Reece Shearsmith

After That Mitchell and Webb Look came the premiere of Psychoville. This is by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, two of the men who made The League of Gentlemen, a gruesome comedy-horror series about dangerous freaks from a remote village. Psychoville is a slight departure: it's a gruesome comedy-horror series about dangerous freaks from all over the country.

Among them are a midwife (Dawn French) who looks after a doll as if it were a real baby, a one-handed clown (Shearsmith) who bullies children, and a man (Pemberton) whose obsession with historical murders is exceeded in creepiness only by his uncommonly close relationship with his mother.

In its less queasy moments this first episode was fairly funny. Although casting directors prefer to give us Dawn French as a cuddlesome yokel, she's so much better as a seething nutcase - remember Murder Most Horrid. Print probably won't do justice to the menace she gave the final line in this exchange:

Midwife: "This bit at the top of the baby's head is called the soft spot."

Woman: "You mean the fontanelle."

Midwife: "What's that, Miriam?"

Woman: "My name's Kate."

Midwife: "Oh I'm sorry, I thought you were DOCTOR MIRIAM STOPPARD."

Psychoville isn't some chortling spoof of the horror genre; it genuinely is eerie. Then again, perhaps "horror" is the wrong word. The worry is not that you're about to see something scary, but that you're about to see something revolting. Inventively revolting. You want to turn over before something hideous happens, but you want to keep watching to find out what it is - and at least you rest safe in the knowledge that Krod Mandoon is already behind you in the night's schedule.

Guardian Review

So hurrah then for Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. Tonight's Psychoville was very funny, very dark and equally mysterious. You might even say vague, but according to Shearsmith this was fully intended. So let's go with it...

Everyone familiar with The League of Gentlemen will know what to expect from Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's latest offering. It is a characteristic mix of grotesque characters and sick imaginings, amid a bracing absence of anything remotely resembling good taste. That's not a criticism, mind. Although billed as a comedy-thriller, the comedy is as bitter as chocolate made from 100 per cent cocoa solids. But in the absence of laughter, there is a twisted narrative like a coherent nightmare, weaving together the story of an embittered clown, a disturbed midwife, a serial killer, a lovestruck dwarf and a blind collector of soft toys. As with The League of Gentlemen, Pemberton and Shearsmith take on the roles of multiple gargoyles alongside a cast that includes Dawn French and Janet McTeer. Once again they have created a fully imagined world unlike anything else around.

The spooky meets the ridiculous in this comedy penned by League of Gentlemen writers Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. Full of grotesque characters such as deeply disturbed midwife Joy Aston (played by Dawn French) and MR Jelly, the horrifically angry clown (Shearsmith), Psychoville is part comedy, part mysterious drama. With gags about dwarf porn and farting, and a grossly inappropriate mother-son relationship, there is a very League feel to it. Funny, but quite possibly very wrong.

The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton join forces once more as writers and stars of this weird, black comic drama...and at this point it would be handy to give a plot precis but, frankly, I have no idea what's going on. A handful of apparently unlinked, disparate people in different parts of the country are sent wax-sealed letters bearing the words "I know what you did". But what did they do? No idea, though the recipients include a barmy midwife obsessed by the doll from her childbirth classes (Dawn French), a telekinetic dwarf, and a wildly inappropriate children's entertainer, Mr Jelly (Shearsmith) - a cross between the evil clown from Stephen King's It and The League of Gentlemen's infamous creation, Papa Lazarou. There are some funny bits, the gothic atmosphere is very Royston Vasey-ish, and the cast is stellar, but I suspect Psychoville will take a wee while to get going properly.

There was only one hitch with The League of Gentlemen - it just wasn't weird enough. Which is why League members Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have invented another unusual town, which is home to a deranged midwife who looks just like Dawn French, a blind recluse who has an unusual hobby, a telekinetic dwarf, a hook-handed clown, a serial-killer obsessed man-child and, er, Christopher Biggins.

Shearsmith and Pemberton: Ungentlemanly conduct

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, of The League of Gentlemen fame, just don't do 'nice comedy'. Their humour is often disturbing, so prepare for more shocks in their new TV offering.

Another oddity from the minds of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, the pair who blessed us with The League Of Gentlemen. This time we're spookily flitting between a group of characters that includes a deranged serial killer fanatic, a deranged midwife, a deranged millionaire and - are you spotting a theme? - a deranged clown whose lives seem to be linked by a blackmail letter. As you might expect, this series opener is dark, macabre and gross in places but it does have an intriguing narrative thread. Plus Dawn French is in it - always a good thing.

It's hard to know at what exact point in the opening episode of Psychoville, the new comedy/horror/thriller from the guys who made the similarly indescribable The League of Gentlemen, it becomes clear you're not watching My Family. But I'd guess the scene where a mother sits on a bed, legs intimately splayed around her challenged son, casually scratching the excess skin off his back while reading aloud a book about serial killers, is the one that would do it. The less said about their lingering kiss goodbye, and another moment I'd rather not describe, the better.

So it's clear, then, we're back in that The League of Gentleman high-wire act of very funny and very, very disturbing. Perhaps surprisingly, however, creators Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, had initially set out to write "a standard sitcom". It didn't work out that way.

"We'd heard people weren't in the market for dark comedy any more -it wasn't something they (the BBC) were looking for, but there's no point them saying to people who are unique and original: 'We like what you do, but we'd like it to be more like Gavin and Stacey.' Thankfully, the BBC understood."

For Psychoville, they ended up setting themselves a unique challenge. They wanted to "mash a comedy with a thriller or a mystery like those big American shows where you just have to watch every episode". Certainly, the first episode leaves you wanting more.

Did they feel anything - I'm thinking the ­back-scratching scene - might have been a little too disturbing? "Ha ha, actually," says Pemberton, "it could have been worse. It came from a story of someone we knew who walked in on a friend who was having their back scratched by their mother, and the mother had only one leg, and she was using her foot to scratch it. But I thought no one would believe that. The truth is we had to tone it down."

To be fair, the tone is rarely gross-out - the overall atmosphere is more chilling than disgusting, and the first ­episode ends with perhaps the most disturbing scene of SPOILER REMOVED.

"People are going to ­compare it with The League of Gentlemen and describe it as dark, and we'll have to live with that," says Pemberton. "But we just wanted to write a good story. And the rest is just what we're drawn to, I guess."

Message from Reece Shearsmith

Reece Shearsmith talks about the first broadcast of Psychoville.