Last night BBC2’s Psychoville – probably the best British comedy since The Office or the early series of Peep Show – was brought to an explosive conclusion as the identity of the mysterious blackmailer was revealed.
Full of characters part-sinister, part-laughing stock, Psychoville’s world – beneath the absurd facade of one-armed clowns and delusional midwives – was remarkably well observed. It’s of little surprise. Creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, half of The League of Gentlemen, have a long history of creating characters far enough from reality to be funny, but at the same time close enough to be scary. Take David Sowerbutts for example. One the one hand he is a caricature of an obsessive serial killer. One the other he is the victim of an overbearing mother, childhood trauma and a lack of social skills. Perhaps it is a triumph for the series that by the end we are feeling sympathy for him, but it’s also this ‘human’ dimension to his character which makes him that little bit more eerie.
The show had a theatrical grandeur about it, but combined this superbly with the more mundane. The ‘Clown Court’ scene was both dreamily hypnotic and utterly terrifying, and could easily be performed on stage. Episode four’s homage to Hitchcock’s Rope, was filmed with just one join. Throughout the episode stagehands frantically (and silently) maneuvered the set to allow the camera to pan and zoom without any indication there were people other than the principle characters in the room. But these vast undertakings were balanced with more conventional (and often just as effective) scenes. Just see David’s discussion with a volunteer in the Harringay Citizens Advice Bureau during last night’s conclusion. This is always a theme of Shearsmith’s and Pemberton’s work. Just as you are floating off to some deranged universe they’ve created, you’re smacked round the face by reality.
The humour is a product of this somewhat unexpected matrimony. There are plenty of laughs to be had by the sheer absurdity of it all, whether it be Lomax bidding vast sums of money for a toy crocodile, or the sitcom misunderstanding that leads to David’s killing spree. But the real laughs come when these utterly dysfunctional characters interact with people from the ‘real world’. Perhaps the highlight in this respect was the brilliantly scripted relationship between blind toy collector Lomax and his social services helper Michael, who he affectionately knows as Tealeaf. Tealeaf’s descent from incredulism at this crazy old man to genuine enthusiasm for his project adds depth to the ‘odd couple’ comedy formula. Perhaps this was over-used at times – Jelly handcuffing himself an elderly woman in a nursing home warranted a laugh, but probably not two episode’s worth. Regardless, Shearsmith and Pemberton have proved themselves absolute masters of combining the ridiculous with the very real.
Perhaps my only criticism of the show was it’s conclusion. Without giving anything away to those who haven’t yet watched the series, it seemed to me that a new ‘twist’ was shoehorned in, perhaps to open the possibility of a second series. It seemed a little lazy, as while the majority of loose ends were tied up in the final episode, this new strand was only introduced in the final moments. Perhaps I missed something, and it did seem a little out of character from two writers generally meticulous with their twisted plotlines. Did the desire to include even more twists and turns finally get the better of them? Maybe more will be revealed in the coming days on the numerous websites which have accompanied the series.
The DVD is out on Monday, so if you missed the series while it was on, I can’t reccommend it enough.
