'League of Gentlemen' Q&A

'Edward' tells Tom Howard about the difficulties in bringing brilliant TV to the big screen.

Jun  2 2005

The latest Britcom to make it from small screen to big is 'The League of Gentlemen' – but it's far from a straight transfer. Co-writer and star Reece Shearsmith talks about the thinking behind 'The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse'.

How did the idea for the film come about?

It came from our own struggle to write a film away from Royston Vasey. We couldn't quite let the characters go. We spent a year writing this thing that was separate from the series, but it only became funny when we imagined Pauline walking in. Then me and Steve [Pemberton] had this idea – he came round one day saying 'I think I've just seen Pauline in Budgens!'. That suddenly really made us laugh, so the idea that writers who want to move on aren't allowed to by their characters became the idea behind the film.

Do you think this will appeal to both fans of the TV series and newcomers?

You presume your fans will watch it but then you can't preach to the converted because they'll frown upon it. It's like a comic-book adaptation – we know how the Joker became the Joker, but you have to say it anyway, otherwise you aren't doing justice to the story.

You had a similar conundrum before the TV series.

That's why we housed random sketches in a place – Royston Vasey – but that became bigger than the thing itself. We always used to shoot ourselves in the foot in the early days by overdoing the darkness and making people shift uncomfortably in their seats. So it was nice to do something quite funny.

You could be accused of being pretentious…

Yes, I can see that. But I really don't think we have been. We stripped ourselves out as characters; we were in it more, then we thought: Who cares about clever writers in Soho? We're very aware of not wanting to do any of that.

Did you employ the same writing process of pairing off?

Yes, but we had to come together more because it was one narrative. The series was always easy because it was essentially our sketches, then we'd come together at the end to join them up. On this we'd be arguing over the same scenes. It showed up our different tastes and it was hard to compromise – if your idea goes out the window, you think: Oh well, that’s not as good now.

'The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse' opens tomorrow.

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