The Village People

"I’m a drug addict,” lisps Mark Gatiss as his eyes bulge wildly and he twists himself into a craven deformity. It may well not be the first such confession made within the walls of the rock-star friendly Clarence hotel, but today the League Of Gentlemen writer and performer is obligingly recreating my favourite Vincent Price scene from Dragonwyck. As one quarter of outfit who brought live burials, inter-grotesque incest, DIY surgery, terrifying gypsies and canine cinemas to British television, it should come as little surprise that the late lamented Mr. Price is something of a godhead for the Gentlemen.

Indeed, the remarkably talented gang are Hammer horror aficionados and one can easily discern the influence of such camp classics as Witchfinder General and Blood On Satan’s Claw. “Bless you for mentioning Blood On Satan’s Claw,” exclaims Mark. “It’s had a profound impact on us. We’ve actually just done the DVD commentary for the reissue. And we did pitch the movie as Blood On Satan’s Claw meets Bambi.”
Ah yes, the movie. Thanks to incredibly high DVD sales for the League Of Gentlemen TV series, the creative talents of Mark and fellow creators Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson can now be sampled in all their grotesque glory at a cinema near you. The League Of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse is a delightfully self-reflexive oddity wherein the TV show’s creators attempt to ditch their comedy series in favour of The King’s Evil, a 17th century horror romp, replete with puffs, powders, patches, wigs and demon spawn. As meteors rain down on Royston Vasey – the monstrous village named for Roy ’Chubby’ Brown (that‘s what it says on the smut-peddler‘s birth certificate) – three of the locals venture forth to persuade their makers to reconsider, with predictably fiendish results.
“Please," Steve Pemberton’s Pauline begs, well, Steve Pemberton. “We’ve written down some ideas for TV specials. We all go on holiday to Spain and the hotel isn’t finished yet…” Sadly, the film does not make use of this great stable of small-to-big screen (please see Cannon And Ball’s The Boys In Blue and Are You Being Served?), preferring a rather more innovative approach.
With only three performers capable of being on screen at a time, even writing the screenplay was something of a logistical nightmare. Barring fleeting cameos from the likes of Tubbs, Pauline and Papa Lazarou, the Gentlemen settled on cannibalistic butcher Hilary Briss (Gatiss), campy pederast Herr Lipp (Steve Pemberton) and psycho corporate drone Geoff Tipps (Shearsmith) as the film’s focus.
“We thought about lots of combinations," explains Steve Pemberton, who plays Tubbs and German boy-chaser Herr Lipp. “We knew from the start that Tubbs and Edward are just too bizarre to carry the plot. We did think initially about sending Mickey into the real world with Herr Lipp and Geoff. But then you would have had three idiots with no leader, so we decided Hilary was our man.”
Interestingly, even more than the later episodes Apocalypse fleshes the villagers out beyond twisted caricature. “That’s especially true of Pauline," agrees Steve. “When the show started, she was the worst monster there. Herr Lipp is the same. In the movie, he’s a funny fish out of water. Of course, if you know the show then you know he’s a despicable creep who buries people alive.”
Happily, Apocalypse offers an entire new batch of demented blackhearts, as the three chosen locals do battle with the pock-marked schemers of rival 1690 based project The King’s Evil.
“We chose the period very specifically because I’m a bit of an historian," explains Mark. “Ooh. I was very upset when someone today referred to The King’s Evil as the medieval. We did this thing with The Sunday Times recently and they were just as bad. The voiceover on the DVD referred to it as a Restoration setting and then as a Regency setting. Oh dear. It’s actually a post-Restoration setting because it’s the era of William and Mary. It’s such an unusual period and very rarely represented on screen – there’s only Captain Blood that I can think of. There’s just something about men in wigs seeking the destruction of the Protestant king that appeals to us, and we wanted a full-blooded gothic feel so it had to be 1690.”
Was he aware while shooting the League Of Gentlemen in Wicklow, that 1690 carries certain, erm, connotations in this country?
“It’s the weirdest thing,” he laughs. “I had forgotten all about. It’s an era I presumed had no resonance at all and then suddenly I realised we’ve picked the one country where it’s a loaded date. I was standing in the middle of Powerscourt and thought ‘Oh my God, it’s King Billy. What am I doing?’ We might as well have greeted the people of Wicklow on horseback waving little orange flags.”
Talk about riling the locals.

The League Of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse is released June 3. Click here to read Tara Brady's review of the film.