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Grumpy Old Women & Gentlemen Launch Tours

Two hit television teams – the League of Gentlemen and three of the regular contributors to Grumpy Old Women - are taking to the road with new live stage shows.

The League of Gentlemen - Are Behind You! opened last night (13 October 2005) at the Bristol Hippodrome and continues, until 14 December, to Manchester, Scarborough, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, Ipswich, Cambridge, Blackpool, Oxford, Bournemouth, Newcastle, Sunderland, Glasgow, Southport, Blackburn, Grimsby, Brighton, Bradford, Llandudno, Croydon, Plymouth, Southend, Cambridge, Portsmouth and Sheffield. It will also have six dates at London’s Hammersmith Apollo (1 to 4, 9 and 10 December).

The League comprises Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. On stage, Gatiss, Pemberton and Shearsmith formed the 27th and final London cast of Art, while Shearsmith played Jacques in this summer’s production of As You Like It with Helen McCrory and Sienna Miller.

As the League, the foursome’s last live show, the Olivier-nominated A Local Show for Local People, had a six-week run at the West End’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 2001. In addition to the ongoing BBC television show, the League released its first feature film, The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, this year.

As the name suggests, The League of Gentlemen - Are Behind You! will incorporate some pantomime-inspired “seasonal surprises” while remaining rooted in the dark rural outpost of Royston Vasey where all of their grotesque characters come together.

The first stage show for Grumpy Old Women will have a more limited run, opening at Cheltenham Everyman on 3 November 2005 and then continuing, for ten days only, to Nottingham, Bolton, Crawley and Warwick.

Grumpy Old Women Live has been co-written by comedian, writer and performer Jenny Eclair and Judith Holder, producer of the BBC2 television series. Regular contributors Éclair, Dillie Keane and Linda Robson (pictured together) will play host to the “orgy of middle-aged mayhem: theatrical HRT with not a thong in sight”.

- by Terri Paddock

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