Steve Pemberton

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's eerie comedy just keeps getting better. That's largely because the plot, in the grotesque manner of a cockroach scuttling for safety across a kitchen floor after the light has been turned on, is accelerating. Tonight, that means a murder most horrid, backstory to explain the tension between Mr Jelly and Mr Jolly, a bidding war between Lomax and the Crabtree sisters, and the appearance of a video in the post. Worth watching just for the soft play pursuit scene.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It might have links to The League of Gentlemen, but Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, two of that august number, have managed to craft something in Psychoville that feels distinctive in its own right, despite some of the trappings of the former. While the original League had a rotten core at the centre of the dark comedy, there's a surprisingly tragic heart here, exemplified by Joy, Dawn French's doll obsessed midwife. It's hard not to feel sorry for this woman, but at the same time. She's absolutely terrifying, charged with the potential energy to go off and do something abhorrent. Chilling, brilliant and funny.

There was no creative exhaustion evident in Psychoville - the new project from Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton from The League of Gentlemen. Psychoville has a purposeful air to it: as if someone had said: "Right, lads. The plot is: it's a sitcom about psychopaths! No messing about - and let's make sure we've got a scene with an incestuous mother and son scratching each other's eczema before the ten-minute mark, OK?"

As with The League of Gentlemen, most of the characters are played by Shearsmith and Pemberton, in a variety of wigs, prosthetics and pendulous rubber bosoms. It's a bit like a collegiate version of The Nutty Professor, but with jokes about bestiality. Well, just with jokes, really. I don't remember there being any in The Nutty Professor.

Darkest moment so far: Mr Jelly. He's a clown and children's entertainer. "Mr Jelly Keeps Kids Quiet" is the logo painted on the side of his car. Mr Jelly comes to children's parties and combs their hair until they cry. Then he puts lipstick on their eyes.

Since Royston Vasey closed its doors to business in 2002, the assorted League Of Gentlemen have scarcely set the world on fire. I don't know about you but I expected a bit more from the black-hearted crazy gang than cameos in the likes of Poirot and Benidorm. But at least two of them are back on form for now we have Psychoville (BBC2), a delirious wander back into the Gothic universe of Papa Lazarou et al.

The infected brainchild of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, Psychoville features a psychic porn dwarf, a scabrous one-handed children's clown called Mr Jelly, Dawn French doing penance for The Vicar Of Dibley as a demented midwife and much besides, all wrapped up in a cloak of blood-spattered menace that would do Edgar Allan Poe proud. The story thus far is not the point; episode one was all about soaking us in nutjob atmosphere.

As the coterie of oddballs each received a twirly-scripted anonymous note bearing the legend 'I Know What You Did' it was clear it was going to take a while for this plot to thicken, but there were more than enough gruesome diversions going on to galvanise the attention. I was particularly taken by much-too-close-for-comfort mother and son Maureen and David Sowerbutts, especially when she took far too long sorting out his fly. Who hasn't had a moment like that? Oh, that's just me then.

The Sowerbutts also got the best potential catchphrases, essential when students get round to re-enacting scenes. David's 'Sorry, Mum, I did a bad murder' is a definite contender. But better still was the even more disturbing 'Come and give your mummy a kiss'.

I've got Psychoville to entertain me, and it's sure as hell going to do that. The first episode was mesmerising, made up of lots of little stories that (I'm guessing) are soon linked together. There's the jealous dwarf, obsessed with taking Snow White out for a date; the one-handed clown whose act consists primarily of fixing novelty hands to his stump (he was my favourite), and the incestuous, serial-killer-obsessed mother and son. A chirpy bunch. Every time it flitted between them I'd be disappointed because I'd been engrossed, only to find myself just as fascinated by what followed. Except for the incestuous mother and son, that was a bit much, especially when she starts scratching the dry skin from his back. But apart from that, it was great. Creepy, but great. Indeed, the only problem I can foresee is the inevitable smugness it'll inspire in The League of Gentlemen lovers. I failed to cotton on to that one, which apparently - or at least according to the boyfriend - relegates me to some sort of lower order of TV viewer. Psychoville is from the same writers, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, and bares more than a few similarities, which meant much of the programme was spent straining to hear over said boyfriend's regular outbursts of ohmygodthat's-justlikeleagueofgentlemen. Not to worry, I'll lock him out next time.