Six half-hour films for BBC Two

Psychoville creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton are to create a new comedy horror show for BBC Two.

They are working on six-part series of ‘funny and terrifying’ standalone half-hour films, provisionally called Happy Endings.

Trade magazine Broadcast reports that it is part of a deal with the BBC’s in-house comedy department to produce the pair’s next two series.

Mark Freeland, head of the department, implied the deal was struck to stop the former League Of Gentlemen duo defecting to Sky, with its revived comedy output.

He told Broadcast: ‘We love Reece and Steve, why wouldn’t we do their next two projects? If I was Sky, I would have gone after them. To know we’ve got their next two shows makes my job easier.’

He said it was ‘a very mutual decision’ to call time on Psychoville after two series. The first series averaged 1.4million viewers, but some episodes in the second run slumped to half of that.

Published: 6 Sep 2012