Royston Vasey: Grotesque Bodies and the Horror of Comedy in the League of Gentlemen Peter Hutching S

Welcome to Royston Vasey: Grotesque bodies and the horror of comedy in The League of Gentlemen Peter Hutching s

( 1) The comed y show The Lea gue of Gentlemen, w hich first a pp ea red on British television in 1999 and ra n until 2002, wa s p robably not to everyone’s ta ste. Themes explored through three series and a Christma s sp ecia l includ ed murd er, kid napping and imprisonment, incest, monstrosity and d eformity, ma sturbation, transvestism and transexuality, d ead child ren, cruelty to anima ls, the imb ibing of urine, erotic a sp hyxia tion, vamp irism, vood oo, imp licit canniba lism (a ra re moment of restra int), limb g ra fting and a p lag ue of noseb leed s. Add nud ity, some violence and gore, the occasional use of the word ‘fuck’, and an ob sessive fixa tion on bod ies ma rked in va rious wa ys a s grotesq ue, and you end up w ith a most unusua l recip e for TV comed y. Given this, it is p erhap s surp rising how little controversy ha s b een provoked by the League ( which consists of w riter- p erformers Ma rk Gatiss, Steve Pemb erton a nd R eece Shearsmith a nd w riter J eremy Dyson). Instead the TV show – which ha d evolved from stag e performa nces a nd a BBC ra dio series – went on to a ttra ct critica l plaudits and p riz es (including a BAF TA a nd the Gold en R ose of Montreux aw a rd) a s w ell a s a d edica ted audience following. The League’s commercia l a scend ancy wa s clinched in 2005 w hen the film The Lea gue of Gentlemen’s Ap ocalyp se received a w id e cinema relea se. (2) One of the most striking seq uences in The Lea gue of Gentlemen’s Apoca lyp se involves a g ira ffe eja cula ting – or ‘spunking up ’, a s one cha ra cter p uts it – over some unsusp ecting visitors to a zoo. It’s ha rdly a ‘ta me’ scene b ut in the context of contemp ora ry film comed y, its g rossness is not unp reced ented. Gross-out comic effects b a sed on bodily functions a nd secretions ha ve b een around since the 1970s in films such a s Na tional Lampoon’s Animal House ( 1978) and Porky’s (1982), a nd from the 1990s onwa rd s these g ross-out elements ha ve acq uired a tab oo-b rea king exp licitness in, a mong st others, the films directed b y the Fa rrelly b rothers ( includ ing Dumb and Dumb er (1994) , Kingp in ( 1996), There’s Something Ab out Ma ry ( 1998)) a nd the American Pie films. In this resp ect, the League’s film fits into current comic trend s in the cinema. How ever, the fa ct tha t the Leag ue ha s op erated ma inly und er the a usp ices of television ra ther than cinema tend s to make its humour both more d istinctive and more p roblema tic, for television comed y, until recently at lea st, ha s not emb ra ced the opportunities for g ross-out offered b y the cinema. Even in its more vulga r or rad ica lised va riants, comed y on the b ox ha s g enerally b een reluctant to b rea ch some of the p rop rieties a ssocia ted w ith home- based viewing, esp ecially those body- centred p rop rieties so enthusia stica lly jettisoned b y film comedies. (3) F rom this p ersp ective, the success – or, more p articula rly, the la ck of notoriety – of the League on television req uires some explana tion. In pa rt, this exp la nation mig ht w ell lie in the wa y in which the activities of the Leag ue fit into, and contrib ute tow a rd s, a b roa d er willing ness appa rent in contempora ry British television to enga g e with ‘bad ta ste’ materia l within the context of pop ula r enterta inment. Certa inly the League’s TV show can b e g roup ed w ith a numb er of other British ‘da rk’ comed ies tha t app ea red in the ea rly 2000s, mainly on the sp ecialist channels BBC2 a nd BBC3. Series such a s Little Britain (2003- Present) a nd N ighty Night ( 2004- 2005) set out to shock, Little Britain la rg ely throug h its grotesque imag es of bodies urinating, vomiting, etc, Nighty N ight (which fea tured the League’s Ma rk Gatiss) through the actions of its a mora l, murd erous heroine a nd through jokes about ca ncer, disab ility, etc. It is a typ e of comed y that b uild s up on, and seeks to g o b eyond, the iconocla stic humour provid ed by the rad ica l or alterna tive comed y of the 1980s a nd 1990s ( in series such a s The Young Ones ( 1982- 1984) and Ab solutely Fab ulous ( 1992-)), w ith a new generation of w riter-p erformers (includ ing not just the League b ut a lso Matt Luca s, Da vid Walliams, Julia D a vis) pushing ba ck yet further the bounda ries of ta ste a nd a ccep tability. (F or a d iscussion of alterna tive comed y in Britain, see W ilmut a nd Rosenga rd 1989.) Ina smuch a s this new da rk comedy d ep end ed on g rotesque imag ing of bod ies (and the League led the wa y in this resp ect) , its accep tab ility wa s p robab ly assisted b y the coincid ental p op ula rity from the late 1990s onw a rd s of wha t might b e termed ‘a utop sy TV’, with American a nd British series such a s CSI ( 2000-Present), Silent W itness (1996- Present) and W aking the Dead ( 2000-Present) offering, a nd to a certain extent normalising for the television audience, g rap hic rep resenta tions of b odies in va rious stag es of d eca y or dissection. (4) Ha ving sa id this, the Leag ue is p rob ably too d istinctive – or peculia r – simp ly to b e contextua lised a nd thereby exp la ined aw ay. For one thing, the forma t of its show is d ecided ly unusual, even within the innova tive context of da rk comedy. Sketch show- like elements a re intertw ined with sitcom conventions a nd seria l narrative a rcs tha t beca me increa singly sophisticated a s the show p rog ressed, culmina ting in a mb itious exp eriments with na rrative time and ca usa lity in the third series. F or another, the Lea gue’s p rog ra mmes a re rich in allusion. In this period, other comed y series a lso offer a llusive references to other area s of culture – notab ly the Simon Pegg-Jessica Stevenson vehicle Spa ced (1999-2001) – but none have manag ed the b read th or intensity of a llusion g enera ted by the League. R eferences, d irect a nd ind irect, abound to litera ry, cinema tic a nd televisual texts and trad itions, w ith all of these interwoven into complex a nd sometimes surp rising patterns. In a d iscussion of 1970s British low culture, Leon Hunt ha s sugg ested tha t the allusiveness appa rent in the g roundb rea king television comed y series Monty Python’s F lying Circus ( 1969- 1974) rend ered it ‘clever humour for clever p eople’ ( Hunt 1998: 36) . The Lea gue of Gentlemen, which in many w a ys is compa rab le w ith Monty Python, ca n b e seen simila rly a s a clever text for the new millennium ina smuch a s a full und erstand ing a nd ap preciation of its humour seems to require both some effort and a p re- existing know ledg e of a sp ects of cultura l history. Ind eed it is this cleverness that ha s a rguably help ed to shield the League from a ccusa tions of vulga rity a nd coa rseness a nd mad e it a suitable object for critica l p raise. (5) It is w orth consid ering how p recisely this cleverness and this allusiveness op era te, pa rticula rly in rela tion to a ny p otentia lly vulga r elements a ssocia ted with the b od y. The Christma s sp ecia l ( first broad ca st 27 D ecemb er 2000) offers a useful examp le. Three child ren clad in p eriod costume, two girls and a boy, wa ve at a steam tra in a s it passes b y. It is likely that many p eople of a certain ag e w ill recognise a reference here to either the 1968 television adap ta tion of E. Nesb itt’s cla ssic children’s novel The R ailwa y Child ren or the much- loved film a daptation tha t followed in 1970. Both seria l and film conclud e w ith all the pa sseng ers on the train wa ving ba ck a t the child ren to celeb rate the release of the child ren’s fa ther from an unjust imp risonment. The Lea gue’s version is slightly d ifferent, how ever, w ith one of the pa sseng ers d ropping his trousers and mooning a t the child ren. The scene conclud es w ith the sta rtled exp ressions on the child ren’s fa ces. (6) The more one consid ers this scene, the more one rea lises tha t the laug h it is intend ed to g enerate is not esp ecially d ep end ent on recog nising the reference to The R ailwa y C hild ren. Getting the reference mig ht ma ke a sp ecta tor feel know ledg eab le but the joke itself seems to b e elsewhere, in the none- too- sub tle juxtaposition of decorum and someone’s exposed a rse. The context p rovid ed b y The Railwa y Child ren p rovid es some nuance, then, just a s seeing the multip le-na rrative Christma s sp ecia l a s a w hole a s an homag e to the British portmanteau horror film offers a dded va lue for the know ledg eab le sp ecta tor. But none of it is a n essentia l p rerequisite to getting the humour w hich here, a s elsew here in the series, involves the d isrup tive a nd inapp rop ria te disp la y of exposed or g rotesque bodies. (7) This d oes not mean tha t the Leag ue’s allusions a re insig nificant, thoug h, for in fa ct they help to cha ra cterise the show in a n interesting way. Genera lly the League d oes not rely on the high- cultural or intellectua l allusions a ssociated w ith M onty Python but instea d exhib its a more contemp ora ry, sub cultura l and fa nnish p red ilection for p opula r- cultura l and low- cultura l sources, w ith multip le references to horror (for more on w hich, see b elow) and to some of the less rep uta ble British sitcoms ( see in this resp ect the casting in the first series of Don Estelle, b est known to British aud iences a s ‘Lofty’ in the 1970s sitcom It Ain’t Ha lf Hot Mum ( 1974-1981)) a nd a rang e of p op ula r films includ ing The Full M onty (1997) , Dead Poet’s Society ( 1989) and , of course, The Ra ilwa y Child ren. ( Python too offered references to pop culture forma ts such a s the ga me show and ta lk show but usually in the interests of a ferocious pa rod y bord ering on contemp t.) Tha t these sources – a nd esp ecia lly those to d o with horror – often rely on ind ecorous a nd ind ecent rep resenta tions of the bod y sugg ests a nother way of thinking a bout the Lea gue’s a llusiveness. Instead of ameliorating or conta ining rep resenta tions of vulg arity or the grotesq ue, the Leag ue’s framework of a llusions help s in certain resp ects to situate those rep resenta tions w ithin pa rticula r g eneric contexts in a ma nner tha t a ctua lly foreg rounds notions of the b od y ra ther tha n supp ressing or ma nag ing them. M ost notably, this is achieved throug h a self- conscious a rticulation of comic a nd horror traditions a nd, more implicitly, throug h an interp la y b etw een the televisua l and the cinema tic. In a sense, uncerta inties about the limits of w ha t can b e done to the bod y w ithin the institutiona l confines of television a re manifested in the bod y itself a s it hovers b etw een b eing grotesq uely funny a nd just p lain horrifying.

Comedy trad itions (8) The first episod e of the first series of The Lea gue of Gentlemen (which wa s b road ca st on 11 Ja nua ry 1999) b egins with the a rriva l of Benja min, a n innocent a b road , in Royston Va sey, a p eculia r town – to put it mild ly – tha t provid es the ma in setting for a ll three series. This peculia rity manifests itself a lmost immediately when Benjamin ca tches a ta xi from the sta tion. The d river, hirsute and w ith a d eep, husky voice, happily points out the loca l shop s w here he buys his d resses – ‘I couldn’t go into D orothy Perkins once my bust sta rted showing’ – and discusses some of the effects of his hormone trea tment – ‘I’ve b een on the hormones eighteen months. M y nipp les a re like bullets’ – as Benja min b ecomes increa singly d iscomfited. (9) Barba ra, for tha t is the ta xi-d river’s name, turns out to b e a reg ula r cha ra cter in series 1 and 2, hap pily rega ling his pa sseng ers with g rap hic d etails of his forthcoming sex- cha ng e op eration. As a kind of ga tekeep er to Royston Va sey, he is clea rly an imp orta nt figure. How ever, the most striking thing about him is tha t w e never g et to see his fa ce or his bod y a s a whole. Instea d we a re p resented w ith glimp ses of va rious heavily ma sculinised body pa rts – notab ly ha iry arms, legs a nd chest – tha t a re sometimes adorned w ith feminine appa rel – for exa mp le, hig h heel shoes or jew ellery – w ith these linked by an ultra- ma sculine voice-over (p rovid ed b y the Leag ue’s Steve Pemb erton). It is a s if Ba rba ra’s tra nsg end ered id entity, and the very id ea of a male b ecoming – anatomica lly at lea st – a female, is unrep resentab le w ithin the terms of the series. This is interesting beca use much of the humour in The Lea gue derives from forms of male transvestism, w ith ma le p erformers freq uently d ressing up a nd performing a s female chara cters. W ithin this context, Ba rba ra ca n b e seen to rep resent a limit- ca se, a surg ica lly d efined ab ject ob ject tha t mig ht ha ve its ow n fascinations but which in its non- rep resentab ility help s to d efine the p erformative pla yfulness g oing on elsew here. (10) The Leag ue’s main fema le cha ra cters ( virtua lly a ll of whom a re pla yed b y men) never a ctua lly look like women but instead like men dressed up none-too- convincing ly a s women. This is p a rtly b eca use w e recog nise the ma le p erformers – who play many roles, male a nd female, throughout the series – b ut a lso b eca use of the exagg erated and ca rica tural forms ta ken by their renditions of femininity. In this, yet a gain, the Lea gue can b e compa red with M onty Python, another male troup e of w riter-p erformers w ho often d ragg ed up to play grotesq ue fema les. These ca rica tured old w omen w ere dub b ed ‘the pepp erp ots’ by the Python tea m, and ind eed some of the Leag ue’s female cha ra cters have a p ep p erpot-like quality to them, notably Renee (Steve Pemb erton) a nd Vinnie (R eece Shea rsmith) , the tw o old lad ies w ho w ork in Royston Va sey’s cha rity shop. ( Both the Python team a nd the Leag ue a lso sometimes b ring in fema le a ctors to p erform more ‘rea listic’ rend itions of women.) (11) A key d ifference b etw een the Leag ue a nd Python, and one tha t ha s implica tions for a n und ersta nding of their a ttitud es to comic cross- dressing, lies in their resp ective orig ins. Python wa s pa rt of what Rog er Wilmut ha s ca lled the third wa ve of tw entieth- century British comed y – the university- educa ted comedians of the 1960s. ( The first wave consisted of p re-W orld Wa r Two music ha ll p erformers a nd the second of p erformers who d ebuted while in the a rmed services d uring World Wa r Two; W ilmut, 1980.) Of the Python p erformers, John C leese and Gra ha m Cha pma n w ere a t Camb ridg e, M icha el Pa lin a nd Terry Jones a t Oxford ( with Terry Gilliam, the American memb er of the tea m not joining the British comed y scene until later in the 1960s). W ilmut notes that the Ca mb ridg e Footlights, the university revue society tha t proved so important in g rooming new comed y ta lent, wa s in the ea rly 1960s a n intensely ma le preserve, w ith some of the male p erformers resisting the ad mission of women. Comedian Tim Brooke-Taylor, a Footlights memb er w ho voted aga inst allowing women in, remarked some yea rs la ter, ‘It wa s a w rong d ecision, in a wa y – but at that particula r time, it’s ha rd to b elieve, b ut people g ot slig htly self- conscious w hen there w ere women a round. W e w ere a ll g reen – a nd sudd enly everyb ody would b eha ve tota lly differently. Women w ere not on the whole the crea tive forces – not w illing to make comp lete a nd utter fools of themselves’ (W ilmut 1980: 36) . The a ssociation mad e here b y Brooke- Ta ylor b etw een wha t ap pea rs to b e an essentially homosocia l environment a nd a ma le freedom from restriction discovered in p erformance a rg uab ly und erp ins a lot of the ‘university comed y’ of the 1960s and 1970s, esp ecially Python. As wa s a lso appa rently the ca se with the F ootlig hts, the p resence of w omen seemed to inhibit the zaniness tha t cha racterised much of this comed y, restoring p rop rieties a nd returning men to their socia lly p rescrib ed roles; in effect, b ring ing p la ytime to its conclusion. (12) The Leag ue does not sha re Python’s Oxb ridg e orig ins. Instead Steve Pemb erton, R eece Shea rsmith and Ma rk Gatiss met a s stud ents at what one p resumes wa s the consid era bly less homosocial environment p rovided by Bretton Ha ll D rama C olleg e, University of Leed s (w here J eremy D yson, w ho w as studying philosop hy at Leed s, also joined them). N evertheless, the Lea gue does seem to maintain the associa tion of a homosocia l world – a nd Royston Va sey is certainly tha t – with craz y a nd surrea l ma le tra nsformations manifesting in performa nce and d ressing up . The na me of the series itself, The Lea gue of Gentlemen, refers, w ith more tha n a d eg ree of irony in this resp ect, to the intensely homosocial 1960 British crime cap er film of the sa me na me. How ever, the Lea gue is more w illing tha n Python ever was to explore some of the more d isturb ing a sp ects of the p ractice of grotesq ue fema le p ersonation, w ith this ha ving conseq uences for the ways in w hich bod ies, male a nd fa ke-female, a re fig ured in the League’s comed y. (13) This ha s a lot to do w ith the level of p erformative d eta il offered by the Leag ue, w hich – in terms both of cha ra cterisation and of ma ke- up – g oes fa r b eyond tha t a ssayed b y Python. Some of the Leag ue’s female cha ra cters never transcend their pepp erp ot status but others, while not jettisoning entirely the ca ricatural a nd g rotesque q ua lities associa ted with the ob vious maleness of the p erformers involved , d o develop a s the series p rog resses, w ith their g rotesquerie mod ified accord ingly. F or examp le, the initia l p resenta tion of M rs Levinson (Reece Shea rsmith) a nd her cleaner Iris (Mark Gatiss) is in terms of a schema tic cla ss d ivid e, with the smug b ourg eois compla cency of M rs Levinson set a gainst Iris’s w orking- cla ss vulga rity a nd physica lity. How ever, a s this rela tionship d evelop s, Mrs Levinson’s loneliness a nd self-d ecep tion b ecome increa singly appa rent, w ith her a ntagonism to Iris a n exp ression of this. Eventua lly – in the fina l episod e of the second series ( first broad ca st on 18 F eb rua ry 2000) – she collap ses and, in a g enuinely unexp ected plot tw ist, it is revea led that she is actua lly Iris’s d aug hter. This moment is certainly funny b ut it a lso stand s a s the clima x of a dramatic story a rc tha t ha s involved a d eg ree of pa thos a s w ell. M uch the sa me could be sa id of the cha nging relationship over three series b etw een monstrous employment retraining officer Pauline (Steve Pemb erton) and the p erp etua lly unemployed M ickey (Ma rk Gatiss); this is never anything less than grotesq ue – in the op ening ep isod e of Series 3 (b roa dcast on 27 Septemb er 2002) one cha ra cter refers to the coup le a s ‘the lesb ia n and the monkey’ – but in p la ces, thanks to some effective w riting and pla ying, it a lso manag es to b e q uite touching. (14) In fa ct this is a g enera l fea ture of the Leag ue, and one tha t becomes increa sing ly a ppa rent a s the show p rog resses. The sta rting point for most of its cha ra cterisa tions, male a nd female, is in terms of a p hysica l grotesq uerie. This is most ob viously the ca se w ith the female p erforma nces b ut the ma le cha ra cters too are freq uently trapp ed in bodies tha t a re misshap en or driven b y uncontrollab le desires, impulses or ob sessions. The a cting here is strong ly g estural and the dia logue full of ob sessive- rep etitive catchphrases. Yet these cha ra cters a re sub seq uently often d elivered into d ra ma tic situations tha t require their d evelop ment and some nua nce in p erforma nce. ( This quality sepa rates out the League from the eq ua lly g rotesq ue-orienta ted Little Britain, a series tha t ra rely if ever d evelop s its cha ra cters out of the stock situa tions in w hich they rep ea ted ly app ea r.) This is fina lly ta ken to its Pirand ellia n extreme in the film The Lea gue of Gentlemen’s Apoca lyp se when some of the show ’s chara cters escap e from R oyston Va sey into the ‘real w orld ’ and seek to move b eyond their stereotyp ica l existence. (15) But the Leag ue’s female cha ra cters have a sp ecial resona nce in this constant slippag e a wa y from a sitcom or sketch- ba sed show towa rds something more closely resembling serial d ra ma . This is not only b eca use their male-to-fema le g rotesq uerie can never b e entirely effa ced but also b ecause they a re often loca ted in d rama s involving sexua l d esire for men ( or rather, d esire for other men). The ‘innocent’ pla yfulness of the homosocial sta rts to crumb le in the face of a ny exp licit visua lisa tion of the homoerotic, and any scene such a s the love scene b etw een Pauline a nd Mickey in the third series that show s one man p assiona tely kissing a nother ( even if one of the men is p retending to b e a woma n) p rovid es such a visua lisation. Elsewhere too the League d oes not shy awa y from rep resenta tions of g ayness. The series contains its ow n g ay stereotyp e in Herr Lipp e from Germa ny (a lthoug h even a s a stereotyp e he g ets the cha nce to d evelop in the film version) . More telling is the p enultimate ep isod e in the series three (broad ca st on 24 Octob er 2000) – w hich g enerally wa s more adventurous than the p revious two series in its exp lorations of unconventional sexua l p ra ctices – tha t fea tures w hat in effect is a susta ined ga y coming out na rra tive, one in w hich an ostensibly heterosexual ma le cha ra cter, ma squerad ing a s a female ma sseuse w ho provid es ‘sp ecial services’ a t the local massag e pa rlour, fa lls in love with one of his ma le clients. (16) It is not just the emotional a nd sexual comp lexities of the dra ma tic situations into which the League’s cha ra cters a re pla ced that destabilises a ny simplistic notion of the League a s a g roup of men producing za ny or surrea l comed y in the male- centred trad ition of Monty Python’s Flying C ircus ( or, going back further, the rad io series The Goon Show (1951- 60)). The Lea gue of Gentlemen a lso offers some moments that a re confrontationa l in a d ifferent wa y and w hich sta nd in unea sy rela tion both to the sitcom/ comedy sketch elements a nd to the more d ra ma tic elements. M ost notab le here a re the few scenes involving female nud ity, a nd pa rticularly the leng thy full- frontal scene afford ed Va l D enton (played b y M a rk Ga tiss), the w ife of toad- loving Ha rvey D enton, in the fourth ep isod e of the second series ( first broad ca st on 4 Feb rua ry 2000). It’s a triump h of make-up b ut it is the kind of ma ke-up tha t d ispla ys itself a s ma ke-up ra ther than contrib uting to a ny imp ression of the real. If this w ere a real w oman, such a scene would probab ly not b e a cceptab le, even w ithin the ta boo- brea king w orld of the new da rk TV comedy. The scene’s a cceptab ility then is p redicated on this not b eing a w oma n, b ut the cond itions of this accep tab ility are in themselves a nxiety- p rovoking for w ha t w e see here is a pathologica l endp oint to the sort of homosocial enterp rise tha t exclud es women a nd insta lls men in their p la ce, na mely its presenta tion in terms of a na tomica l sexual d ifference. In its p erverse way, the scene returns us to tra nssexua l taxi d river Ba rba ra , with b oth Val’s nudity and Ba rba ra ’s off-screen tra nsforma tion equa lly ma rked a s imp ossib le but a lso a s sta nding in a d isturbing rela tion to the other male tra nsforma tions out of w hich the Leag ue’s comed y is fa shioned. (16) It is striking how much the series a ssociates this kind of rep resenta tion w ith horror cinema. As a man ‘w ea ring ’ wha t in effect is a ‘fema le suit’, Va l D enton/M a rk Gatiss is clea rly compa rab le with Buffa lo Bill, the seria l killer in The Silence of the La mb s (1991) who wants to construct a female skinsuit for himself from the skin of the women he murd ers. ( Elsewhere – in the fifth ep isod e of series tw o, which wa s b roa dcast on 11 F eb rua ry 2000 – the Leag ue refers to The Silence of the Lamb s in a scene w here Edwa rd, the local shop keep er, adopts Buffa lo Bill’s modus op erand i w hen attemp ting to kid nap a woman.) As ha s b een noted b y numerous critics, the League is very horror- conscious, in terms of its p ersonnel – Ga tiss and J eremy D yson ha ve b oth w ritten non- comed y books ab out horror- rela ted sub jects (Gatiss, 1995; Dyson, 1997) – and in terms of how the show itself op erates. It is worth consid ering at this point how the horror references mig ht connect w ith the Leag ue’s often comp lex attitud es to its comic foreb ea rs, pa rticula rly so far a s rep resentations of the bod y are concerned .

Horror on the box (17) The Lea gue of Gentlemen allud es to individua l horror films in much the sa me wa y a s it a llud es to non- horror films such a s The Railwa y Child ren. F or examp le, Boris Ka rloff’s intoning of ‘W e b elong dead ’ at the clima x of the Universa l horror film Brid e of F ra nkenstein (1935) is rep rised a s ‘W e b elong loca l’ b y Ed wa rd in the final ep isod e of the second series (b roa dca st on 18 F ebrua ry 2000), w hile the Denton’s tw o sinister d aug hters app ear to ha ve stra yed in from The Shining ( 1980). How ever, the horror references a rg uab ly ca rry more weight ina smuch a s they seem more integra ted into a b roa d er preoccupa tion w ith horror- like themes a nd imag ery. This preoccupa tion, while one of the Lea gue’s distinctive features, comp lica tes yet further the wa ys in w hich the League’s comic effects function. (18) Critica l discussions of ‘vulga r’ bod y-centred forms of comedy ha ve often d ra wn upon Mikhail Ba khtin’s w ork on ca rnival ( for exa mp le, see Hunt 1998; King 2002; Pa ul 1994). Ba khtin saw ca rnival a s a p ow erful, life-a ffirming cultura l exp erience a ssocia ted with the common p eop le tha t existed along sid e and sometimes in resistance to more elite cultura l forms. Ca rniva l in this sense tend ed to involve a p ositive rend ering of the bod y in a ll its p hysicality a nd g rossness: ‘The very materia l bod ily low er stratum of the g rotesque imag e ( food , wine, the genita l force, the orga ns of the bod y) b ears a d eep ly p ositive cha ra cter. This p rinciple is victorious, for the final result is a lwa ys abund ance, increa se’ ( Ba khtin 1984: 62) . Ba khtin’s id ea s ha ve provid ed a useful resource for those critics w anting to valida te ‘low- cultura l’ forms of comed y in film a nd television (a lthough Ba khtin himself explicitly a rgued aga inst the idea tha t mod ern cultura l forms are ca rniva lesque in his sense of the term). Ta ke a s a relevant exa mple, British ‘low’ television comed y of the 1960s a nd 1970s, with ea rthy p erformers such a s Sid Ja mes, Peggy M ount a nd Benny Hill a nd sitcoms such as On The Buses (1969- 1973) a nd Love Thy N eighbour (1972-1976) offering aud iences a typ e of humour la rg ely ba sed on pra tfalls, g urning , an imp olite stress on bodily functions, and imp ertinence in the fa ce of a uthority. F rom a Ba khtinian p ersp ective (alb eit one tha t would not ha ve b een shared b y Ba khtin himself), this low humour, fa r from being d eg rad ed or vulga rly commercial, acquires a p ositive, healthy q ua lity, connected a s it app ea rs to b e w ith pop ula r or folk tra ditions of humour. Leon Hunt ha s rig htly pointed out tha t this kind of app roa ch can end up id ealising the culture of the ‘low er cla sses’ when that culture mig ht w ell exhib it some q uestionab le or rea ctiona ry features, such a s misog yny, ra cism, etc. (Hunt 1998: 35). Nevertheless, a s ha s a lread y b een sug g ested in this chap ter, some asp ects of the League could w ell b e seen as ‘ca rnivalesq ue’, a s offering a p rovocative vulga rity – w ith nud ity a nd jokes about sex, p issing and shitting – d esig ned to disrupt trad itiona l notions of good ta ste. (19) Yet this positive a ffirmation of w ha t Ba khtin ha s termed the materia l bod ily low er stratum sits unea sily w ith the d eployment of ima g ery from a nother body- centred g enre, horror. Clearly there is a relation b etw een some forms of comedy and some forms of horror, particula rly a round the id ea of the ‘g ross-out’, b ut the effects generated b y ea ch genre often seem incompa tible. In a study of American comed y a nd horror, W illia m Pa ul id entifies wha t he sees a s the key d ifferences b etw een the two forms and seeks to reconcile them: ‘g ross- out horror a nd comedy p resent comp lementa ry d ystop ian- utopia n visions. Like the fun house w here w e p refer to see d istorted reflections of rea lity, g ross- out films p resent us w ith a distorting mirror vision of culture a nd society b y moving into p ositive a nd negative id ealiza tion’ ( Paul 1994: 68). Horror’s ‘nega tive id ealiza tion’ of the b ody entails anxieties about control – or rather la ck of control – over the body, with, a ccord ing to Pa ul, comic affirmations of the bod y comba ting those a nxieties. How ever, the positive/negative nexus set out here is not one tha t Bakhtin would have recog nised b eca use for him ca rnival is a sta te in which ‘terror is conquered b y laug hter’ (Ba khtin 1984: 336) . For Pa ul, b y contrast, anxiety seems to b e omnip resent, with comed y functioning a s a kind of rea ction- forma tion to it. F rom this p ersp ective, the Leag ue offers some very negative horror- rela ted id ea lisations of the bod y, a lthough the relation of these to a ny p ositive id ea lisa tions is fa r from straig htforwa rd. In p a rticula r the Lea gue d raw s upon tw o importa nt cinema tic horror trad itions, both of w hich p resent huma n bod ies a s sites for a nxiety and a s something less tha n human – rura l horror and b od y horror. (20) Cinematic rura l horror na rra tives usually involve tow n-dw ellers unw isely venturing into the countrysid e only to b e terrorised , rap ed and/or slaug htered ( and sometimes eaten as w ell) by the sa vag e loca ls. Althoug h not strictly a horror film, Deliverance ( 1972) is a key American text here, a s a re ca nniba l films The Texa s Cha insaw Ma ssa cre (1974) and The Hills Ha ve Eyes (1977) a s w ell a s notorious rap e- reveng e d ra ma I Sp it on Your Gra ve ( 1978) a nd more recent productions such a s W rong Turn ( 2003) and House of Wa x ( 2005). Sig nificantly, so fa r a s the League is concerned , rura l horror also ha s a pla ce in British cinema, most notab ly w ith Stra w Dogs (1971) , Frightma re (1974) a nd the cult cla ssic The Wicker Ma n ( 1973), in which a Christia n policema n confronts p agans on a remote isla nd. This typ e of horror ma nag es to b e both d eep ly p essimistic ab out the sta te of the mod ern world – w ith its tow n-dw elling p rotagonists usua lly wea k, compla cent a nd not up to d ealing with the locals – and d eep ly sca red of country dw ellers, w ho tend to be chara cterised as a subhuma n, d eg ra d ed, d eformed, inb red , cannibalistic rura l und erclass. (The Wicker Man, which d oes seem to ha ve b een a n influence on the League, p resents its paga ns w ith more sympathy, a lthough ultima tely they remain a sca ry b unch.) (21) R oyston Va sey clea rly offers itself as a setting for rural horror. In the first series in pa rticula r, Benja min is the cosmop olitan outsid er who – in a cla ssic rural horror na rra tive device – find s himself trapp ed and unab le to return to the world of modernity. The key loca ls in this resp ect a re the keep ers of the local shop, Edwa rd a nd his w ife/ sister Tub bs. They a re incestuous, mad a nd da ng erous, with Edwa rd happ ily murd ering outsid ers, and , as if to und erline their sta tus a s horror icons, in the second series they a cquire a monstrous son who lives above the shop . It is a cla ssic rura l horror scena rio, w ith this monstrous family comp a rable w ith similarly d eg rad ed families in The Texa s Cha insaw Ma ssa cre and The Hills Have Eyes, and yet it is never as d isturbing a s its cinema tic counterpa rts. This is not necessa rily beca use the television series is funny and the films a re not, b eca use the films themselves often rely on a p erverse kind of humour. Famously, The Texa s C ha insaw Ma ssa cre p la ys a g ruelling torture scene for cruel laug hs, thus ea rning its tra nsg ressive cinema tic cred entials. In the TV show, b y contra st, Edwa rd ’s violence a lwa ys occurs off-screen and w e a re never shown the gory a fterma th of his acts. This reticence about a cts of extreme violence is clea rly imposed by the institution of television itself, although a t the same time it seems to b e something tha t the Leag ue itself requires in ord er to function and b e d istinctive. It is interesting in this resp ect that when the Lea gue fina lly ‘liberated ’ itself from television a nd esca ped into the world of cinema, its imag ery d id not b ecome noticeab ly gorier than it was on television. (22) All the references to rura l horror play in this resp ect as a llusions to tha t which exists outsid e the world of the Leag ue but w hich sporadica lly erupts into the d ra ma, if only in a limited a nd temp ora ry fa shion. Something simila r could b e said of the wa y in w hich the second series of the Leag ue uses a s its main story a rc a b od y horror na rrative, w ith a mysterious consig nment of mea t infecting the loca ls and causing a n outb rea k of fa ta l noseb leed s. In the hand s of a d irector such a s Da vid Cronenb erg ( ma ster of cinematic bod y horror w ith films such a s Shivers (1975) , Rab id (1977) , The Brood ( 1979) and The F ly (1986)), this kind of ma terial ca n b e b oth very g rap hic a nd very disturbing in its p resentation of bodies a cq uiring their ow n materiality and ‘revolting’ aga inst their huma n ow ners. But it is never tha t wa y with the Leag ue. The b od y-horror themes of infection and monstrous biolog ies a re there b ut only p eriodically and some of the imag ery is also there but in an a ttenuated, less g ra phic form. (23) It is not simp ly a question here of the horror imag ery b eing restrained by the institution of television ( althoug h it is thus restrained), nor of the Leag ue’s restricting the horror input so tha t the comic effects a re not d isrupted b y too much gore or violence, for a s w e ha ve alread y seen, the humour itself is in p la ces da rk, d isturbing a nd patholog ical. Instead , the constantly shifting format of the show – with sketch, sitcom and d rama tic elements intertw ined – fa cilita tes some rema rkable shifts in tone, from ca rica ture to p sycholog ica l complexity, from cruelty to pa thos a nd from allusion to vulga rity. In this veritable para d e of attra ctions, g rotesq ue b od ies provid e some continuity, w ith bod y-anxiety a major theme, alb eit one tha t is mod ulated in d ifferent, generica lly sp ecific wa ys a s the show p rog resses. The deployment of grotesq ue bod ies, d efined in rela tion to both comedy a nd horror traditions, also help s to a rticulate the p eculia r televisual cha ra cter of a show tha t seems very much to b e defining itself in terms of the limits of w ha t can a ctua lly b e show n on television. The shocking or transg ressive edg e p ossessed b y The League of Gentlemen is not broug ht ab out simp ly b y b eing ‘rud e’ ( in the manner of, sa y, some scenes in Little Brita in) but instead often involves a ctiva ting b roa d er generic field s tha t seem incompa tib le – throug h their g ore or ob scenity – with television comed y or d ra ma. R ep ea tedly, the emp ha sis is on wha t w e ca nnot see, with the limits of our vision often a ssocia ted w ith partially glimpsed b od ies. W e cannot see the source of the infected meat ( althoug h w e mig ht p resume tha t it is human flesh), w e ca nnot see the monster above the shop, w e cannot see Ba rba ra in a ll her transsexual g lory. Instead the show alludes to extra- televisua l g eneric world s tha t a re not fully rep resentab le within television itself, with those a llusions d rawing the a ttention of an aud ience – or a t lea st a generica lly know ledg eab le aud ience – p recisely to wha t they a re missing . (24) It is not just horror that p rovid es a source of the unrep resenta ble for the show, how ever, for comed y too has its illicit, ob scene a rea s. The League’s town is ca lled Royston Va sey, w hich just happ ens to b e the rea l na me of pop ula r Northern comedian R oy ‘C hubb y’ Brown, someone w hose foul- mouthed a ct is g enera lly consid ered una ccep tab le for television transmission. (His DVD relea se, King Thong ( 2005) , wa s sold w ith the slogan ‘Too rud e for TV’.) And yet in the second series of The Lea gue of Gentlemen, Roy ‘C hubb y’ Brow n show s up a t the ma yor of R oyston Vasey. In a scene in the fourth ep isod e tha t serves to crysta llise the Leag ue’s use of television a s a framing d evice, he is interview ed for a live television b road ca st a fter b eing told b y a n aide to mind his la nguag e. He is as g ood a s g old throug hout, until the end when the interview er tha nks him. Brown’s rep ly is d elivered with the perfect timing of a sea soned p erformer: ‘It’s a fucking plea sure,’ he sa ys. R ud eness interrup ts televisua l d ecorum, and a world of comica l and sca ry limits a nd tra nsg ressions comes sha rp ly into focus. W elcome to Royston Va sey.

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