin, Bill
Bailey, Stephen Merchant & Nick Park...

10/01/2007

Happy New year!

I have updated quite a bit of the website in the last few days and it is now live. We have some new video clips in the TV Shows section and in general the site has had an early spring clean! There are three new sections waiting to be written, the Local Show, The Panto and Gents other. If you feel you could write and entry into the Gents encyclopedia based on any of those three areas let me know here and I will be in touch!

As this site moves into it 8th year (Gulp) we have a lot to , look forward to! The Gents will be getting together this year to write something new, maybe somethin unrelated to Royston Vasey! I think I would like to see something new from them, comedy has moved on since series 1 in 1999, yet I can only hope they are not influenced by the likes of Little Britain (previously influenced by the league!) as I for one would not like to see the same joke each week just set in a differant scenario!

Reece and the Freak

Reece will be on the freaky Russel Brands show on the 13th january

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/brand/

22/12/2006

Reece on Radio

Reece Shearsmith is hosting a radio programme tonight at 11:30pm on Radio 4 called Two Coconut Shells, a Blow Lamp and a Raspberry

Northern Echo interview with Mark

AS Christmas approaches, Mark Gatiss will be out among the shoppers in his home town of Darlington but I doubt you'll recognise him as he hasn't been himself over the past 12 months.

The real Gatiss has been hidden behind a number of guises, including real life personalities Johnny Cradock, husband of chef Fanny, and University Challenge questioner Bamber Gascoigne. And next he'll be seen disguised as Rat in BBC1's new adaptation of children's classic, The Wind In The Willows.

When we spoke he'd just finished playing another real person, writer Robert Louis Stevenson, in yet another BBC1 film, Jekyll.

As the title suggests, this is a reworking of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, but more than that he cannot say as the project is hush-hush, just like his role in the next series of Doctor Who.

Gatiss is not only busy but multi-skilled. Having made his name on stage, TV and cinema as one of the award-winning comedy troupe, The League Of Gentlemen, he's now carving a solo career as an actor, which is what he trained to be in the first place.

He'll be appearing without any disguise at a book signing at Waterstone's in Darlington tomorrow. The Devil In Amber is the second in his Lucifer Box books, following the successful The Vesuvius Club. Box is a daring secret agent - "the gorgeous butterfly of King Bertie's reign, portraitist, dandy and terribly good secret agent" - who, in his second adventure, finds himself up against a fascist leader and framed for murder in New York.

He's a man who rates himself highly, remarking: "I cut quite a dash. I'm afraid I rather fancy myself, but then everyone else did, so why should I be left out of the fun." And then again: "I'm always trying to recapture my youth - but he keeps on escaping."

Gatiss was commissioned to write three books, saying the second was easier to write. "I learnt a lot by doing the first and I had this idea for the next as soon as I'd finished it. Instead of doing another Edwardian story, I'd do a book 20 years on. That really inspired me, to take the same character and put in a different age of detection," he explains.

His research included reading a lot of Bulldog Drummond stories - "a guilty pleasure" - and he's pleased with the result, The Devil In Amber. "Like The 39 Steps, it's one long chase and is much more of a thriller than the first book," he adds.

He already has a title for the third, Clawhammer, and "bits and pieces" of ideas. The influences are less obvious than before, although he points to "early Ian Fleming" as an indication of the style.

The Vesuvius Club earned him a best newcomer nomination at the British Book Awards, part of the favourable reaction that he admits took him aback. The book is now in its ninth printing, and has been published in the US, Italy, Germany and Russia. "It has sold very well and, after doing publicity for the second one, I realised that lots of people really enjoyed it," he says.

A film or TV version seems an obvious next move but, so far, plans haven't materialised because "people just want to make it like something else and I don't see the point. I'm in a very lucky position, I don't have to do it. I'd much rather not do it at all than do it badly".

He's keen that any screen version should capture the cheekiness, the sense of fun of the original and points to The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (no relation to his League) which was a great comic book but a very ordinary film.

What he is pleased about is playing Rat in the BBC1 live action version of The Wind In The Willows. Little Britain star Matt Lucas is Toad in the adaptation by Newcastle-born Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall.

"Rattie is just one of those parts I wanted to do. I auditioned for it and completely threw myself into it. It can completely backfire because if you want a job very much it can be the worst audition you give. I went for all the animal stuff they asked me to do which, in the end, we didn't do. And I watched Ring Of Bright Water," he says.

"The experience of filming in Romania was quite challenging but we had a great time. We were at the castle Bond was at in Casino Royale. It was quite hot and a lot of the story is in winter so we were in three pairs of tweeds.

'I had the idea of having a David Niven-ish moustache which terminated in whiskers. The make-up suggests animals. I had false ears, moustache, teeth and a wig made of yak hair which is very tough."

That's showing on New Year's Day, the day after Gatiss can be seen in Fear Of Fanny on BBC2. The play about one of TV's first celebrity chefs, Fanny Cradock and her monocled husband Johnny, was premiered on BBC4 earlier this year.

He welcomed the chance to work again with Julia Davis - they were in the comedy series Nighty Night together - and to show Johnny's role in the relationship. "It's quite a background part but I tried to bring some pathos to it. The script was beautifully written. It stresses that although they threw everyone else away, they were totally devoted to each other. It's a curious love story. But that's the last of my broken, spineless husbands I'm going to play," he says.

He appeared as Bamber Gascoigne in the film, Starter For Ten, another in his real people roles. "You bear a responsibility when you're playing someone real, although it's different when it's someone long gone like Stevenson," he says. "Bamber was supposed to be visiting the set when I was doing him but he didn't appear."

The other big thing in his life is Doctor Who. He's a lifelong fan, who names Jon Pertwee as his favourite time lord. "I adored him as a child. I remember when he left I was utterly bereft, and it took a long time to warm to Tom Baker," he recalls.

He's written Doctor Who books in the past and wrote an episode when the series was first revived the other year. He was too busy to write one this year but achieved his dream of appearing in the show. "It came completely out of the blue. I play a mad scientist, that's all I can say. It's a really wonderful part and was definitely worth the wait," he says.

"I was pinching myself that it was true. The whole set-up is like any other job but it's not for me. It was all night shoots. The hours were very tough and it was quite gruelling, but obviously I was never going to complain.

"There were a couple of moments when the Doctor Who-ness hit me, like being shut in a machine filling up with dry ice. It was like watching myself in an episode."

We probably haven't seen the end of The League Of Gentlemen. He says they're on a sabbatical, soon to reconvene and talk about the future. "We're not going to do something just for the sake of it. We'll have to see what comes to us," he says.

"Personally, I've had a great year and done a lot of things. I was able to commit two months to do The Wind In The Willows, something I haven't been able to do before because of The League. I've done lots of acting and been very pleased with the response to what I've done. I'd like to do a lot more."

* Mark Gatiss will be signing copies of The Devil In Amber (Simon & Schuster, £15) at Waterstone's in Darlington tomorrow from 6.30-7.30pm

* The Wind In The Willows is on BBC1 at 6.20pm on New Year's Day.

* Fear Of Fanny is on BBC4 at 9pm on Christmas Eve and on BBC2 at 9pm on New Year's Eve.

For the best price in Xbox 360 , Nintendo Wii and DS Lite games plus PSP and PS2 PS3 games visit this website

21/12/06

Merry Local Christmas!

Just to make you laugh, have a look at this totally unofficial clip on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzK9kMxDcG0&NR

Plus...

Steve and Reece are appearing on 'Russell Brand's Got Issues' this
coming Friday, 22nd December on Channel 4 at 11:25pm.

(The show is repeated the following Wednesday on E4)

And...

Mark Gatiss is doing a book signing (The Devil in Amber) at Waterstones (formerly Ottakars) in Darlington on Thursday 21st December from 6.30pm

15/12/2006

Christmas Presents

With xmas fast approaching I have reduced some of the rare and signed merchandise that can be found here. I don't have much left but a sale before xmas is a bit of a novelty so have a browse!

27/11/2006

New - A highly detailed model of the Local Shop

As the real shop no longer exists, not even in cardboard prop form, this is surely the next best thing. An amazingly detailed model by acclaimed artist Neil Sims. Look at it here.

24/11/2006

DVD Signing

At the Virgin Megastore on Oxford street on November 27th.

The League in Hadfield

Steve and Reece were in Hadfield this weekend filming an interview for a new series called 'The Comedy Map' which looks at various places of comical interest in the UK...should be a good show!

13/11/2006

Extras for the 'Behind you' DVD

A Gents' commentary

Outtakes

Exclusive behind the scenes Pantomentary!

Thanks to Deborah for the information! ORDER IT HERE

06/11/06

Starter for Ten

Mark appears as Bamber Gascoine in the new film 'Starter for ten' see the trailer here

http://www.starterfortenthemovie.co.uk/main.php

Jeremy to rewrite Cinderella

BBC brings fairy tales to Northern Ireland

The BBC has commissioned four contemporary adaptations of classic
fairy tales be shot in Northern Ireland, with the support of the
Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission.

Fairy Tales, a Hat Trick/BBC Northern Ireland production for BBC1,
will see Debbie Horsfield (Cutting It) adapt The Emperor's New
Clothes; Steve Coombs (Outlaws) adapt Billy Goat Gruff; and Jeremy
Dyson (The League of Gentleman) adapt Cinderella; with one further
writer and story yet to be announced.

Patrick Spence, head of drama at BBC Northern Ireland, said the four
writers will bring the stories to life in a "thoroughly modern"
way. "But best of all, we're going to shoot them all in Northern
Ireland, and show what an utterly beautiful country it is," he added.

Casting and filming will commence in summer 2007 and Fairy Tales will
transmit in autumn 2007.

12/10/2006

Farts

Reece is the presenter of a forthcoming half-hour documentary on
Radio Four, all about the sound effects created for radio comedy
programmes through the years...

Two Coconut Shells, A Blow Lamp And A Raspberry

Tuesday 24 October
11.30am-12.00noon BBC RADIO 4

Reece Shearsmith (The League Of Gentlemen) examines the use of comedy
sound effects on British radio and reveals the fascinating work of
effects makers from the earliest broadcasts to the present day.

Listeners have always been strangely enthralled by noises emitting
from the radio, from the grumbling racket of Major Bloodnock's
stomach in The Goon Show to the outlandish sounds of the synthesizer
in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

The best-known team, the world-renowned Radiophonic Workshop, was
established in 1958. The unit used a wide range of equipment to
generate effects and soon acquired an enviable reputation for the
sounds and music it supplied to radio and television. The Radiophonic
Workshop closed its doors in 1996 and, although since then the whole
process of providing "spot effects" for drama and comedy has become
easier, this programme reveals that many producers are still using
traditional methods to manufacture the very particular noises they
want for their scenes.

Along with contributions from former BBC sound engineer Dick Mills,
the programme features many weird and wonderful comedic noises and an
engaging collection of examples of how effects were used in
listeners' favourite radio comedies.

Presenter/Reece Shearsmith, Producer/Stephen Garner

05/10/206

Fanny

'Fear of Fanny' starring Julia Davis and Mark Gatiss will be given its
first showing on BBC4 on Monday, 23rd October at 9.00pm...

Here's a link to the BBC4 website with information about 'Fear of
Fanny'...hopefully the clips can be played too.

Video Clips Here!

31/09/2006

Steve in Benidorm

Johnny Vegas and League of Gentleman's Steve Pemberton will star in
new six-part series Benidorm for ITV1.

The show, which is set in apartments in the popular holiday
destination, is director of entertainment and comedy Paul Jackson's
first commission since taking over the post. It is penned by Derren
Little and produced by Tiger Aspect's Geoffrey Perkins. The network
will be hoping the show will mark a return to form for its highly
criticised comedy output.

"Benidorm is the holiday experience we have all had where you spend
14 days avoiding the lairy couple who sat behind you on the coach.
Derren has created a fantastic range of characters and the sure
quality of his writing has attracted a really exciting cast who will
bring to life the joys and the horrors of the all inclusive package
holiday," says Jackson.

The series also features Waiting for God's Janine Duvitski, Kenny
Ireland, most recently seen in New Tricks, Nicholas Burns from Nathan
Barley, as well as Sheila Reid and The Catherine Tate Show's Hugh
Sachs.

Mark to finally appear in Doctor Who!

CORONATION Street's timid Mavis Wilton is to be a BADDIE in the next
series of Doctor Who.

Veteran actress Thelma Barlow, 77, plays sinister foe Lady Thaw.

She comes up against the Doc, played by David Tennant, in a chilling
episode going out next year...Her episode will also star League Of
Gentleman star Mark Gatiss, 39.

The life-long Doctor Who fan — who wrote two earlier episodes of the
revived show — plays a scientist.

Speaking of Mark...

His follow up to The Vesuvius Club, The Devil in Amber will be published on November 6th, you can read more about it here.

19/09/2006

Great League News

I am glad to report that the League of Gentlemen boys are to reunite early next year, once Reece finishes playing Leo Bloom in the West End version of The Producers. "We will be getting back together then and seeing what we can do," says Mark Gatiss. Sadly Gatiss's really rather funny sci-fi spoof Nebulous has been canned by Radio 4 after only two series. He is none too happy.

04/09/2006

Apocalypse makes it to TV!

The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse is on Filmfour (free to SKY and those with a freeview box) Thursday 7th September at 9pm, the making of is on BBC4 on the 13th September at 10pm...enjoy!

24/08/2006

Reece on Radio2

Reece Shearsmith is on Stuart Maconie (sitting in for Chris Evans) on BBC
Radio 2 at 5:05pm tonight

13/08/2006

Steve Narrating 'Home' on BBC2 tonight at 7pm

03/08/2006

Mark at a book signing!

Mark Gatiss will be signing copies the Doctor Who Storybook 2007 at Forbidden Planet 179 Shaftesbury Ave London on Saturday 12th August 1-2pm. More information at www.forbiddenplanet.com

20/06/2006

Mark is Rat!

Bob Hoskins leads an all star cast in a lavish adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's children's classic The Wind in the Willows, commissioned for BBC ONE from independent Box TV.

Hoskins stars as Badger with Matt Lucas as Toad, Mark Gatiss as Rat, Lee Ingleby as Mole, Imelda Staunton as the Barge Lady, Jim Carter as the engine driver and Anna Maxwell Martin as the Gaoler's daughter.

More...

19/06/2006

Behind you DVD

Jeremy has confirmed that the Gents have completed the commentary for the League of Gentlemen Are Behind you DVD that should be available in time for xmas!

New offer

There is a new offer in the Rare/Signed Merchandise section.

20/05/2006

Back on TV!

BBC4 is starting a repeat run of all three series of The League of Gentlemen starting Thursday, 25th May at 10.00PM. So for the next 18 weeks we'll have the League on our TV screens on BBC4, 10.00PM every Thursday!

Here's a piece of blurb from next week's 'Radio Times' about it:-

"Yes, you've probably already got this on DVD, but its still fun to
watch on "proper telly", the first episode of one of the funniest,
most innovative comedies ever. BBC4 starts weekly screenings of every
episode from each of the three series of The League of Gentlemen...

Brilliant comedy never fades, so it still feels fresh seven years
after its first broadcast. Its even more of a precious thing when you
consider that the Gentlemen are unlikely to make another series in
the near future."

16/05/2006

Great interview with Jeremy

Which you can read here

10/05/2006

The greatest news!

Reece has just done an interview with the Official London Theatre guide, you can read it here but this is the bit we have all been waiting for...

Fans of The League’s macabre brand of humour need not resort to stealing women for fun just yet, as Reece Shearsmith promises the four Gentlemen have not gone their separate ways. Following their film, The League Of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, they have taken some time to pursue their own projects, all the while mulling over their next joint comedy creation. “Oh yeah, we’ve got some ideas,” Shearsmith says with a knowing nod and a smile that sends a shiver down my spine. The new series won’t take place in Royston Vasey, though, as, for Shearsmith and co, that village of the damned has run its comedy course.

I cannot even speculate on what idea's they may come up with but Royston Vasey and its inhabitants were created over ten years of stage and radio work which led to the TV show. The first and second series were extensions of that work but the third series which in my humle opinion was not as strong as the first two (after watching them again recently, the first two stand the test of time...classics...where the third series is a touch more throw away) was a result of sitting down to write it. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that they are all doing their own work at the moment, Jeremy with his film, TV and books, Mark with his books and TV writing, Steve with his film and theatre work and of course Reece and his west end experience - all this has to give them the same level of depth to write something even better than before. I hope they take their time and craft something special!

I plan to change the site around a little bit soon to reflect the last years and the future years work, instead of sections on the radio series, TV series ETC I will change the sections to be about the Gents themselves!

Jason

14/04/2006

New Book Shop

To celebrate Jeremys new Book I have started a page dedicated to The Leagues books, find it in the merchandise section above!

02/04/2006

Jeremy signing books at Pineapple!

Jeremy will be reading from his new novel \"What Happens Now\" at The Pineapple 51 Leverton Road London NW5 on Sunday April 9th at 8.00,free admission. Further info contact Richard Thomas on 0207 6092543

30/03/2006

Mark and Dr.Who

Doctor Who Confidential - the documentary series about the making of the program - will air on BBC with writer Mark Gatiss ("The Unquiet Dead," "The Idiot's Lantern") narrating the documentary series, replacing last year's narrator Simon Pegg.

24/03/2005

Nebulous and The Exonerated

Nebulous, which is currently repeating its first series on Radio 4 at the moment, starts a second series on Wednesday 5th April with "The Detford Wives" - guesting Peter Davison

Steve is currently in The Exonerated but for one week only! Read more here!

The road signs are on sale until the end of April, £12.50 or £15 with free film cell!

Just a reminder that there is loads of rare and signed merchandise for sale in this section, give it a ganders!

09/03/2006

Officially Download The League of Gentlemen!

Ipod? PSP? Maybe just to listen to on your PC or to burn to a CD? Click this link to download amazing League of Gentlemen Audio CD's!

03/03/2006

Vote for The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse in the Empire Film Awards

Click on this link and register and vote!

01/03/2006

Vote for Mark!

Vote for Mark in the British Book Awards here

A short interview with Reece about his role in 'The Producers':-

BY Nicola Christie

League of Gentleman star Reece Shearsmith has left Royston Vasey to
star in The Producers. Mel Brooks has signed him up as the new Leo
Bloom in the hit musical which is currently playing at the Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane. Shearsmith will be in the role for a year from the
end of March. "I'm still reeling,'' he says. "The
director/choreographer Susan Stroman came to see me in London before
Christmas - she was seeing all sorts of people for the role - and I
had to sing and dance and do a few scenes. But then I heard nothing
for two months.'' No news was good news: Shearsmith is now mid- rehearsal, doing diaphragm exercises and learning how to tap and
trill. "It's going to be an onslaught. Everyone's telling me they
lost four stone doing the role!''

26/02/2006

24/02/2006

Bradford Film Festival

You can learn more about Jeremys appearance at the Bradford FIlm Festival here!

20/02/2006

The Gents are not splitting up!

The Mirror and another comic printed a report at the weekend ststing that the Gents are splitting up, well the official word from their management is:The gents are just taking a sabbatical at the moment and are working on individual projects. They have certainly not split up.

This isn't anything different from the last few years, they have always taken time out to do other projects and whilst Mark said in the interview that they have reached a crossroads, that could mean a lot of things and I personally take it that the Gents have reached the point where Royston Vasey has maybe reached the end of its run. The Gents as a writing team have been together for such a long time and have so much writing talent that I am sure they will be back with a new comedy for The League of Gentlemen.

Talking of individual projects...

MODERN MEN SERVE UP TIMELESS LAUGHS

THOSE clever people at Talkback have cooked up the perfect recipe for
a Channel 4 sitcom.

If you follow these instructions - using all the right ingredients -
you too can come up with a hit series! Maybe...

First take a script written by the blokes behind Peep Show - Sam Bain
and Jesse Armstrong.

Then poach (see what we did there?) the director of Da Ali G Show,
James Bobin, and add a pinch of The Office producer Ash Atalla.

Get him to sprinkle some magic on top and bake in a moderate oven for
a couple of months...

Finally garnish with starring roles for the League of Gentlemen's
Reece Shearsmith, Nathan Barley actor Nicholas Burns and Smack The
Pony's Darren Boyd and hey presto! A guaranteed laughter-fest
straight from your kitchen. OK, enough of the cooking references.

The sitcom they are working on is Modern Men. Set in Victorian times,
it has a bunch of blokes being funny while wearing old-fashioned
clothes. Hilarious!

Our man with the splitting sides says: "With a team like that, this
show simply can't fail. Everyone's very excited."

Of course, Sam and Jesse are no strangers to success. They wrote The
Thick of It and Smack the Pony.

A spokeswoman for Talkback - the company behind I'm Alan Partridge
and Never Mind the Buzzcocks - says a pilot is underway. In time- honoured tradition, if it is successful, a series will follow.

She added: "It's about the fact that men worry about the same things
no matter what era they are from. These characters are Victorian -
but their concerns seem very contemporary."

11/02/2006

Behind the Scenes

Here is a little treat! A website all about the making of the stop motion! Click here plus another here! You lucky lucky people!

10/02/2005

No news is...news!

Not a lot happening in Gent news at the moment. Mark has recently said they are having an indefinate break to pursue seperate projects, all of which I will report here of course! Steve appeared in Hotel Babylon to rave reviews, Jeremys book 'What happens Now' is out in April - Read about it Here and Marks follow up to the Vesuvius Club, The Devil in Amber is out in November read about that here!

In other news I have just reduced a lot of the rare and signed merchandise and the film cells are down to £5 each!

Star Artist show in London (Feb2nd)

If you like art please visit this exhibition in February, Ken and Jane are friends of mine and I love their work, I have 4 of Kens paintings myself! Learn more here!

Gents on TV

Steve will be in next weeks Hotel Babylon on BBC1 at 9pm (2nd Feb) and for Reece fans, even better news!

Reece in The Producers

Reece Shearsmith, one quarter of the horrifically hilarious The League Of Gentlemen, will return to the West End stage in March to replace John Gordon Sinclair as Leo Bloom in the multi-award winning musical comedy The Producers. Joining Shearsmith at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane are Cory English, who takes over the role of Max Bialystock from Fred Applegate, and Rachel McDowall, who replaces Leigh Zimmerman as Ulla. Nicolas Colicos, Don Gallagher and Stephen Matthews stay with the production.

Shearsmith is making a habit of West End appearances. Though he came to fame as part of the guffaw-happy four-piece The League Of Gentlemen, whose macabre take on the world of comedy took radio, stage and television by storm, this will now be Shearsmith’s third appearance on the London stage. His first came in 2002 when, with his League cohorts, he starred in the long-running comedy Art. His second came last year, when he starred opposite Helen McCrory and Sienna Miller in As You Like It at the Wyndham’s.

Cory English is no newcomer to the West End either. He previously appeared in Chicago and To Have And To Hold, while on Broadway his credits include Gypsy, Guys And Dolls, Hello Dolly and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. He has also already played Bialystock at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, as he provided walking cover when the show first opened.

The Producers, which is based on the 1968 Mel Brooks film of the same name, opened on Broadway in 2001, where it won a total of 12 Tony Awards. In November 2004 it transferred to London and again stole the show on the awards circuit, winning Best Musical at the Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and Laurenc