Jeremy Dyson Movies

The personification of good meets the embodiment of evil when a derelict believing himself to be Hitler clashes with a compassionate Christ figure in director Brendan Keown's screen adaptation of a controversial play by Michael Moriarty (who also scripts and stars). The setting is a seedy train station, and the characters are two of history's most contradictory figures. As Hitler (Moriarty) spews forth the kind of foul philosophy that made him one of the most reviled dictators in the history of humankind, Jesus (Wyatt Page) struggles valiantly to process the hatred being heaped upon him in the curious setting. Could it be that these men are sincerely the historical figures they claim to be, or are they simply two delusional lunatics who have become lost on their own dementia? Whatever the case may be, the debate that unfolds is sure to be as intellectually stimulating as it is completely outrageous. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast by BBC2 from September 26 through October 24, 2002, Season three of the dizzily irreverent British sitcom The League of Gentlemen consists of six half-hour episodes. As was the case in the BBC radio series On the Town that preceded it, the TV version takes place in the bizarre provincial town of Royston Vasey, with all principal characters played by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith. Breaking with a tradition established in earlier seasons, the third-year episodes do not include the words "Royston Vasey" in their titles. In the opener, "The Lesbian and the Monkey," disgraced parole officer Pauline (Pemberton) is reunited with her simian flunkey Mickey, while local curmudgeon Peter Foot (Shearsmith) rehearses his own funeral. Later episodes include "The One-Armed Man Is King," in which Joke Shop owner Lance (Gatiss) undergoes an illegal arm transplant; "Turn Again Geoff Tipps," in which the recently laid-off title character (actually Pauline in drag, and now played by Shearsmith) pursues a spectacularly unsuccessful career as a stand-up comic; "The Medusa Touch," unexpectedly highlighted by an odyssey of "auto-erotic discovery" for hoteliers Alvin (Gatiss) and Sunny (guest star Christine Furness); "Beauty and the Beast: Or, Come Into My Parlour," mostly set at a massage emporium called "Spit and Polish"; and finally, "How the Elephant Got Its Trunk" -- which, needless to say, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the same-named Rudyard Kipling story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast by BBC2 from January 14 through February 18, 2000, season two of the dizzily irreverent British sitcom The League of Gentlemen consists of six half-hour episodes. As was the case in the BBC radio series On the Town that preceded it, the TV version takes place in the bizarre provincial town of Royston Vasey, with all principal characters played by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith. The season opener, "Destination: Royston Vasey," finds the tiny community invaded by Papa Lazerou's Pandemonum Carnival. (As if this town needs any more pandemonium!) Next is "Lust for Royston Vasey," wherein Herr Lipp (Pemberton) and a group of German exchange students manage to match the locals in weirdness, and then some. (This is the one in which incompetent vet Dr. Chimmery [Gatiss] electrocutes a pondful of carp while performing oral surgery on a toad.) Also: "A Plague on Royston Vasey" deals with such esoterica as a sex-fetish magazine, a bear trap, and a quota of "twelfty"; over-obsessive Uncle Harvey (Pemberton) and Aunt Val (Gatiss) then celebrate their annual Nude Day; and Mayor Vaughn (guest star Roy "Chubby" Brown) humiliates himself in public television by using profanities generally taboo on BBC2 in "Death in Royston Vasey"; Lesbian parole officer Pauline (Pemberton) takes hostages, and dull-witted Mike (Shearsmith) tries to cover up a murder by blaming the local wolves in "Anarchy in Royston Vasey"; and in the season finale "Royston Vasey and the Monster From Hell," the community is besieged by a nosebleed epidemic and the Legz Akimbo Theater Company lays a large and noxious egg. In addition to the six regular episodes, season two of The League of Gentleman offers a Christmas special -- but don't expect anything resembling peace on earth or goodwill to men! Also, a concert special, "The League of Gentleman Live at Drury Lane," was seen approximately one year after the final second-season offering. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An outgrowth of the BBC radio series On the Town, the savagely satirical British TV sitcom The League of Gentlemen showcased the comedy troupe of the same name. Having honed their laugh-making skills during a lengthy stint at London's Canal Café, the troupe's three members -- Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith -- gained nationwide fame by virtue of their award-winning gigs at the Edinburgh Festival. Doubling, tripling, and sometimes quadrupling in roles, Gatiss, Pemberton, and Shearsmith played virtually all of the rather peculiar residents of the cloistered (and implicitly inbred) community of Royston Vasey. Characters included a pair of misanthropic shop owners, an inept and inadvertently homicidal veterinarian, a demented butcher, a blind photographer, a transsexual cab driver, a gypsy who went around kidnapping new brides, a lesbian parole officer, a family of fanatical neat freaks, a radical but ineffective female vicar, a certain "Professor Erno Breastpinch'd," and various and sundry addlepated relatives and tourists. Murder, bestiality, cannibalism, sexual perversion, mental deficiency, and other such social ills were the order of the day in Royston Valley -- but after all, who are we to make value judgments, since everybody on the show seemed to be having such a good time? The three stars also wrote the scripts, in concert with Jeremy Dyson. Making its BBC2 television debut on January 11, 1999, The League of Gentlemen yielded three six-episode seasons and two specials, ending its run on October 24, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide