Dom Robinson reviews
The League of Gentlemen:
Series 1
Distributed by
Producer:
Screenplay:
Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith
Music:
Cast:
Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith
This is a local shop for local people.
There's only one comedy series synonymous with that catchphrase, the
distinctly dark comedy, The League of Gentlemen. Perhaps there's
something that's passed me by about this programme, but the preposterous
antics of Tubbs and Edward, the local shop owners, the Denton family with
their regular lectures on self-abuse and Babs Cabs owner Barbara, the pre-op
transsexual with a voice deeper than Barry White leave me slightly on the
cold side.
That's not to say that it doesn't leave me with nothing to laugh at, but
this type of humour displayed in the town of Royston Vasey would be best
served by the removal of the canned laughter soundtrack. There are other
jokes in there which I can see are funny as I get the joke, but just aren't
making me laugh and I can't think why. I don't care that the sniggering and
guffawing came from those watching the same piece of material, but the gags
are best accompanied by the sound of silence and nothing else. It makes me
feel like I'm watching a stage play more than a TV sitcom.
All six episodes of series 1, broadcast in January and February 1999,
are here and it can't be long before series 2, shown in early 2000, plus
last year's Christmas Special, see the light of day on DVD.
As filmed, this DVD is presented in the original 16:9 widescreen ratio and
is anamorphic. There's no intentional artifacts onscreen, but the way it's
been shot on film gives an apparently slightly hazy look throughout the series
which hinders the image to a degree.
The average bitrate is 5.31Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 7Mb/s.
The stereo soundtrack is purely functional, giving clear English dialogue,
but nothing else is necessary.
There are 36 chapters to the series, the menus are static and silent
and subtitles come in English only.
The extras contain Outtakes, a whole 20 minutes worth and also in
16:9 anamorphic widescreen, Character statistics for the entire townsfolk,
a Photo Gallery and a Writer/Director Commentary which runs
for the duration of the series - quite a unique feature this really since
I've yet to come across such a thing for a TV show.
FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
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OVERALL
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.
The following is a list of all the Black Adder DVDs reviewed online to date :
1999 The Black Adder
2001 Black Adder II
2001 Black Adder The Third
2001 Black Adder Goes Forth
2001 Black Adder: Back And Forth
2002 Blackadder's Christmas Carol
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DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
