He's BEHIND YOU!

Well - no – I’m sitting so close to the stage he’s actually on top of me. Or is it a she. Or an it?!

The grotesque carnival of horrors that is The League of Gentlemen’s Pantomime drags its rotting carcass into Southport’s rather splendid art deco Floral Hall and Theatre, and what a phantasmagorical monster it is! What freaks! What monsters! What fresh hell is this!

Actually - its about two hours of the best comedy in Britain today, easily out-classing the other big Christmas production (you know the one, but yeah - but no - but yeah, you do!)

It seems that every single character from all three series is brought chillingly to life in tonight's performance, The monstrous Tubbs and Edward, The Hygienically obsessed Dents, Pauline, Mickey, Papa Lazarou - every single one of them brought alive and made flesh by Messrs. Gatiss, Pemberton, Shearsmith and Dyson (he’s the one you never see).

I had already scanned a few reviews, and they were all pretty good, so my expectations were high. As a big fan of the series I’d formed my own ideas of what they would be like in the raw - and I was not to be disappointed.

The show raced along at breakneck speed - I think they must have had a crew of twenty backstage orchestrating the costume and make-up changes, with seconds to transform from a rancid old charity shop worker to a meek housewife, then into Henry Briss the demon butcher and back again to Ollie Plimsoles. One moment Herr Lipp is about to get his evil way with a willing Justin, Justin - his very own Justin (no, really) and another its Tubbs, just finished making a little brown fish.

The theatre was packed to the rafters with obsessive fans who were almost as sinister as the cast, at one point when a victim was required to give the inept veterinary, Dr Chinnery, a hand with a particularly tricky internal examination of a pantomime cow, there was almost a riot of people begging to get on stage.

Theatrical transfers of successful comedy shows seldom work (I'm talking about that other lot, again) but this was superb. I'm almost looking forward to next Christmas when the inevitable DVD will be released. On this occasion it might actually be worth the money.