Psychoville

[SuperSurfer]

I never liked LOG at all. Just didn't do it for me. We were taken to see the theatre version by one of the bosses where I worked years back. Most of us had never heard of it before and didn't get it. We almost staged a walkout at the interval but thought it best to see the rest and keep the peace with boss-chief.

When you say 'theatre version' are you referring to the on stage tour they did? Or are you using 'theatre' in the American sense, i.e. 'movie theatre', The League of Gentlemen Apocalypse film?  If you're judging LoG purely on the film, then I'd like to point out a lot of LoG fans disliked the film too. (I actually quite liked it but I think I prefer the series.)

Theatre version as in the UK sense of the word. The on stage tour. 

[Mardroid]

Theatre version as in the UK sense of the word. The on stage tour. 

Ah, ok, I never saw that, apart from the odd clip on the telly like.

[DavidXBrunt]

Did the referecen to an interval not tip you off?

[Sefton Disney]

Finally got to see the last episode of Psychoville on Saturday. Terrific stuff - I thoroughly enjoyed it, loose ends and all, and I thought it wound up the series perfectly. Here's to Series 2!

[Mardroid]

Did the referecen to an interval not tip you off?

Ach, good point.

[Paul faplad Finch]

I got the Live at Drury Lane video. Have to say, much of it left me cold. A then colleague of mine with whom I shared a love of the tv show told me that it was because I only 'got' the tv characters and the other 'more intellectual' stuff was over my head.

I choose to subscribe to the theory that the stuff on tv was chosen for tv because it was funny and the other stuff was very much a vanity project. They knew they had something of a captive audience of people there to see the famous characters. The trouble was, when the characters from tv did come on stage they did very little new with them, choosing instead to rehash existing sketches even when they obviously didn't work in that context.

The example that actually annoyed rather than dissapointed me was the sketch were the bus stops abruptly so the guy can fall into the young lads lap. They did it with him falling on a member of the audience but rather than a simple reworking so he slipped on a step or something they did it word for word from the tv sketch and he actually called out for the bus to stop, which made no sense in that context and smacked of laziness to me.

I'm really glad I waited for the video rather than going to the theatre because I would have been mightily dissapointed.   

[Bad Andy]

I saw that show and also have it on DVD.

I had assumed people knew that this was the League of Gentlemen's act BEFORE the TV shows. They were a sketch act on stage. It was only when the radio show and then the TV show came along that they linked in all the characters from their different sketches.

An example of this would be in the second series when they had the different hospital-based characters playing 'Go Johnny Go Go Go Go'. It could have been anyone featured in that sketch.

What they did for TV was extrapolated the characters from the most successful sketches and gave them 'extra life' - I'm thinking Jeff from the Death by Mao Mao sketch and the insane trio from the Restart Programme.

[Sefton Disney]

What did you think of the ...Apocalypse movie?

[Paul faplad Finch]

I was aware that the stage show was in existence before the tv show and that many characters had their genesis there. I just think that they might have done more to capitalise on what I would assume would have been a considerable number of new fans that the show brought in.

That said, and please correct me if I'm wrong on this because I'm only guessing, but surely the example I gave (Lipp on the bus) didn't exist in that form before tv? Who would write that for a stage show? It just doesn't work in that form, but would with onl the smallest of alterations. Hence my, perhaps harsh, lazy tag.

I enjoyed the movie though, for all the reasons I didn't enjoy the stage show. It had it's flaws and wasn't the moderrn classic I think fans were hoping for but at least it tried to do something that the post tv stage run didn't, which was try to do something new and expand on the existing formst. To my mind it was unfairly maligned by a lot of people who were expectng a lot from a bunch of guys who'd never made a movie before.

[Richmond Clements]

Your memory of the stage show seems to be different than mine, Fap.
I saw the live show (and loved it!), but I seem to remember Herr Lipp 'falling' on the knee of a nice young man in the front row, then leading him onto stage for a humiliating game of (again from memory) Blind Man's Bugger.

[Paul faplad Finch]

Christ, have I imagined something to complain about again? I have very vivid memories of finding that whole sequence really annoying for the reasons stated above. You're right about the falling, and subsequent on stage humiliation although I think he sort of made his way up an aisle first rather than falling from the stage onto the front row.. It was just the justification for the fall that got me. Rather than modify the sketch so he pretended to slip on a step or even a discarded sweet wrapper or something they did the tv thing of him calling to a 'driver' to stop rapidly and make him stumble.

Maybe it wasn't laziness, maybe they genuinely thought they were catering to the tv fans by doing it verbatim but it just didn't work for me.

I realise I'm debating the failings of one sketch among many and it probably makes me sound like a petty prick so I'll stop now. I do think it's telling though that the only sketch from that show that has stayed with me is one that irritated me, whereas my memories of the tv show are by and large possitive. Maybe I'm just too much of a philistine to grasp the finer nuances of stage performance.

[Richmond Clements]

Christ, have I imagined something to complain about again?

You're not a woman, are you?

[Paul faplad Finch]

Only on the weekends

[vzzbux]

Psychoville finale, very clever and hilarious. Too many loose ends to just leave hanging and not do a second season.

Saw LOG at the NEC and laughed my tits off throughout.






V

[COMMANDO FORCES]

This returns to our screens this week at 22:00 on Thursday, so you can still vote before you sit down to watch it!