Steve Pemberton

I am having to watch Psychoville (BBC2) from behind the sofa, lest the equivalent of The League of Gentlemen's Papa Lazarou (the mere thought of whom is enough to have me weeping with fear) emerges. But it is corking stuff. Robert the dwarf has turned out to be telekinetic. Joy is feeding her baby on blood and punching anyone who dares to suggest that the infant strapped to her chest is in fact a doll, while the serial killer-obsessed David "I like strangles" Sowerbutts and his mother Maureen are about to fulfil what one can only assume is a lifelong dream by murdering someone. That's if they can agree on a method. "I like drills." "You're not doing that, I've got a thumping headache."

So far, I am managing to cope with both the one-handed, embittered clown Mr Jelly and the eyeless (not just blind, but eyeless, very, very eyeless) toy collector Mr Lomax, who has taken on Tea Leaf as an employee (contractual terms: "No girls, no smoking and no meat pies") to help him track down on eBay the one Beanie missing from his collection. I am rapidly approaching the limits of my endurance, yet fear we are nowhere near exhausting writers Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's appalling imaginations. I suspect that when the mysterious blackmailer who is stalking them is finally revealed, none of us will ever sleep soundly again.

TV Review: Psychoville

Psychoville is one of the best looking shows on television at the moment.

Like The League Of Gentlemen turned up past 11 - which is a good thing, by the way - Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's grotesque blackmail comedy continues. Tonight, there's the revelation of a terrible secret from the past, which leads on to the discovery that toys can be "commodities" and that dwarf porn is issued under the Midget Gems moniker. God alone knows how it's all going to turn out, but the journey's the thing.

This macabre comedy thriller from two of the creators of the acclaimed League of Gentleman continues tonight, and Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's vision gets curiouser and curiouser. The plot centres around a weird blackmail plot, and Mr Lomax (Pemberton) is still trying to complete his unusual collection of miscellaneous "commodities". That means - this is the internet age, after all - an eBay bidding war. Meanwhile, there are the unfortunate events that took place at the Murder Mystery evening to cover up, and a mysterious black-gloved figure contacts Joy (Dawn French) with another chilling message from her past.

Now that Psychoville has given viewers a chance to recover from the shock of the unhinged, it has hit its stride in a big way. Admittedly, I've never been too bothered if comedies are not laugh-out-loud funny, provided there are strong characters and some sort of narrative to carry you along. Right from the start, Psychoville had an abundance of crazies caught up in a sinister story. But this episode - with its psychotic clown, its lecherous Snow White and the too-forgiving mother of a serial killer - is gloriously funny to boot.

What makes this a very special sort of sitcom is that Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton dream up such horribly sinister "sits" for their "com". And the fact that we're on edge at the unpleasantness of it all makes us that bit quicker to laugh when the jokes come. It's a balancing act, but it's one they pull off cleverly, with their eyeless collector, eBay-obsessed conjoined twins and Joy, a deranged Bristolian midwife. Dawn French is great as Joy, cuddling her fake-baby "Freddie" in a papoose and, at one point, filling his drinking bottle from a hospital blood bag. Other highlights tonight include a fabulously daft fight over a Punch and Judy booth and a scene where murderous David Sowerbutts runs a bath in which to drown his next victim, urged on by his mum. This week's mystery messages, delivered to the various apparently unconnected characters by a masked figure, is simply "You killed her" - though naturally, we're no nearer to finding out who or why.

This is turning into the pick of BBC2's Thursday comedy line-up. Mitchell and Webb is becoming patchier and patchier, Krod Mandoon is stupid in a stupid way but Psychoville has begun to really hit its stride. The mix of terrible jokes (look out for Midget Gems) and character comedy is so well written that we can almost forget The League of Gentlemen. Almost. Except for the psychotic clown.

Psychoville episode two: 'You killed her'

Soft toys, dwarf humiliation and brawling clowns ... Just another week in Psychoville. Join us and chew the fat over the second episode.

A message from Steve Pemberton

The Twitter reviews were largely very good, though I have to take issue with the critics who dismissed it as 'banal' or 'lacking in plot'. Whatever you think of Psychoville, I'm pretty sure it isn't bland or storyless. But you have to take the good, bad and indifferent reviews in the same spirit I suppose.

From The Macabre To The Bilious

Psychoville swings all-too-easily between black comedy, sick comedy and comedy of the grotesque. Admittedly the humour here isn't as consistent as it was in The League of Gentlemen; there were quite a few laugh-free moments. Then again, maybe I just was too grossed-out to laugh in places.