Psychoville, the brilliant BBC2 comedy series from The League of Gentlemen’s Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith is returning tonight to television sets in the UK and, no doubt, to many bit torrent savvy homes across the world like mine…
I am an absolute League of Gentlemen fanatic (as anyone who knows me can tell you) and Psychoville’s initial seven episode run in 2009 had me in TV heaven. The Halloween special was amazing. I’m really, really looking forward to more Psychoville. (So smart of them to end with a cliffhanger. That’s how to get a second series commissioned!).
Complex and multi-layered as 24 or Lost—and with distinctly Hitchcockian elements in abundance—Pemberton and Shearsmith’s series ties together several disparate characters: Maureen and David Sowerbutts, a mother-son serial killer duo; Mr. Jelly, a bitter one-armed alcoholic party clown for hire; Oscar Lomax, a blind millionaire who collects Beanie Babies; Joy Aston (played by Dawn French), a nurse who believe a doll is her real son and a dwarf actor with telekinesis trying to hide his “midget porn” past.
All six are connected by a mysterious letter they all receive that simply reads: “I know what you did.”