Editing The League of Gentlemen (section)

==Writing and inspiration==
One source of inspiration is the town of [[Alston, Cumbria|Alston]] in Cumbria.<ref name="BBC Scripts"/> Gatiss has said in interview that the local shop was inspired by a shop in the village of [[Rottingdean]] in [[East Sussex]], and that he was influenced growing up around the former [[Winterton Hospital]] asylum near [[Sedgefield]] in [[County Durham]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20041107/ai_n12591433/ |archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090628141017/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20041107/ai_n12591433/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2009-06-28 |title=Renaissance gentleman |work=The Sunday herald|date=2004-11-07 |access-date=2009-04-08 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=2000-10-04|title=You ask the questions – Profiles – People – The Independent|publisher=The Independent, London|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/you-ask-the-questions-637601.html|access-date=2015-03-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150307112323/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/you-ask-the-questions-637601.html|archive-date=2015-03-07}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=2001-02-10|title=Odd men out|work=The Guardian|location=London|url=https://www.theguardian.com/weekend/story/0,,435803,00.html|access-date=2009-03-16}}</ref>

The majority of the inhabitants of the village – male and female – are played by [[Reece Shearsmith]], [[Steve Pemberton]], and [[Mark Gatiss]], and the script was written by these three, along with [[Jeremy Dyson]]. Dyson, not an actor like the others, appears only in [[Cameo appearance|cameo]] roles. As there are usually only three actors on screen at any one time, the different characters mostly play out their own stories in several serialised sketches, rarely crossing into each other's storylines. Only rarely do actors "meet themselves". Exceptions include Papa Lazarou facing the Reverend Bernice in the Christmas Special (both Reece Shearsmith), Les McQueen buying a magazine from Pop's son (both Mark Gatiss), and Alvin Steele buying food from Iris at a supermarket checkout in Series 2 (again, both Mark Gatiss). The idea is taken further in ''[[The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse]]'', when the characters meet the actors (especially when Herr Lipp meets his creator, Steve Pemberton). In the live shows, when Pam Doove was auditioning for a part in the Christmas Nativity Play, directed by Ollie Plimsolls, Pam had to audition in front of Ollie's Legz Akimbo colleague Dave (Pemberton), who said that Ollie couldn't make it "for obvious reasons" (Shearsmith plays both Pam and Ollie in the television series).

===Royston Vasey===
'''Royston Vasey''' is a fictional English town featured in the [[BBC]] television comedy series ''The League of Gentlemen''.<ref>{{cite web|title=The League of Gentlemen|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/leagueofgentlemen/|publisher=BBC|access-date=16 April 2013}}</ref> The exterior shots for the series were filmed in [[Hadfield, Derbyshire]], and, according to the writers of the series, the town is based on Alston in Cumbria.<ref name="BBC Scripts"/> The preceding radio series ''On the Town with the League of Gentlemen'' was set in the equally fictional and almost identical town of Spent.

Royston Vasey draws on the upbringing of all the League of Gentlemen's members – [[Mark Gatiss]], [[Steve Pemberton]], [[Reece Shearsmith]] and [[Jeremy Dyson]] – all of whom were raised in the north of England.<ref name=viner/> Royston Vasey is the real name of British stand-up comedian [[Roy Chubby Brown]].<ref name=viner/><ref name="royston">{{cite news |title=Roy 'Chubby' Brown denies assault |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tees/8442150.stm |access-date=2 January 2021 |work=BBC News |date=5 Jan 2010}}</ref> Brown played the part of the town's mayor in a [[cameo appearance]].

====Description====
The town as it appears in the TV show has a sign which ominously declares "Welcome to Royston Vasey. You'll never leave!" The first building many visitors come across is the "Local Shop". The Local Shop is located some distance from the town itself on a lonely hilltop moor.

====Events in the fictional town====
In the first television series of ''The League of Gentlemen'' a construction company called PQ Construction threatens the isolation of Royston Vasey by building a "New Road" near the Local Shop.<ref>{{cite web |title=The League of Gentlemen: Series 1–2. The Road To Royston Vasey |url=http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/kbqtq/the-league-of-gentlemen--series-1---2-the-road-to-royston-vasey |work=Radio Times |access-date=16 April 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140328144935/http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/kbqtq/the-league-of-gentlemen--series-1---2-the-road-to-royston-vasey |archive-date=2014-03-28}}</ref> The project is first delayed when a monster (later revealed to be parts of a goat, a pig and a chimp crudely stitched together by Edward Tattsyrup) is unearthed on the construction site and comes to an end in the final episode when the owner of PQ Construction, David Tattsyrup, is revealed to be the son of Edward and Tubbs who convince him to "live locally".

In the second series Royston Vasey receives visits from both a travelling circus and a group of German exchange students. The town becomes gradually overrun by a deadly nosebleed epidemic which causes a high percentage of the town's residents to experience incessant bleeding and death, usually within 24 hours.<ref>{{cite book|last=Terrace|first=Vincent|title=Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 Through 2010|year=2011|publisher=McFarland}}</ref> Eventually the epidemic devastates the town, with the [[Ministry of Health (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Health]] running riot in a desperate attempt to stanch the plague. The cause of the nosebleeds can be traced to a substance known only as the "Special Stuff", a highly addictive and mysterious foodstuff served by demonic butcher Hilary [[Briss]], which becomes deadly when cut with sandwich paste. However, the surviving local residents mistakenly accuse Edward and Tubbs of spreading the disease and burn the Local Shop to the ground.

In the third and final series, several of the residents of Royston Vasey are involved in a traffic collision which leaves Lance Longthorne and [[Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen]] dead while Geoff Tipps is facially disfigured. The travelling circus also returns.

In the film ''[[The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse]]'', the town is on the verge of destruction when the League of Gentlemen – [[Jeremy Dyson]], [[Mark Gatiss]], [[Steve Pemberton]], and [[Reece Shearsmith]] – agree to stop writing for Royston Vasey. This causes meteorites to rain from the sky until the entire town is razed to the ground. The destruction of Royston Vasey can only be prevented when all four of the writers are killed, but it transpires that the entire ordeal was conceived by Dyson while unconscious in a hospital.

In the Anniversary Specials, the town of Royston Vasey is facing a threat more terrible than anything it has faced before: boundary changes that will erase the town from the map forever.  The fight to save the community from administrative annihilation comes from unexpected and surprising directions, all of them local, as the crisis reaches its earth-shattering climax.

====Other====
The League of Gentlemen book, ''A Local Book for Local People'', released between the second and third series, describes Royston Vasey's history in a brochure, from its beginnings, as mentioned in an appendix to the [[Domesday Book]] as "an hutte with a pigge outside" to the construction of the [[town hall]] in the late 1930s, as designed by [[Albert Speer]]. The endpapers of the book show real maps of northern England turned upside down and with fictional place names, Royston Vasey corresponding to the real town of Settle, North Yorkshire (close by to Panties/Giggleswick).

The town's most featured landmarks include the Local Shop, an angelic [[war memorial]], H. Briss & Son Butchers, the St Mary of Bethlehem hospital, the Windermere B&B, and the local [[Job Centre]].