Cast the Runner-Up: Because Pauline was Reece Sheersmith's idea taken from his own experiences he was originally slated to play her. However, Steve Pemberton jokes that the prospect of playing the woman who made his life miserable whilst on his restart depressed Reece too much, so he took the role of Ross instead.
Completely Different Title: In Korea, the show is called Psycho Village. When the guys found out, they liked it so much they used the name for their next show, Psychoville.
Creator's Favorite: Steve Pemberton described Pop as one of his favourite characters, and his first appearance as one of his favourite scenes within the first series.
The Other Darrin: Chloe and Radclyffe are played by a different pair of twins in the 2017 series than the original. This is most likely because The League themselves were unable to track down the original twins.
Old Shame: The BBC seems to view the series as this now due to jokes surrounding Barbara and, of course, Papa Lazarou resembling a black and white minstrel. The League themselves have never apologised for any of their jokes, and many fans hope they never do.
What Could Have Been: Steve wanted to call the series The Porn Dwarfs, but it sounded more like a bang.
In Series Two, Benice was to take confession one woman was to talk about her weight problems and Benice ended up insulting her. Then she was to hear the mercy kill a woman did for her father who was beyond saving and then Benice locked her in and called the police.
While, the former scene was used in the live show, it was clear that they were trying to fit her in.
Word of God: According to the season two DVD Commentary, Iris was 14 when she gave birth to Judee, and Judee was subsequently taken away and raised by someone else. Many years later Judee hired Iris as a cleaning lady, not knowing their relationship. She later discovered that Iris was her mother, but never changed the way she treated her.
Egregious was based on Reece Shearsmith going on an interview to shift trolleys around ASDA, he was refused the job as he was smart and his personality was too much for the others.
The Terry character is based on a true-life experience had by Reece. A door-to-door Jehovah's Witness showed him drawn illustrations and said that the bad stuff was in black and white whereas when everything was good it was in color.
In the Christmas Special, the scene where Bernice pulls a frozen-in-place bird off of its legs is based on real-life — Reece's mother saw a lady try to help a sparrow that was stuck in tarmac, but unfortunately the bird came free of its legs. The lady, like Bernice, tried to balance the bird back on its legs and walked off.
Charlie and Stella came about when Steve and Reece were sharing a flat in Highgate. Desperate for ideas for new characters, they stopped to go out for a meal. At the restaurant (the Capri, on Archway Road), they observed that all of the couples around them appeared desperately sad and silent — that is until the waiter, named Luigi, appeared. As long as Luigi was around the patrons would talk to him and be much more animated.
The costume designer, Yves Barre, had once been a professional masseuse. He told the Gents that people would frequently ask for "extras", but he never gave them. Yves taught Steve the proper way to give massages, using Reece as the guinea pig.
The "Go Johnny Go Go Go Go" card game was based on a few different things. One was a couple of guys Jeremy Dyson sat near on a trip back from Leeds. One kept calling the other "Young Man", and the "Young Man" kept calling the other guy "Sir" — and after a while it got really annoying. The other inspiration is Jeremy's childhood, when his older brother would try to teach him card games that he knew Jeremy was too young to understand with their wildly complicated rules.
Reenie and Vinnie are based upon workers in the real charity shop where the League members used to go to get their props and costumes for their live shows.
Both Jeremy and Reece are amateur magicians who have experienced some of Dean's troubles, such as relatives who lose interest mid-way through a magic trick.
Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton once had a Greek landlord called Peter Papalazarou, who was always unwilling to speak to Reece. He would always demand to talk to Steve, even when he wasn't there, hence Papa Lazarou's eternal quest to speak to Dave. (Steve talks about it here.
All of the League members participated in various theatre companies, and all of their experiences combined to become the Legz Akimbo Theatre Company. Ollie Plimsolls was based on a real person (also named Ollie) with whom Reece performed on a theatre-in-education tour. The scene where Ollie tells the kids that Phil will be leaving to become a "proper actor" actually happened — with the real-life Ollie referring to Reece leaving (although Reece says there was none of the malice that was ultimately added to their own Ollie's version).
The Dentons are based on relations of Jeremy Dyson that he had the bad luck of staying with, they gave him these insane rules and a door that had a confusing set of lock, which Jeremy got wrong and felt the guilt for when the question was shouted the next day.
Herr Lipp was based on German teachers that the group met on tours, a man who called himself "the Queen of Duisberg", a girl that has a crush on Steve and a hospital Chaplain Steve met during his recovery from his heart attack.
The inspiration for Pauline came from Reece Shearsmith's own experience of a restart officer in 1992, in regards to which he stated "obviously not everything about them is the same, but yes, there is a real-life Pauline out there somewhere." He described the woman as "Cockney," "having a chunky cardigan," and "longer [ginger] hair."
Mickey is partially based on some of the people Mark Gatiss experienced growing up near a mental hospital
Tubbs and Edward were based on a real-life shopkeeper in a little town near Brighton called Rottindean. Whilst on their first tour, the League-members wandered into her shop, and she proceeded to watch them all warily as though she didn't trust them. She also had a lot of snowstorms and tourist junk. She was so defensive of the "strangers" in her shop that the League got rather offended at her distrust
Geoff was inspired by a time when Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith were eating at a restaurant and heard a man trying to remember a joke for his two friends but the one friend kept butting. This would be the being of the Mau Mau joke which appeared in the original stage show and would appear on Radio.
Barbara was partially based on Julia from the Change of Sex documentary, as well as a pre-operative transgender magician that the League saw perform, as she did her tricks she was sidetracked by talking about the surgery.
Les McQueen was based on someone the guys knew who used to work in the record industry. After experiencing the feeling of being "almost there", he couldn't quite let go of his past, and was always melancholy about it.
Alvin was based on an actual hotel owner in Brighton who wandered about as his guests ate and told rambling stories with no point. A rather plain man, he had a wife who was quite glamorous, and the two seemed like an unlikely pair. He basically told the Robin Hood story, nearly word-for-word as it is seen in season two, to the Gents during their stay. Sunny was based on his wife.
Daddy was based upon a distant relative (by marriage) of Jeremy's sister.
Judee and Iris were loosely based on Jeremy's mother and her relationship with their cleaning lady (from when he was little). He recalls being uncomfortable as his mother talked about the opera and such with "Irene".
You Look Familiar: Almost everyone in a single town looks like Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton or Reece Shearsmith.
