We keep hearing that there is going to be a League of Gentlemen reunion at some point and there is one - of sorts - in the penultimate instalment of this six-art tribute to Victoria Wood. Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss gather together in a TV studio to celebrate the genius of the creator of Acorn Antiques, who they first met at the Montreux TV Festival and felt as if they had known her for years because they knew her comedy so well.
The programme looks at Wood’s obsession with television, something that Shearsmith, Pemberton and Gatiss clearly share. The clips take us through a day in the life of television Wood-style, so that we start with Susie Blake’s reluctant regional breakfast TV presenter still in rollers and end with a mockumentary about test tube babies (“we’ve only got a maisonette”) which was sending up fly-on-the-wall television when David Brent was still doing his O levels.
While it’s great to see the League together – actually together, proving that they are still real chums, and not spliced together like you get with bands in music documentaries who can’t bear to be in the same room together – it is the clips that make this programme. We all know how great Acorn Antiques is, but Wood’s daytime TV send-ups of Richard & Judy-type hosts is probably even funnier for daytime telly addicts - it has exactly the right blend of cruelty and affection. Wood regular Duncan Preston claims that he took his role, talking about “wonky wombs and faulty fallopians”, seriously and thought he might get some presenting work out of it.
There are also some wonderfully wincemakingly funny spoof adverts. I don't think I’d ever seen her “bras for men” promo - very Vic and Bob. Only one quibble. Wood’s Coronation Street pastiche was so utterly Mancunian it could do with subtitles for us soft-Southerners.
And if you are reading this in advance of broadcast, there is a final tribute at 9.30pm, looking at Wood’s take on fame, presented by Daniel Rigby.
Oh, and look out for the Inside No 9 reference at the start of the LoG episode...
Tuesday, May 9, 9pm. Or afterwards on catch-up here.
