In just a couple of Tweets, Mark Gatiss (Dad’s Army) and Reece Shearsmith (Car Share) have made a lot of local people very happy by announcing that they’ll be doing a League Of Gentlemen anniversary special. There are no more details as of yet from the Sherlock writer or his Inside No. 9 silent singer, but the news itself is enough to give us some clues about what to expect. Come Dave, the game is afoot!
Firstly, there’s the fact that it’s going to be an anniversary special, which gives us a good idea of when it might air. The question, though, is whether or not it’s going to be an anniversary of the start of the show, or the end of it. The League Of Gentlemen first arrived back in January 1999 and ran until October 2002 with three series in total.
If you take these as they stand, you could be pessimistic and say they’ll be working on a 20-year anniversary of the first episode, to go out in January 2019, or for the last episode to go out in October 2022. The more appealing alternative would be a 15-year anniversary of the final episode, putting the air date in October 2017, which makes a bit more sense with Gatiss and Shearsmith putting the Tweets out in April this year.
However, there is an alternative that would also put the transmission in for later this year, as the Tweets only refer to an anniversary special, not necessarily an anniversary of the TV show. The 1999 air date for the original TV show was preceded two years earlier by the radio series that gave The League Of Gentlemen team it’s initial big break. That would give it a 20-year anniversary of the first episode in November 2017, which makes two scenarios that place the special episode later this year.
With the initial announcements made, it’s only a matter of time before we start to get more details on The League Of Gentlemen special anniversary show, and whether or not it will feature all of the gang from the original series. The group itself dates back to 1994, when the show’s writers, Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith joined forces for their comedy stage show.
Jeremy Dyson has always elected to stay off-screen, apart from a few minor cameos, so it’s just Steve Pemberton to go in terms of confirming the unholy trinity, now that both Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearesmith have Tweeted their involvement. With Pemberton’s more recent work with Shearsmith on Inside No. 9 and exchange student efforts with Gatiss on Psychoville and Doctor Who, surely it’s only a matter of time before they’re all back together again, like the three horsemen of the necropolis scouring the mores overlooking Royston Vasey.
