Meet the Twisted Minds Behind the League of Gentlemen, Psychoville and Inside No. 9
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Meet the twisted minds behind The League Of Gentlemen, Psychoville and Inside No. 9 042 JUNE 2014 The two of them, along with friends Mark Gatiss (who would go on to co-write ratings-smashing Sherlock, appearing as the eponymous detective’s older brother “Some people don’t Mycroft) and writer Jeremy Dyson, started to run their own live sketch nights as The FIND IT DARK, OTHERS League Of Gentlemen – a knowingly ironic name for a group of northerners who were anything but. Without an agent or promoter, FIND IT TOO SQUEAMISH. and through word of mouth alone, the show became an underground hit. News of this unconventional troupe BUT WE NEVER THINK, spread to the upper echelons of the BBC. They took a punt that there was indeed a place in the late ’90s television schedules, ‘WHAT'S THE WORST alongside tried-and-tested shows like Only Fools And Horses and One Foot In The Grave, for an innovative, genre-defying WE CAN DO?’” comedy series. In January 1999, 15 years REECE SHEARSMITH ago, The League Of Gentlemen first aired on BBC Two, unleashing on the world the fictional northern town of Royston Vasey good taste by including a wheelchair- can only imagine the warped and and its bizarre inhabitants. Among them bound Make A Wish Foundation girl, a were the hairy-chested, transgender man with serious mental health problems, distorted nightmares that must keep cab driver Barbara and ‘accident prone’, and allusions to child abuse. animal-mangling vet Mr Chinnery; Victor Is it a case of anything goes? the creators of some of the most Meldrew they were not. “I don’t think anything is off limits,” says After three series, a Christmas special, a Shearsmith. “Inside No 9 is not that grizzly slightly second-rate feature-length film and or horrible, really. At nine o’clock on ITV twisted characters ever to have graced a slew of sell-out live shows, The League there are horrific dramas, but you’re was disbanded (for the time being, at least ready for it because the parameters are our television screens awake at night. – Pemberton and Shearsmith like the idea set, like, ‘OK, I understand that I might of a 20th anniversary reunion). Though the be shocked at this point.’ But if you’re show’s four creators remained close, they operating from the BBC comedy “I’m quite scared of cows.” We know them today as one of spent the next few years pursuing their department and suddenly you’re doing “It’s horses I don’t like.” the most established and best-loved own projects. But the friendship and horrible things, the shock is more extreme, “It’s the slowness of cows though. partnerships in British comedy, but their working relationship that Pemberton and because you’re not expected to do it. All They’re lumbering, with big teeth, and enormous, multi-award-winning success Shearsmith had enjoyed was too strong the drama is upped and all the moments they’re lolloping towards you…” was by no means an inevitability. Before to end there. “In The League Of Gentlemen, of horror are heightened for someone who “…Like zombies. Zombie cows – that The League Of Gentlemen came anywhere we fell into two writing partnerships, thinks it’s just going to be Mrs Brown’s would be the worst of all worlds.” near becoming a cult classic, Pemberton which were Jeremy and Mark, and me Boys… because it’s not.” But isn’t offence “It would, yes.” and Shearsmith were just two jobbing and Reece,” says Pemberton. “So it was a very subjective thing? “People used to Oh. Right. Well, who could’ve predicted actors from Blackburn and Hull, whose quite natural that when The League Of say of The League, ‘I can’t watch it; it’s the night-time fears of Steve Pemberton idea of a laugh was pretending to be the Gentlemen came to an… on-going hiatus, like a sitcom of Fred and Rose West,’ and (cow fearer) and Reece Shearsmith evil dwarf in Don’t Look Now. They had shall we say, that we’d go, ‘Right, what other people would be like, ‘No, it’s like Mr (distruster of horses)? From the minds of no natural place within the British comedy are we going to do next?’” and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle’,” says Shearsmith. these two men were spawned serial-killing circuit. They were outsiders. So it’s just people’s tastes: some don’t find shopkeepers Edward and Tubbs Tattsyrup, “I never believed that we’d end up where it dark, other people find it too squeamish. hook-handed clown Mr Jelly, voodoo wife we’ve ended up,” says Pemberton, the INTO THE DARKNESS But we never set out thinking, ‘What’s the collector Papa Lazarou and more than greyer-haired, larger-boned of the two. What did come next for the duo, though worst thing we can do?’” Even when they’re 100 other equally disturbing characters. “There’s an Oxbridge sort of comedian, not until June 2009, was Psychoville, a tossing a dog against a window and Surely the writers and stars of legendary coming through Footlights and Radio 4 dark comedy with such brilliantly sinister stabbing it to death with an umbrella… dark comedy series The League Of and all that. Then if you went up to characters as serial killer-obsessed Gentlemen, Psychoville and, most recently, Edinburgh, it was all about stand-ups – man-child David Sowerbutts, Beanie Inside No. 9, are wracked with downright a very male, aggressive, working-class Baby-collecting blind millionaire Oscar BEDTIME STORIES demonic thoughts. Yet the two men sitting movement. We never did feel like we Lomax, and a disturbed midwife (played The pair, who met at Bretton Hall College around the table in a boxy, bare-walled belonged in any particular group.” Dark, by Dawn French) who treats a doll as if drama school in Yorkshire, both displayed room adjacent to the FHM office on horror film-inspired stories and creepy it were her own, real-life baby. Naturally, some of the traits that would eventually this chilly spring morning are charming characters aren’t exactly the kind of thing these are not your average, humdrum lead them to Royston Vasey, and beyond, (especially Pemberton), serious (especially you just slot into a stand-up night at a comedy characters. Most recently, in the from an early age. REECE SHEARSMITH AND STEVE PEMBERTON, Shearsmith), unfalteringly polite and comedy club. “We tried,” says Shearsmith. superb series of short stories Inside No 9, “I think I was a ghoulish little boy, into SHOT FOR FHM almost disappointingly normal. “It was dreadful. Worst thing on the bill.” they further flirted with the boundaries of horror books and films,” says Shearsmith. 044 JUNE 2014 045 CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: PEMBERTON AND SHEERSMITH AS DAVID SOWERBUTTS AND HIS MUM MAUREEN IN PSYCHOVILLE (2009); HAPLESS BURGLARS EDDIE AND RAY IN INSIDE N0 9 MACABRE (2014); AND LOCAL SHOP OWNERS TUBBS AND EDWARD IN THE LEAGUE MAGIC OF GENTLEMAN (1999) The telly, films and people who inspired the Inside No 9 creators Reeves & Mortimer Shearsmith: “I still find Vic and Bob the funniest people on television. They’re so inventive and dynamic; they never fail to floor me with their peculiar brand of comedy.” Audition Pemberton: “We don’t tend to look at other comedies for our inspiration. We’ll look to some Japanese horror film and apply it to a comedy. Then we’ve got something special.” The Haunting Shearsmith: “This is meet as young actors and living on the dole, wanted to create a piece of television that that the process of writing comedy – which a film that still frightens me. The director, that they worked together for the first time. people would just watch, be completely they do in their shared workspace, walking Robert Wise, creates “THE BEST STUFF WE DO IS WHAT WE DO TOGETHER. engaged by and talk about afterwards. distance from their North London homes the grandaddy of That’s what we want to achieve.” And – isn’t all fun and games. “We kill ourselves haunted houses with DEAD FUNNY they’ve succeeded: people don’t just talk laughing, but the craft of the writing is Hill House. And you WE LOVE IT, AND LONG MAy it continue” STEVE PEMBERTON Now, with more than two decades of about the shows afterwards, but faithfully to shape it,” say Shearsmith. “People say, never see anything!” writing and performing alongside each parrot the catchphrases at every available ‘Oh, me and my mates laugh down the pub Mid Morning Matters Pemberton agrees. “We had the same artefacts, and the mementos have become other, they’ve joined the ranks of the great opportunity. “You’re my wife now, Dave”, all the time. I could do what you do. Don’t Pemberton: “The Alan book, didn’t we, the Alan Frank book of all the more macabre as their careers comedy partnerships (though the last “This is a local shop, for local people”, “Not you just get pissed and write it all down?’ Partridge series is set horrors,” he recalls. have progressed. Pemberton’s study is thing they’d do is describe themselves now, Silent Singer”, “I did a bad murder”, Of course not – can you imagine? It’s like in a radio booth, and “Yeah, and Mark [Gatiss] did as well.” decorated with three severed heads as comedians). Shearsmith – wearing a and many, many more besides are still pulling teeth. It’s proper work. The deftness I found that absolutely “And the Dick Smith horror make-up kit, – souvenirs from Psychoville – including Victorian-style wool jacket – is the quieter heard, or seen on T-shirts, across the nation.