DVD Review - Psychoville

BBC Comedy Series Starring Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton

Jul 31, 2009

BBC Comedy Psychoville arrives on DVD on Monday August 8th. Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's have produced a great comedy follow up to The League of Gentlemen.

After going their separate ways following the somewhat disappointing The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, two of the gentlemen returned to our screens this year to collaborate on the fantastic BBC2 series Psychoville. In typical League of Gentlemen fashion the two writer/actors Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith don several guises in this dark and twisted 7 part comedy.

The series follows a host of bizarre characters all spread out at various points around the UK. Initially they all seem completely unrelated, but as Psychoville progresses we find they all have one thing in common – they're all receiving anonymous messages from a mysterious, shrouded character. Each message contains the same statement – ‘I know what you did’ followed soon after by a second message with the chilling line - ‘you killed her’.

Psychoville has the brilliance of being a narrative led series but still retains a sketch-like quality similar to The League of Gentlemen, with each episode flashing back and forth at regular intervals to each character.

Psychoville's Characters

Pemberton and Shearsmith are joined on this series by a host of other stars to help create Psychoville’s eclectic bunch of misfits. Dawn French is brilliant as Joy, a maternity nurse who has a rather strange relationship with a doll she uses for antenatal classes. Joy has a sickly sweet exterior, but a deeply psychotic and fragile under layer which is unleashed should anyone lay a finger on her precious 'child' Freddie. Robert Greenspan, played by Jason Tompkins, is the pantomime dwarf who has a fixation with Snow White co-star Debbie. Having taken several knock backs from her and been ridiculed for being a former dwarf porn actor by his co-stars, Robert starts to exert a hidden power, brought on by (rather Carrie-esque) bouts of rage.

Amongst other peripheral characters, John Pemberton plays both Mr. Lomax, a blind man hunting for the priceless missing link in his collection of beany toys, and David Sowerbutts, a bizarre young man who has an uneasy obsession with serial killers. This storyline is the only one with both Pemberton and Shearsmith directly sharing scenes, with Shearsmith playing David’s possessive and equally unhinged mother, Maureen.

Shearsmith’s other main character is a bitter clown called Mr. Jelly, angry at the loss of one of his hands and most of his business to rival clown Mr. Jolly he entertains at children’s parties by clipping on inappropriate hand attachments and incorporating them into his act. As the narrative progresses, the characters begin to cross paths and we realise that they are all connected having spent time together in a psychiatric home. What the messages refer to, however, still remains a mystery.

Much like The League of Gentlemen, Psychoville is an acquired taste but although averaging what might seem like a relatively low 1.4 million viewers (as of episode 5, BARB.com) it is one of the most successful comedy series’ on television at the moment. It also has to be considered that Psychoville airs on BBC2 at 10.00pm, outside the prime time window. In addition, it is notable that the series’ weekly figures haven’t fallen away significantly, which suggests that itcis building a strong fan-base.

Psychoville was granted an unusual seven episode commission from the BBC, with one episode set apart from the format of the others. In an homage to Hitchcock’s Rope and Psycho, the episode is filmed all in one location with David and mother Maureen committing a ‘bad murder’ and trying frantically to avoid being caught. In many ways it is the only weak episode of the series with the two characters not being quite strong enough to hold an entire episode by themselves. It detracts slightly from Psychoville’s strength of having such a varied and hilarious bunch of characters with which to draw from, but it’s a small blip on what is otherwise an extremely good series.

Pemberton and Shearsmith’s series doesn’t quite reach the comedy peaks that The League of Gentlemen achieved but by no means is Psychoville a poor imitation. The comedy genes are still the same but this is an entirely different sibling, and one which isn’t confined to the town of Royston Vasey. Psychoville has been one of the funniest programmes on television recently and with episode seven leaving us on a cliff-hanger, BBC commissioners would be mad to turn down a second series.

Some outlets such as HMV are also offering free Psychoville art cards with early purchases of the DVD.

The copyright of the article DVD Review - Psychoville in British TV is owned by Gareth Harding. Permission to republish DVD Review - Psychoville in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.