Steve Pemberton

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.

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.

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.

Psychoville 1.1 and 1.2 Review

Let's cut to the chase: this was wonderful. It took awhile to acclimatise to its style and dark temperament (and it wasn't anywhere near as funny at The League Of Gentlemen was in its first two years), but it was certainly an improvement on that show in other areas.