T
o be perfectly honest, we
could’ve spoken to Reece for
hours and asked him so many
questions, but we had to untie
Reece and let him go. We
managed to ask him some questions
though, and when we removed his gag,
he answered them too.What does being asked to write the
foreword for Usborne’s reprint of
World of the Unknown mean to you?
What does this book mean to you?I was thrilled to be part of the Twitter
campaign to bring the book back.
Sometimes - occasionally, it can be a
power for good! I grew up with the book
very much as a conduit that tapped
into my love of the Supernatural, so it’s
incredible that the reprint has a little
foreword by me in it. And just in time
for Hallowe’en! My favourite night of the
year. (Although I must confess - I regard
the whole of October as Hallowe’en
these days).As big fans of The League of
Gentlemen and in an age where
opinion can now pretty much result
in censorship, has there ever been an
occasion where a sketch has been so
completely awful that you thought we
can’t do this? But did you do it anyway,
or maybe you didn’t?No. I think we have always been careful
and responsible with what we’ve
done. I think possibly we’ve got more
squeamish as we’ve got older. When
you’re young you are far more fearless.
It hasn’t occurred to you yet that you are
going to die. I think as the years roll on
you start to retreat from anything too
nasty. Although we still journey to some
very dark places with “Inside No. 9”.
But we’ve never decided we couldn’t do
something.It emerged a couple of months ago
that you would have loved to have
revived ‘Hammer House of Horror’. We
can think of nobody better suited to do
this, especially with the likes of JordanThe REECEipe
for SUCCESS¼ of The League of Gentlemen,
½ of Inside No. 9,
½ of Pyschoville,
Add some “special stuff ”
Add some “jelly”
Add something dark
Add some “diddle, diddle
dumpling”Stir, mix, whizz, chop, cut, bang,
fry, KILL!!Pour into a big Yorkshire
pudding, served with a pot of
Yorkshire Tea.AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH
REECE SHEARSMITH