'I know what you did' (Psychoville)

Member Name: hewhoisme

Product:	Psychoville
Date:	03/09/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The plot, characters, and the wonderfully twisted sense of humour

Disadvantages: It can be very dark

After the ground breaking success of the League of Gentlemen I was expecting great things from Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, two of the surrealistic masterminds behind the timeless dark comedy, and I pleased to say that they didn't disappoint.

Psychoville is a dark comedy/thriller that follows the slightly nightmarish lives of five British residents, all in various stages of virulent insanity. There's a brutally straight forward nurse (Joy Aston), who's under the increasingly hysterical belief that her maternity doll is actually alive, a visually impaired millionaire with an alarming obsession for beanie babies (Oscar Lomax), a love struck pantomime dwarf with telekinetic powers (Robert Greenspan), a chain smoking one-handed clown (Mr Jelly), and a serial killer obsessed man child who shares an affection with his mother which is occasionally beyond the limits of your average platonic relationship (David Sowerbutts). Whilst the series mainly focuses on the characters own sub-plots, such as Robert's doomed affection for the bubble headed leading lady, or Oscar's ongoing search for a limited edition Snappy the Crocodile, the seemingly un-related cast are drawn together by a dark event in their distant past, and are being individually threatened by a series of 'I know what you last summer-esque' letters.

One of the reasons why Psychoville's so brilliant is because of the multi-layered design of the plot. Superficially it may seem like a disjointed sketch show, when it's actually an incredibly well written dark thriller which succeeds in connecting the most irrelevant sub-plots together in an astounding crescendo. Part of the charm is Pemberton and Shearsmith's trademark sense of humour, which similar to the League of Gentlemen takes a wonderfully bleak and slightly cynical view of human nature. Although the majority of the characters are borderline disturbing, and in some cases downright psychotic, they are portrayed with a surreal air of irreverent disconnection that makes even the most graphic acts, such as the near fatal exsanguination of a hapless nurse, seem bizarrely humorous. Even highly controversial content matter, such as serial murder and accidental dismemberment, can be made to be absolutely hilarious with an appropriately upbeat soundtrack and few tongue-in-cheek quips, even if you do feel guilty for laughing afterwards. The icing on the Psychoville cake definitely lies within the characters. In contrast to the League of Gentlemen, in which the characters are brilliant but slightly two dimensional, the cast of Psychoville are masterpieces. Whilst many have a strange anti-hero tint to them, and are often so stomach churningly grotesque it's near impossible to connect with them, they all have such an in depth background that you can't help but feel for them, especially since some of their pasts are genuinely moving.

In my opinion Psychoville is one of the best comedy series of the year, and the cliff-hanger ending has left it wide open for a second series, although I wait with baited breath to see how on earth Pemberton and Shearsmith will be able to top the sheer brilliance of the first instalment. But knowing them, they'll manage it.

Summary: Dark comedy and it's bleakest and blackest