“Upstart Crow Series 1 – 3” (2016 – 2020) 

Television Series / Comedy

Twenty Two Episodes

Created by: Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith

Featuring: Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith

Edward: “Hello, hello. What’s going on? What’s all this shouting? We’ll have no trouble here.”

When The League of Gentlemen first aired on the BBC in 1999, it felt like something that had crept out of the cellar of British comedy — unsettling, grotesque, and defiantly original. Set in the fictional town of Royston Vasey (“You’ll never leave!”), the show combined sketch comedy, sitcom structure, and horror-inflected storytelling into something uniquely twisted and very funny. Over twenty years later, this Blu-ray release from the BBC (and previously by Network in the UK) offers the definitive way to revisit — or discover — one of British television’s most audacious comedies.

Created and performed by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, and writer Jeremy Dyson, The League of Gentlemen pushes the boundaries of small-town eccentricity into full-blown grotesquery. Each of the first three series and the 2002 Christmas special paints a portrait of Royston Vasey as a place where social decay, perversion, and provincial madness thrive — but always with heart, and often with surprising poignancy.

The first series remains the purest and most iconic, introducing a cavalcade of unforgettable characters: the proprietors of a deadly local shop, Tubbs and Edward; Pauline, the monstrous restart officer; Hilary Briss, the sinister butcher; and Barbara, the philosophically inclined taxi driver. The second series deepens the mythology and darkens the humour, while the third season shifts toward a more serialized narrative, showing the interconnectedness of Royston Vasey’s inhabitants in a daring narrative experiment.

The Christmas Special is a highlight — a mini-masterpiece of horror pastiche and melancholy, riffing on M.R. James and Hammer films while offering closure (of sorts) to several characters.

What stands out watching the show again in high definition is how cinematic it always was: the bleak landscapes of Hadfield, Derbyshire are shot like a horror film, and the makeup and production design still impress. There’s a richness to the world-building that rewards multiple viewings — every frame brims with detail, every line layered with irony and menace.

The Blu-ray presents The League of Gentlemen in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, sourced from the best available materials. While the early episodes were shot on standard-definition video, this restoration brings a noticeable improvement in clarity and colour depth compared to the original DVD editions. The image remains soft by modern standards — no remaster can fully disguise the limitations of late-’90s digital video — but the transfer is clean, stable, and free from the compression artifacts that plagued earlier releases.

The audio, presented in a clear LPCM 2.0 stereo mix, does justice to Joby Talbot’s eerie score and the intricate sound design that helps sell the series’ horror undertones. Dialogue is crisp throughout, and there’s a pleasing warmth to the mix that underscores the series’ filmic ambitions.

The Blu-ray set is packed with extras that will delight fans and students of British comedy alike. Carried over from the DVDs and supplemented with some newer materials, highlights include:

• Commentaries on selected episodes by Gatiss, Pemberton, Shearsmith, and Dyson, full of insight, nostalgia, and self-deprecating humour.
• Behind-the-Scenes Documentaries that trace the journey from the group’s Edinburgh Fringe origins through the BBC series.
• Deleted Scenes, outtakes, and sketches that shed light on the creative process.
• Photo galleries, trailers, and assorted curios from the show’s heyday.
• The Christmas Special and the “Anniversary Specials” from 2017 are included in some editions, providing a satisfying sense of closure and continuity.

The packaging is also thoughtfully presented — the cover art captures the series’ balance of macabre and absurd, and the menus are easy to navigate.

Two decades on, The League of Gentlemen remains both a landmark and an outlier in British comedy. Its mix of horror and humour directly influenced later series such as Psychoville, Inside No. 9, and Little Britain, but few have matched its precision or emotional depth. Some of the material, viewed through a modern lens, can feel uncomfortable — particularly in its handling of gender and disability — but even these moments are part of a larger, satirical project aimed at the hypocrisies and cruelties of small-minded Britain.

Revisiting Royston Vasey today, one sees not just grotesques but tragic figures — ordinary people warped by isolation, desperation, and petty cruelty. It’s a dark mirror held up to a certain version of English life, and it remains disturbingly relevant.

This Blu-ray set is the definitive way to experience The League of Gentlemen. The transfer honours the source material, the supplements are comprehensive, and the show itself remains one of the most daring and original pieces of television ever produced by the BBC.