The League of Gentlemen turned down an offer to reform for a new TV series, Digital Spy can reveal.

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton - promoting their new BBC Two series Inside No 9 - told DS that the BBC made the comedy troupe an offer last year after they reunited for a charity gig.

BBC



"Conspicuously on the back of the interest in the fact that we were doing those charity sketches together, the BBC asked us, 'Would you like to do some more League of Gentlemen?'" Shearsmith said.

"We said no - not that way round. Not if the only reason is that you [now] think people might be interested."

However, Shearsmith added that he, Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and writer Jeremy Dyson would "love to do some more" League of Gentlemen in the future.

"Maybe not Royston Vasey - that would be the thing," he added. "I think it would be a new thing by me, Mark, Steve and Jeremy - still The League of Gentlemen, but it wouldn't be those characters. It would be a new project, under the banner of us."

Yui Mok/PA Archive



Shearsmith earmarked 2019 - 20 years on from The League of Gentlemen's original transmission - as possible reunion date, though Pemberton voiced concerns about producing "a fifth-rate version of The League of Gentlemen".

"That's the danger now, isn't it?" agreed Shearsmith. "People like it now - they have a fond memory of it. You don't want to spoil it by wandering on, decrepit, trying to do Pam Doove!"

The League of Gentlemen television series aired on BBC Two between 1999 and 2002, with a feature film spinoff following in 2005.

Inside No 9 - a new darkly comic anthology series - begins Wednesday, February 5 at 10pm on BBC Two.

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