Written by Jeremy Dyson And Mark Gatiss And Steve Pemberton And Reece Shearsmith
Directed by Steve Bendelack
Tubbs: "This is a local shop for local people. There's nothing for you here."
Earlier this year I watched all nine series of Inside No. 9 (the best thing that Shearsmith/Pemberton have done for BBC2) and with spooky season approaching, I wanted to go further back with their other shows. Starting of course with this one, which they created along with Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson, the latter who doesn't act in this.
It's a show that truthfully has not totally aged well with certain character choices that would be poorly looked upon in a 2024 setting. However back in 1999, there was something rather subversive about this surreal but grotesque comedy series.
Playing a vast array of oddball characters, Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton certainly delivered some great performances with some of the most ghastly comedy creations. You would not want to live in Royston Vasey and you certainly wouldn't want to interact with the majority of the locals either.
The characters themselves are many with Gatiss, Shearsmith and Pemberton alternating between multiple roles, so breaking things down, I'm going to look at each actor and the characters of note. I'll mention other characters in my notes but here goes nothing.
Starting off with Mark Gatiss, the best characters in this first series include the well intentioned but accident prone vet Matthew Chinnery (animals don't live long when he's around), randy council estate cleaner, Iris, neat freak Val Denton and lovable but daft and unemployed Mickey M. Michaels. By far, they're the best characters of his in this first series.
As for Reece Shearsmith he's got undercover inspector Ross Gaines, the constantly bamboozled Benjamin, uppity Judee Levinson and the foul mother Reverend Bernice Wooddall. The latter especially taking the utmost delight in terrorising children and casting doubt in soon to be married couples. There's also local shop owner Edward Tattsyrup and his aversion to Royston Vassey having any sort of progress in it.
Then there's Steve Pemberton. He often formed a great duo with Shearsmith and playing the week willed Tulip "Tubbs" Tattsyrup to Edward made for a great dynamic. I do think his best roles are vicious Restart officer Pauline Campbell-Jones, Val's toad obsessed husband Harvey and even trans taxi driver Barbara, who ended the series in Chinnery's care.
In between these array of characters, there's constant reminders of Royston Vasey having some dark secrets, including many guest character deaths, creepy twin girls, a love cheat being strung up as a scarecrow. Yeah, it's a place you really don't want to live in.
- Episode titles were Welcome To Royston Vasey, The Road To Royston Vasey, Nightmare In Royston Vasey, The Beast Of Royston Vasey, Love Comes To Royston Vasey and Escape From Royston Vasey.
- Other characters included Shearsmith, Pemberton and Gatiss as quarrelling business friends Geoff, Mike and Brian as well as theatre company Legz Akimbo.
- Nowadays there's a content warning at the start of each episode, though Netflix removed the series in 2020, due to a certain character introduced in the second series.
- Influences for the show included a local asylum as well as places in East Sussex and County Durham.
- Jeremy Dyson does make a few cameos throughout the series, despite not being an actor.
- Chronology: It's a very timeless sort of show in a way. Almost like it's in a world of it's own.
This first series has not aged too well but there are definitely still some rather funny moments throughout the series if you're not too squeamish. For the most part, each episode does seem standalone with only a trickle of an overall arc in there.
Rating: 8 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment