Bringing the mythical village of Royston Vasey to the Dublin stage must have been a big challenge for the League Of Gentlemen. Firstly, its entire population of misfits, misanthropes and missing links would have to be brought to life before the Olympia audience - quite a multi-task for just three men to perform - and secondly, its famed local shop would have to be completely rebuilt, since of course it was burned to the ground at the end of the second series.
Mark Gatiss, Steve Pem berton and Reece Shearsmith (helped by camera-shy co-writer, Jeremy Dyson) pulled it off, though, bringing their hugely popular television series to the local people of Dublin, and only occasionally letting the sutures show.
We got the lot, in smart, ironic, quick-fire succession: Pauline, the abusive Restart officer; Hilary Briss, the butcher with the "special stuff"; Mr Chinnery, the vet to whom the worst always happens; Herr Lipp, the Teutonic pervert; the anally-retentive Denton family; and the shining stars of Royston Vasey, Tubs and Edward, onetime proprietors of the local shop, but now sadly deceased.
When a successful television show is brought to the stage, it has to rely on the audience's familiarity with the characters and gags; thus, when Tubs and Edward make their grand resurrection in the show's second half, bathed in ghostly light, the cheers are deafening.
Gatiss, Pemberton and Shearsmith deconstruct the denizens of Royston Vasey with all the flair of a macabre music-hall revue, creating a fine, flawed comedy of terrors.
