Steve Pemberton

Impressively, considering the first series ended with what appeared to be the fiery deaths of all of the main characters, Psychoville returns for a second run. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have fun with the characters that made it, who are mourning those who did not; there are other survivors, however, who don't even make it to the end of this episode. As usual, it's a sharp mix of gruesome horror, black comedy and serial killer fandom.

It would take more than a waistcoat full of explosives to kill off Psychoville's cast of grotesques.

Series two opens with a funeral for a clown, but as we say RIP to Mr Jolly - the children's entertainer-turned-suicide bomber - a new mystery arises concerning a missing locket belonging to the Ravenhill Mental Hospital's sadistic Nurse Kenchington.

Fans of Psychoville will know better than to expect this plotline to be solved in any conventional sense.

Instead, just gorge on the details as Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith carry on twisting the horror genre into unexpected shapes like so many balloon animals.

So we welcome back serial killer David Sowerbutts, angry clown Mr Jelly, Dawn French's bonkers midwife and toy collector Mr Lomax.

Imelda Staunton's secret agent returns too, chanelling the spirit of Judi Dench in the Bond movies and there's a new character to populate your nightmares: The Silent Singer.

Series two of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's comedy horror begins in typically dark fashion. The survivors of the explosion at Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital reunite at the burial of one of their number, which ends up kicking off a cavalcade of new mysteries. Even better news is that, after appearing in the Halloween special, Imelda Staunton returns as shadowy investigator Grace Andrews - as Staunton proved as vindictive teacher Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter, there are few who do terrifying quite so splendidly.

"No loose ends, remember, Kelvin," warns the sleek Imelda Staunton character in the opener to the horror-com's second series. It's a cheeky line from a show whose plotting has more loose ends than a fringed lampshade, and rather than trying to follow it, it's simpler to thrill to the loathsome sight gags and haunting characters lovingly assembled by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. There's Mr Jelly the embittered clown; Joy, the deluded midwife with a doll for a child; blind toy collector Mr Lomax; and serial killer David Sowerbutts - with his charming mum. They all somehow survived the explosion at the end of series one, though not Mr Jelly's arch-rival Mr Jolly, whose funeral (attended by a parade of glum clowns) kicks off the episode. Psychoville's unsettling tone is unlike anything else on TV and as well as big laughs there are big, nasty shocks.

Just as with The League Of Gentlemen, Psychoville's best moments are always the lower level tragedies. No matter what they throw at you in terms of stabbings, explosions, horror film tropes, it's never the big moments that chill or disgust you, it's the small things - the moments when Imelda Staunton purses her lips - that send a shiver down your spine. What other show would have an angry librarian turn so horrific?

There's a strange pretension-free ambition that makes Psychoville so much fun to watch. There are really awful cheap gags mixed among moments that take weeks, if not years to set up. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton mug it up, but they're allowed to get away with it because of the deadpan way the rest of the cast, such as the brilliant Tea Leaf, play around in their sick world. Really, really good.

More comic horror of the exceedingly surreal variety from The League of Gentlemen veterans Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. Following on from the dastardly denouement of series one, we open tonight with the survivors of the explosion at Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital reuniting, graveside, to bury one of their number who was killed in the blast. But now it seems they face a new threat in the guise of the mysterious Grace Andrews (Imelda Staunton) and her grovelling henchman, Kelvin (Daniel Ings).

The barmy brainchild of League of Gentlemen alumni Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, comedy thriller Psychoville returns for a mildly disappointing second series, in which their army of grotesques is plunged into a new set of mysteries.

Despite feeling short-changed by its ending (an anti-climax knowingly mocked within this opening instalment), I thoroughly enjoyed series one. But having watched the first four episodes of this sequel, it appears to be treading water. It just doesn't feel as fresh or compelling as before, which is to say, it's still more inventive and amusing than most current comedies, but rather patchy by its creator's usual high standards.

Nevertheless, there are moments of inspired lunacy - such as recurring intrusions from a hilariously unnerving apparition known as The Silent Singer, and a ludicrous storyline detailing Mr Lomax's relationship with a certain dead comedian - that redeem the weaker material. Plus, I'll always have time for the twisted pathos and coal-black comedy of Pemberton and Shearsmith, who remain two of the best comic actors in the business: the latter's deranged Tina Turner impression in episode two has to be seen to be believed.

And any comedy in which the epithet "tea-leaf" makes me giggle, no matter how often it's uttered, has to be doing something right.

Ask the Psychoville agony uncles

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