Their three forthcoming reunion specials for the BBC are among this Christmas’s most anticipated television shows. Now, the League of Gentlemen have announced that they will be touring the UK for the first time in over 12 years.
The League of Gentlemen Live Again! tour starts in Sunderland on 25 August 2018, offering local entertainment for local people around the UK, culminating in three nights at London’s Eventim Apollo, from 27 to 29 September.
The comedy troupe – comprising Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson – are celebrating 20 years since they stormed the Edinburgh fringe with their darkly bizarre sketch show. They beat Al Murray, Graham Norton, Milton Jones and Johnny Vegas to the Perrier award in 1997. (“The thing I most remember was being hot,” Pemberton said. “We were in the hottest room at the fringe, the Pleasance Attic, in dinner suits.”)
The League of Gentlemen’s radio series began on BBC Radio 4 in the same year as their Edinburgh triumph. Their TV show about the unnerving inhabitants of the fictional village of Royston Vasey ran from 1999 to 2002 on BBC Two and won them a Bafta. A film, The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, followed in 2005. Earlier this year they returned to Edinburgh to present the awards to 2017’s comedy winners.
In a joint statement, the group said: “Performing in front of an audience gives us the biggest thrill of all. We’re overjoyed to be taking the citizens of Royston Vasey on a road-trip and can’t wait to see all the wonderful local places in our increasingly local country. Plus we’d already gone to the trouble of getting the costumes and learning the voices again for the TV show so we thought why not? Something to do isn’t it?”
Tickets go on sale on 20 December.
