The League of Gentlemen: Jeremy Dyson interview
The League Of Gentlemen rise out of Royston Vasey once more, playing local gigs for local people across the UK. Carl Marsh chats to one quarter of the comedy troupe, Jeremy Dyson, about the origins of The League.
So what’s it like being the least recognisable member of the League of Gentlemen then?
A relief! [laughs] What I like about it is when we get to go out on tour and I get to sit in the auditorium and watch the show with the audience and be relatively untroubled. Obviously uber-fans may recognise me, but with a general audience you can just sit there and disappear, which is a huge pleasure because I love experiencing the show and hearing the audience respond to it.
Was that your plan from the beginning? Didn’t you ever fancy a part in the show?
Well, unlike the other three, I was not an actor, and acting is something that is in your bones and it was writing that was in mine. But in the very first show, before we were ever called The League Of Gentleman, I did briefly tread the boards – but no, it’s not my calling in life. It was an easy decision to make.
With the characters that you’ve created and that appeared in the series, do you ever regret not pushing the boundaries further?
It’s a very natural process – we don’t and we have never discussed what we do in terms of boundary pushing or anything like that. It’s only ever from the point of view of what’s funny, and that always begins with what makes us laugh, before you start thinking about even letting an audience in. When we do think about an audience, we will occasionally have discussions about where the line is, and we certainly did on the TV specials we did last year because we had been away. The world has changed since we were last doing TV shows together as The League, so there was a bit of talking – what do we think about this or that – but generally, we’re always led by that bottom line of “is it funny?” and “is it going to entertain people?”.
With the TV special last year, how deliberate were elements such as Edward saying phrases like “taking back control”?
We were just enjoying that; it was a natural fit because the ‘local shop’ was always in part about those sorts of attitudes about people that are ‘other to us’, so it slotted in quite naturally. We didn’t have to push it to go there. You have always got to distinguish between what your characters are saying and who you are. It’s not like any of us are definitely Brexiteers but equally, we are not politicians and we are not on a political platform. We are just a comedy show, but a comedy show that takes on board the outside world.
Were there any characters that were left on the cutting room floor for going too far?
Erm… no, I don’t think there were. There never have been, to be honest, and we’ve never cut anything for content. The other thing is that we’ve never had is any imposition from the BBC or whoever: we have always self-policed, we’ve never had an executive come to us saying “You can’t possibly do that”.
So there was never any fallings out between yourselves and those down south at the BBC?
No, no – we have always been trusted and the BBC have always trusted whoever our producers have been. You will be surprised as to how grown-up those conversations are when you have them, and more often than not it’s us going to them – the BBC has a department for taste and decency, so if there was something that we were not sure about, we would consult them and ask what they thought. It’s all very sensible when you have those conversations. I don’t know if other people’s experiences are like that, but that’s definitely been our experience.
Before The League Of Gentlemen, didn’t you have some involvement with the band Rudolf Rocker?
Haha! That was when me and Mark Goodall, who was the lead singer, both worked at Waterstones in Leeds together and he told me about his band. We often talked about music as I used to play in bands, and I asked him if he needed a keyboard player and that was that. We had a great time, I loved Rudolf Rocker but when The League took off, that was it – I had to focus 100% on that, as logistically I had to move down to London whilst the band were up in Leeds. I would have happily had a music career, but the League had its own momentum that just brought you along with it.
Of all the many characters in The League Of Gentlemen, how did you and the other guys all decide on who would play who?
That’s a very good question. It was quite organic, as by default we sort of write in pairs – there is a natural pairing of me and Mark [Gatiss] and Steve [Pemberton] and Reece [Shearsmith]. There is a default generally to performing the characters that you yourself have written – it was very rare that there was ever any discussion, it always just happened.
I do seem to remember that Reece might originally have been slated to play Pauline, and there was a practical reason – maybe due to the logistics on the night of the very first show, above a pub. “Oh, you can’t do that because you are doing that in that scene.” So apart from that, it was pretty obvious who would play who, particularly now that they’re more well-known – you can see how each actor’s personalities are in each character.
Some people may or may not know about you being a patron in the charity No Panic.
In my 20’s I suffered with panic attacks and agoraphobia, and for a year it was quite acute for me, but once I had a public profile years later with the League Of Gentlemen, I got in touch with the guy that ran the charity after reading an article about them. It was a guy called Colin Hammond who had set it up and he was very inspirational, but is no longer with us. He wrote an article in the {Guardian} and I just emailed him saying about how brilliant I thought what he was doing was and he just asked me if I wanted to be a patron.
What direction is this new tour going in? Business as usual, or will it contain any new characters apart from the fan favourites?
I’m not going to spoil anything but what I will say is that if you are a fan, you’re not going to be disappointed. You will be seeing most of your favourite elements and characters across the evening in various forms, and it is a mixture of celebrating our heritage and delivering things you have not seen before.
We are very proud of the show and we are very excited to be putting it in front of an audience. It’s a good show – we’re in technical rehearsals this week and have been really, really enjoying it. The other thing is that we might not do this again as Reece keeps saying that we are just about OK age-wise to be doing this.
Monty Python put on a show when they were a lot older than you guys though, didn’t they?
Well they didn’t go on tour, but the point is to come and see us now while we are in full possession of our faculties!
The League Of Gentlemen Live Again! Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Thurs 6 + Fri 7 Sept. Tickets: £46. Info: 029 2022 4488 / www.leagueofgentlemen.live