Behold, the voyages of the Starship Transit, (whose excursion seems to be limited to certain parts of England for budgetary reasons) neatly shot and edited into a six part series. The ship's captain? The League against Tedium. Simon Munnery's angry intellectual/dictator character born out of the 1993 would-be comedy show, "Cluub Zarathustra". The League initially found fame on stage in London and later the Edinburgh festival but Attention Scum was to be his first foray into BBC comedy. This series unites some of the cast from Zarathustra under the directorial skills of Stewart Lee.
"The actor" Kevin Eldon is superb in all of his supporting parts, including messenger to the League. Musician Richard Thomas and Lori Lixenberg make up the Ear-fest that is Kombat Opera. And apparently it's Munnery's wife in the monkey suit. The only thing that doesn't quite fit in is 24hr news with Johnny Vegas, but this improved toward the end.
If anything the league manages to really make you think with his philosophical, often patronising, one-liners including,
"In love as in fighting the winner has an eight foot pole"
"My dog has no legs but he still chews bones. How does a dog with no legs chew bones? With a great deal of suspicion I noticed"
"He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. Indeed - likewise he who lives by the pen, he who lives by the word processor, he who lives by the fax machine all shall die by the sword. Only he who lives by the tank shall remain immune"
Hidden away late at night, Attention Scum was a midnight feast of peculiarity and included an unforgettable opening sequence. But sadly, there isn't a second series planned and I sense this is one show you might be lucky to see if you have an obsessive friend with an unhealthy interest in recording obscure British comedy shows. In the end AS was a victim of it's own originality.
