The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005) (2016 Reissue)   Starring: Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton Reece Shearsmith, David Warner, Victoria Wood and Michael Sheen Distributor: Fabulous Films Ltd / Fremantle Media Enterprises RRP: £14.99 FHED3569 Certificate: 15 Release Date: 12 December 2016

Royston Vasey is facing disaster, and the only way to save it, is for the locals to travel to a new and exciting world... ours! From present day Soho to the fictional film world of 17th Century Britain, the residents must overcome countless bizarre obstacles in their bid to return Royston Vasey to safety...

For fans of The League of Gentlemen, who followed the show from radio to TV, this movie was always going to divide people. For those who don't like change, the format would no doubt have been too much to handle. While I enjoyed it at the time of release I was unsure how I'd feel about it all these years later.

If I'm honest, I have to confess I probably enjoyed it more this time around than back in 2005. Some fans will no doubt complain that Pauline, Tubbs and Edward don't appear in it for very long and that the Denton's aren't even in it. But I think that the balance in the characters is just right. Who would have thought that Herr Lipp would have made such an interesting central character?

Each character gets their moment to shine, with none of them feeling underused or over exposed. For fans who loved the characters from the TV show, this is a loving send off for the residents of Royston Vasey,

One of the highlights for me was the homage (via the imp and three-headed monster) to the stop-frame animation work of the great Ray Harryhausen.

Extras are pretty impressive.

We get an audio commentary (recorded before the film premiered) with the four actors/creators of the show; The Making of... (12 min, 14 sec); The Real Royston Vasey (5 min, 47 sec looks at the village of Hadfield which acts as Royston Vasey); A Cast of Thousands (4 min, 05 sec); A Gentleman's Diary by Steve Pemberton (12 min, 32 sec); Deleted Scenes (16 min, 28 sec); Out-takes (9 min, 34 sec); Gallery (8 min, 19 sec); Official Teaser Trailer (41 sec); Theatrical Trailer (1.18); and I even stumbled across a 2 min, 13 second deleted scene that is a hidden Easter Egg.

The audio commentary brings up a lot of interesting information, and it was comical to discover that Jeremy's "tail" idea was actually a pitch he gave once for the show. In addition the ridiculous white supremacist scout master and clown with leprosy were also two characters that were dropped for the TV show before they could develop them (mainly because they were very weak ideas).

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Darren Rea