It’s a fine tradition of this island nation that the late summer terrestrial television schedules will always be dire. For the most part the tradition continues apace this year. The Ashes and Big Brother 10674 or whatever notwithstanding, Psychoville provided a glint of hope.
I’ve never been one for rhapsodising on the good old days of Fawlty Towers and the rest, but at a time when British TV comedy consists largely of patchy sketch shows and laddish panel games of varying puerility and rather less material following the ousting of George Dubya Bush, it’s heartening to find a half-decent original sitcom.
From the creators and stars of cult favourite The League of Gentlemen (Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, each taking on multiple roles) comes another gallery of grotesques, with the same brand of bizarre, brilliant, near-the-knuckle black comedy, but this time less episodic, and with rather more emphasis on plot. Oh, and as ever, lots of dressing up.
Introducing, then, Mr. Lomax, reclusive millionaire and obsessive collector – I was greatly taken by both the grubby frock coat and his pronunciation of ‘holy of holies’. Serial killer aficionado and strange innocent David Sowerbutts who has a unhealthy, symbiotic relationship with his mother, poor deluded midwife Joy (Dawn French) her beloved ‘baby’ Freddy and long suffering husband, a soft hearted panto player with a shameful secret and his breathy-voiced, toothsome Snow White. Then there’s the world’s most inappropriate children’s entertainer and amputee, the oddly endearing Mr. Jelly. Then there’s the very, very close Crabtree sisters and an epic e-bay bidding war for the ages…
Psychoville links this apparently disparate group of individuals likely to make you cringe while laughing, with a series of creepy poison-pen notes, each reading ‘I know what you did’. An intriguing amalgam of gory murder mystery, gnarled brothers Grimm fairy-tale elements and general festering nastiness of the kind that’s unseasonable for a balmy summer’s night, with magnificent locations and some barnstorming performances from a cast obviously enjoying themselves. Best of all, a cliffhanger that leaves the viewer wanting more, rather than screaming at the telly in frustration.
Chock full of film references – Psychoville takes in Hitchcock, George A Romero’s zombie franchise, Carrie, the oeuvre of Wes Craven and deliciously creepy use of an insidious, heinous musical whose appeal has always eluded me, favourite of washed-up reality starts, Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat, it’s a pretentious film geek’s dream.
Where the League of Gentlemen left me cold, Psychoville succeeds. It tones down the sexually deviant student humour that makes grown men snigger like fourteen-year-old boys and indulge in irritating, smug analysis on those interminable list shows, to make room for storytelling. Each tightly constructed half-hour episode twists the plot strands together, just long enough to command attention, create atmosphere and drip-feed overheated Victorian gothic spliced with thoroughly modern comic sensibilities. My melodramatic streak gloried in a grim asylum with a terrifying matron (the regal Aileen Atkins), grave digging, murder and mayhem aplenty before the Scooby-Doo style unmasking. Oh, and some lovely fake-arterial-spray in an operating theatre scene that puts the average episode of ER to shame.
