KERRANG - MARCH 10, 2001
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Pemberton isn't far wrong when he claims the League are "the slipknot of comedy". But even though the video's shifted 100,000 copies and the live show is selling out theatres nationwide, the very nature of this darkly brilliant comedy is such that you will only know what they are talking about if you've seen it.

It says a lot about the Leagues down to earth nature that Shearsmith is more than happy to do a Papa Lazarou message for me, much to the delight of Gatiss and Pemberton. Imagine the reaction you'd get if you asked John Cleese to do his silly walk or for Richard Wilson to do 'I don't believe it'. The novelty of and love of these characters has clearly not worn off. There is also an endearing self-effacing quality about the gents and they spend a lot of time plugging the live show, apparently unaware that tickets are like gold dust.

"Someone was trying to psychoanalyse us the other day about why we do this," chirps Shearsmith cheerfully," but if anything was unusual about our childhood's it was that they were all the same. Just quiet, shy, staying in watching telly, no trauma's or anything we can think of". It turns out Gatiss grew up next door to a psychiatric hospital and Pemberton had a heart attack at 25 in Germany, leading to the invention of Herr Lipp.

Alles klar, children, alles klar.