THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN'S APOCALYPSE
Directed by Danny Boyle

IF you are a fan of television’s League of Gentlemen, you will think you’ve died and gone to heaven in this absurdist comedy.
Delivered as if straight from heart of the characters of Royston Vasey, this is what one might expect from the men who made the lovable if creepy characters from that town of oddballs – a typically irreverent, feisty, nauseating feature film with all the elements we love to watch, among them mad butcher Hilary Briss (Mark Gatiss), as they come into the real world – our world – to kidnap their creators after the characters find out that the writers of the show are planning to stop making it. Like a gothic Monty Python, this is a darkly weathered movie, full of lurking and foreboding, all of which come to fruition.
German paedophile Herr Lipp (Steve Pemberton) ends up in the real world and is actually a great father. Hopeless and hapless Geoff (Reece Shearsmith) ends up becoming a bit of a winner. With some wonderful production design touches – stop-action animation, special effects, 17th-century plots with even weirder characters than ever thought possible – this is a film that will delight fans and possibly perplex anyone who has never heard of Royston Vasey.
Bernard Hill, David Warner and Victoria Wood make welcome appearances, if somewhat hidden away under period costume if spouting less than period dialogue.