Friday, November 23, 2018

Behind the curtain

"An unequivocal joy, born out of friendship": that's how Jeremy Dyson describes the League Of Gentlemen and their recent live tour, which was captured on camera by photographer Sarah Lee. The resulting photo essay has been published by the Guardian, featuring captions supplied by Dyson and his colleagues.

Those captions reveal some of the thought processes and motivations behind the various characters and storylines - my favourite being Mark Gatiss' comment on Les McQueen: "I'm so very fond of Les McQueen. He is based on someone real but he's also very representative of a lot of people's thwarted ambitions. He was nearly there. Eurovision (heats). He's a total chump but his unflagging optimism keeps him going and going and going." Surrounded by grotesque and monstrous (though hilarious) caricatures, Les is a tragicomic figure to whom people can actually relate. Gatiss struck a similar note for the wistful bingo caller who stole the show in the Christmas comeback episodes.

While I've come to feel that Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's Inside No. 9 is even better, the essay still has me kicking myself for not going when the tour called in in Cardiff.

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