Royston Vasey

Royston Vasey is a fictional town in the BBC television comedy series The League of Gentlemen. It is located somewhere in the Pennines of Northern England and is based on Alston, Cumbria.

The preceding radio series On the Town with the League of Gentlemen was set in the equally fictional and almost identical town of Spent.

Royston Vasey draws on the upbringing of all the League's members - Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson - all of whom were raised in the north of England. Royston Vasey is the real name of British stand-up comedian Roy 'Chubby' Brown. Brown played the part of the town's mayor in a cameo appearance.

Filming of the television series took place in the Derbyshire village of Hadfield, located in a Pennines valley. The "Local Shop" is a purpose-built building on nearby Marsden Moor.

The League considered a number of filming locations before settling on Hadfield. The West Yorkshire town of Todmorden was used for some later scenes.

The town as it appears in the TV show has a sign which ominously declares "Welcome to Royston Vasey. You'll never leave!" The first building many visitors come across is the "Local Shop". Ironically, the Local Shop is located some distance from the town itself on a lonely hilltop moor.

In the first television series of The League of Gentlemen a construction company called PQ Construction threatens the isolation of Royston Vasey by building a "New Road" near the Local Shop. The project is first delayed when a monster (later revealed to be parts of a goat, a pig and a chimp crudely stitched together by Edward Tattsyrup) is unearthed on the construction site and comes to an end in the final episode when the owner of PQ Construction, David Tattsyrup, is revealed to be the son of Edward and Tubbs who convince him to "live locally."

In the second series Royston Vasey receives visits from both a travelling circus and a group of German exchange students. The town becomes gradually overrun by a deadly nosebleed epidemic which causes a high percentage of the town's residents to experience incessant bleeding and death, usually within 24 hours. Eventually the epidemic devastates the town, with the Ministry of Health running riot in a desperate attempt to staunch the plague. The cause of the nosebleeds can be traced to a substance known only as the "Special Stuff", a highly addictive and mysterious foodstuff served by demonic butcher Hilary Briss, which becomes deadly when cut with sandwich paste. However, the surviving local residents mistakenly accuse Edward and Tubbs of spreading the disease and burn the Local Shop to the ground.

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