Comedy Thriller Psychoville Coming to BBC

New Serial Written by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton

May 24, 2009

The League of Gentlemen co-stars Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton come up with a bizarre comedy series to rival their own famous creation.

The notion of a dark comedy thriller on TV sounds vaguely interesting but when one comes along that’s written by half of the creative team behind the disturbing but brilliant League of Gentlemen that is more than enough to turn heads (and perhaps a few stomachs too). From the preview material alone Psychoville, by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, can almost be viewed as a companion piece to their BAFTA winning BBC series as it described as a “character comedy mystery featuring the weird and the wonderful”.

As ever the stars are playing a bunch of strange people with Pemberton taking on the multiple roles of blind Beanie collector Mr Lomax and serial-killer-obsessed David Sowerbutts and Shearmsith is playing hook-handed clown Mr Jelly, “wicked” panto actor Brian and David’s compulsive mother Maureen.

Some of the other cast members of Psychoville are Dawn French as a “desperately misguided midwife”, Adrian Scarborough as Mr Jelly’s aptly named rival Mr Jolly, screen veterans Eileen Atkins and Nicholas Le Prevost, and longstanding panto dame Christopher Biggins plays himself as a stage director. Put simply Last of the Summer Wine it won't be.

The creators have taken the weekly cliffhanger ending hooks from the likes of 24 and Lost to create suspense and link the individual stories together. A similar model was also used in the surprisingly dramatic third series of The League. The guys have an knack for inserting film and pop culture references so expect plenty of them, such as in the first episode when five of the inhabitants are all sent the same ominous message: “I know what you did”. It’s not bound to end nicely, the programme is called Psychoville after all.

In an interview with the BBC Steve Pemberton says: “We had shows in the back of our minds that were thriller shows where you followed a narrative and if you missed one episode you really felt like you had to catch up and seek that episode out. That's what we hope people will do with Psychoville.”

Such is the theme with many other TV shows in this digital age, the Psychoville universe will be expanded online with extras written by Pemberton and Shearsmith. This will include websites and videos featuring some of the major characters and users will be given the chance to interact with the mystery blackmailer, with more content unlocked for those who solve the riddles behind the whole thing.

A Hilarious and Exciting Show or a Tiresome Rehash of Old Ideas?

However, the show’s draw may become its main weakness as Psychoville looks startlingly familiar to anyone who’s caught even a single episode of The League of Gentlemen. Whether or not it turns out to be good it has the potential to be written off right away as the same guys doing the same old schtick. But it should be interesting to see just if this serial is a hilarious and exciting piece of work or a tiresome rehash of old ideas.

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