Psychoville
BBC Two, 10pm
Everyone familiar with The League of Gentlemen will know what to expect from Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s latest offering. It is a characteristic mix of grotesque characters and sick imaginings, amid a bracing absence of anything remotely resembling good taste. That’s not a criticism, mind. Although billed as a comedy-thriller, the comedy is as bitter as chocolate made from 100 per cent cocoa solids. But in the absence of laughter, there is a twisted narrative like a coherent nightmare, weaving together the story of an embittered clown, a disturbed midwife, a serial killer, a lovestruck dwarf and a blind collector of soft toys. As with the League of Gentleman, Pemberton and Shearsmith take on the roles of multiple gargoyles alongside a cast that includes Dawn French and Janet McTeer. Once again they have created a fully imagined world unlike anything else around.
Occupation
BBC One, 9pm
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The final part of the BBC’s first drama on the Iraq war was never going to have a happy ending. The lives of the profiteers have curdled in corruption. Long-standing friendships are destroyed. Marriages break up. The innocent die. People start to unravel when faced with unimaginable horror. And anyone in Iraq who was trying to build a new life for himself or improve the lot of the Iraqi people becomes a victim himself, and everyone has a different perspective on the reasons for the anarchy that surrounds them. At the heart of this drama was the destruction of the individual by the forces of money and politics. When someone is asked, “What happened?” the answer comes back: “He went to Iraq.”
May Contain Nuts
ITV1, 9pm
So much of the enjoyment of television is based on expectation and the willingness to accept something for what it is rather than condemning it for not being something different. I was disappointed by the first part of this comedy-drama (left) about middle-class parents trying to get their children into a good school because it was based on broad comic caricature. But by the time part two came along, I knew exactly what to expect and so it was much easier to enjoy it on its own terms. Of course it is still based on comic caricature, but it dealt with fundamentally serious issues in a breezy way. It may not be a merciless and accurate satire, but it is big-hearted and entertaining.
Undercover Boss
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Channel 4, 9pm
In this new series, directors leave the boardroom to work undercover in their own companies to find out what life is like at the coalface. (Their cover story is that they are taking part in a documentary about learning a new trade.) Tonight, the marketing director of Park Resorts, the second-largest caravan holiday company in the UK, takes his turn working as a cleaner in two of the resorts. In a few days, he discovers fundamental flaws in the way the company operates and straightforward ways to sort them out. With its element of surprise and revelation, it makes lively television. But more importantly, the idea that executives should experience the reality of their business at first hand seems such a blindingly obvious management technique that it can’t just be made-for-television novelty. Or can it?