The League of Gentlemen is a quartet of British dark comedy writers/performers, formed in 1995 by Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. The television programme for which they are best known, although officially labelled a sitcom, was initially more sketch-based, linked together by their common setting: the fictional village of Royston Vasey, based on the town of Alston, Cumbria and set somewhere in the north of England. The show contains elements of horror. The first series aired on BBC Two in 1999, and follows the lives of dozens of the town’s bizarre inhabitants, played by Gatiss, Pemberton and Shearsmith in a number of different guises and make-up. The television series was filmed mainly in Hadfield, but also features Glossop, Gamesley, Marsden, Mottram, Hope Valley, and Todmorden.

The series ended in 2002 although a movie version of the show was released in 2005. Rumours have circulated since 2007 that the show would return for a full length series or special but nothing has ever been confirmed or denied. However, Shearsmith and Pemberton did reunite in 2009 to create a similarly dark BBC sitcom, Psychoville, which featured an episode guest-starring Gatiss. The three reunited again in 2012 to film a series of sketches for the fourth series of CBBC show Horrible Histories.

Psychoville is a British dark comedy television serial written by and starring The League of Gentlemen members Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. It debuted on BBC Two on 18 June 2009. Pemberton and Shearsmith each play numerous characters, with Dawn French and Jason Tompkins in additional starring roles. The first series was followed by a Halloween special, broadcast on 31 October 2010, which saw Imelda Staunton added to the main cast along with previously supporting actors Eileen Atkins and Daniel Kaluuya. The second series started broadcasting on 5 May 2011 and ended on 6 June. Reece Shearsmith has officially announced that there will not be a third series.

Inside No. 9 invites viewers into many very different No. 9s, where the ordinary and mundane rub shoulders with the extraordinary and macabre. From a grand country house where a game of ‘sardines’ leads to some chilling revelations in a wardrobe; to a very oddly haunted house; to a blood-soaked actor’s dressing room in London’s West End; to the flat of an apparently happy primary school teacher who becomes the victim of a good deed; these unpredictable tales feature high comedy and claustrophobic horror by turns.