More details revealed about Series 2 of Psychoville
Celebrated stage and screen actress Imelda Staunton, whose recent credits include Harry Potter and Cranford, is to join the cast of Psychoville - the multiple award-winning dark comedy thriller written by and starring The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. Staunton is to star as a sharp-suited, shadowy figure with mysterious motives.
She says: "There's nothing I enjoy more than hanging out with weirdoes, freaks and undesirables, so of course I jumped at the chance to work on Psychoville with Steve and Reece."
The creators add: "Imelda completely 'got' the show and we felt really lucky to 'get' her. She was fantastically funny as a slightly frustrated megalomaniac." They add: "She looks like a cross between Mary Quant and Louise Brooks in the role. She plays a powerful woman who is a little bit Jane Tennison from Prime Suspect but longs to be James Bonds' M."
Other actors named today as taking part in the new series of the comedy, and the forthcoming one-off Halloween Special too, are Katherine Parkinson (Jen in The IT Crowd); Sarah Solemani (star of forthcoming BBC3 sitcom Him & Her), Jason Watkins, Mark Bonnar and David Cann.
The 60-minute Halloween special will see "spirits gathering at Ravenhill Hospital where TV researcher Phil from Dale Winton's Overnight Ghost Hunt is scouting locations. He is about to have a night that he will never forget - assuming he lives that long... Set on the scariest night of the year, this gothic special features an anthology of terror that will both fright and delight. It will both trick and treat."
Other stars across the special and the new series include the return of Eileen Aitkins as Nurse Kenchington, Dawn French as Joy, Daisy Haggard as Debbie, Jason Tompkins as Robert, Lisa Hammond as Kerry, Christopher Biggins as himself and Shearsmith and Pemberton in various roles.
Filming on both the Halloween special and the six-part second series has now finished. The Halloween special will air this October on BBC Two, the second series will follow in 2011.