(editor's note - still avoiding League of Gentlemen spoilers as many will be watching on catch-up)

Well, the sign said “You’ll never leave”. Maybe it should have said “you’ll be back.” This eagerly anticipated twentieth anniversary trilogy running over three consecutive nights kicks off with Benjamin (Reece Shearsmith) arriving in the village once again, this time for Uncle Harvey’s funeral. Which, as you can imagine, is not a conventional funeral. But then nothing in Royston Vasey is conventional. It wasn’t last time and it isn’t now.

There is a risk with revivals that they tarnish the legacy, but not here. The old characters are back, either the same as they were or in a new context. Hapless vet Mr Chinnery (Mark Gatiss) is still killing off treasured pets, while there is a twist to the life of jobcentre jobsworth Pauline Campbell-Jones (Steve Pemberton) this time round which we won’t spoil.

In fact the difficulty in reviewing this multi-stranded, scene-setting opening episode is not giving away any spoilers. The main plotline, however, is that the village is threatened with extinction due to boundary changes. But the Lady Mayor is not having it. Particularly when she finds out that it means losing her special parking space: “Fuck that, we’re not going down without a fight.” There's the small matter of murder afoot too. 

And talking of spaces, Shearsmith, Gatiss, Pemberton and co-writer Jeremy Dyson have taken account of modern times with references to “safe spaces”. On the subject of political correctness there is no Papa Lazarou in this episode though it would not surprise me at all if he didn’t turn up at some point (I’ve not got any inside info, I just think they won’t be able to resist revisiting him, however controversial he might be). Modern politics is addressed elsewhere with a food bank that puts a whole new meaning into the phrase “food bank”. 

So what we have here is a mix of mainly old favourites (Herr Lipp is as innuendo-laden as ever, alles klar) and the occasional new one. Sian Gibson guests but Car Share this ain't. There are references and winks to all sorts of things from, I thought, Sweeney Todd to the horror movie Theatre of Blood to other projects by Shearsmith and Pemberton. The result is a clever blend of mainly familiar and briefly unfamiliar, which makes you feel as if the programme has never been away. Maybe it has evolved but not very far. “The world’s moved on,” we are told at one point. Not that much for Royston Vasey though. In a Good Way.

The League Of Gentlemen, Episodes 2 & 3 December 19 & 20, 10pm.