And here are the details…

BBC Two is “terrified” to announce that Psychoville, written by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, will return for a one-off special programme to be shown next year, and a new, six-part second series.

The dark comedy thriller was centred on very different characters, who each received an anonymous mysterious letter claiming: “I know what you did…” The last series episode concluded the story at Ravenhill Hospital, for the completely insane, with a huge explosion. In the new series, all will be revealed as to who managed to survive the blast.

The first series of Psychoville, shown earlier this year, has recently been nominated for two British Comedy Awards.

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith said: “We’re delighted that BBC Two commissioners have responded in the right way to the notes we sent bearing the words ‘We know what you did’. We look forward to being able to tickle and terrify our audience once again – preferably at the same time.”

Cheryl Taylor, Controller of Comedy Commissioning, said: “It’s great news for all, including all the dedicated Psychoville fans that this wonderfully creative series from Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith will return to dazzle and delight BBC Two viewers next year.”

Executive producer Jon Plowman said: “We are thrilled that our twisted baby, Psychoville, has been re-commissioned. We look forward to intriguing and scaring the audience next year and the year after”.

It’s called Let’s Change The World With Music, and was originally knocked on the head by thick-eared suits at Sony after just one listen to Paddy McAloon’s meticulously performed demo tape, thereafter consigned both to a cardboard box in the songwriter’s back room and wistful whispers within fanzines, message boards and forums.

Now McAloon’s efforts have finally made it into the real world. They have lost the mystique of being that most alluring of sonic creations, the Unreleased Recording.

But they have gained the exposure for which they were conceived, and like light falling on long-hidden mementos tucked away for expediency, their merit ought only to climb still further. They are songs of sad beauty and uplifting wisdom, marching under a banner of a pointedly nostalgic aspiration – one that seems to gain in stature by virtue of being from another age.

There’s a vaguely naïve, 1960s ring to it. Let’s not change the world with ideas, McAloon vows, not with less bureaucracy or more intervention, or deregulation or more regulation, but with…songs. With notes and tunes and harmony and… well, with sound itself.

It’s a calculated doff of the hat to a tradition fostered by another group; one that, along with almost every other precedent in popular music, established, fed and watered the mystique of the Unreleased Recording from the off.

What the Beatles didn’t release on disc, what remained in the Abbey Road archives in the shape of alternative takes, studio chatter and wholesale abandoned songs, used to be a puzzle trail winding all the way back to February 1965 with tracks like If You’ve Got Trouble and That Means A Lot, and then even earlier to versions of their very first single, Love Me Do, with and without Ringo on drums.

The Anthology series of albums and TV programmes in the mid-1990s ventured some way along that trail, partly satiating the world’s desire for ‘new’ Beatles material while tantalising fans with the implication there was far more hiding in the vaults.

At the time we overlooked the pointless instrumental versions and the crap bits because, hey, it was The Beatles. Audio glimpses of the Fabs at work in Abbey Road, even mere seconds in length, were seized on as vindication of the belief in the spell of the Unreleased Recording. An alternative take of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer? Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive!

The spell remained unbroken. Yet since then, Apple, still the most hapless music business in the world, has done its best to not capitalise on any periodic returns of Beatlemania. It has seemingly gone out of its way to not release digitally remastered version of the group’s albums, nor sort out a deal with iTunes, nor get the film of Let It Be released on DVD, nor really do anything to acknowledge the arrival of the 21st century.

Maddeningly, the only ‘new’ Beatles endeavour since the Anthology project was the bizarre Love album: a look-at-how-clever-we-are hodge-podge medley of one chorus stuck to the verse of another.

Until now. The Beatles: on Record aired on BBC2 the same week as the launch of the Beatles Rock Band computer game, plus the release of those long pined-for reissues (supposedly done and dusted four years ago!). It has been a rare burst of coordination from McCartney’s people, Starr’s people, the thousands of others representing Mrs John Lennon and Mrs George Harrison, plus George Martin and son.

Given the wait, it was a joy to see this particular publicity bauble do everything right. Its greatest triumph was having the sense to avoid what wasn’t needed. An hour-long documentary about the music of the Beatles should not leave any director struggling for content. Rather it should invite consideration of just what, as well as who, needs to be included.

Attention had been paid to such concerns. We had no contributions from anybody bar the group themselves and George Martin; no extraneous establishing footage, not even any extraneous sound or music; and best of all no narration. That meant no shots of girls screaming as the Beatles arrived at the Shea Stadium followed by a wallpaper voice saying “girls screamed as the Beatles arrived at the Shea Stadium”. Just sound and pictures of and by five people who changed the world with music. Perfection.

In the same way they were the first group to treat the studio as a playground-cum-laboratory, the Beatles were the first group to not bother about all their man-hours behind the microphone being a means to an end. This casual attitude continues to lend every single piece of their rare off-mike gossip and pre-song banter a weight of significance out of all proportion to its superficial, contemporary concerns.

The Beatles: on Record aired dozens of such enchanting moments. There are thousands more yet to be heard. Yet even if they were all suddenly launched into the public domain, the infectious cult of the Unreleased Recording would implore you to believe there are further gems down the back of a Studio 2 filing cabinet or in plastic bags in cupboards from St John’s Wood to the Mull of Kintyre.

And what’s wrong with that? The Beatles were, are and always will be the greatest band in history because of this ability to storm the commanding heights of your emotions time after time after time. They will make you go on believing there is more to be heard of their body of work long after their last member has passed away.

Wanting to believe in the power of music you know exists: it’s why Paddy McAloon’s voice from 17 years ago sounds all the more enchanting. And it’s why hearing the opening bars of an early, incomplete version of Yesterday makes you fall in love with the song all over again.

And here it is.

Titled Dreamland, the six-part story will be available via Red Button and on the BBC’s Doctor Who website (who’ve just put online an introductory video about the project) . The whole thing – clocking up at 45 minutes – will then be screened in its entirety on BBC2 in the autumn, and the BBC HD channel.

Here’s what the Beeb is saying about it…

Written by Phil Ford (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures) Dreamland will see the Doctor – played by David Tennant – arrive at the infamous alien hot spot, Roswell.

During a visit to a local diner he stumbles upon a mysterious alien artefact that leads him on a mission to rescue Rivesh Mantilax from the threat of the Viperox and the clutches of the American military.

Joining David Tennant will be Georgia Moffett (Doctor Who, Spooks) in the role of Cassie Rice – the Doctor’s new animated companion.

David Warner (Wallander, Hogfather) also stars as the leader of the ruthless Viperox.

In the run up to the animation, fans will be able to visit the Doctor Who website (bbc.co.uk/doctorwho) to follow a behind-the-scenes production blog on the making of Dreamland, giving the opportunity to follow the progress of the animation as it develops.

Dreamland was commissioned by BBC Drama Multiplatform and will be produced for the BBC by Brighton-based animation company Littleloud.

It is being executive produced by Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Piers Wenger, with Gary Russell as director.

Russell T Davies said: “Dreamland is a remarkable project and I’m thrilled with it. Phil Ford is a wonderful writer and promises to send the Doctor into a whole new visual dimension.”

Rosie Allimonos, BBC Drama Multiplatform Commissioner, said: “I‘m extremely excited about Dreamland. It presents an amazing opportunity to expand the multiplatform storytelling potential of Doctor Who.

“To offer the ability to watch this brand new Doctor Who animation on so many different BBC platforms is a real treat for our audience.”

Richard Deverell, Controller, BBC Children’s, said: “This is a wonderful addition to the already fantastic portfolio of CBBC programming. Having talent like Russell T Davies and Phil Ford at the helm of this project will no doubt ensure it captures the imagination of CBBC viewers.”

Award-winning channel CBBC also further reinforced its commitment to British animation as it announced that online portal Cartoon Works is expanding to become a new destination to premiere short-form content from the UK animation industry.

CBBC has also commissioned brand new animation Muddle Earth, based on the much-loved children’s books by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, and Shaun The Sheep returns to screens this Autumn in a series of new exploits.

Louis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles is due to air at the start of next month. In it, the reporter visits Coalinga Mental Hospital in California, which houses more than 500 of the most disturbed criminals in America – convicted paedophiles.

The BBC’s release reads…

Most have already served lengthy prison sentences, but have been deemed unsafe for release. Instead they have been sent here for an indefinite time. They have only two choices: accept the fact they will never live as free men in society again, or submit to a programme of rehabilitation and therapy run by the hospital’s psychologists.

Louis has gained access to Coalinga to film with patients and therapists, and to consider whether these men – whose history of sexual violence is often long and ingrained – could ever be sufficiently changed by therapy to justify their release.

Spending time with those undergoing treatment, Louis wrestles with whether he can ever allow himself to believe men whose whole history is defined by deception and deceit. At times the honesty of the patients appears disarming and sincere. At others, the language of therapy seems more to mask their true natures than to reveal them.

Among the patients Louis meets is James. After six years of therapy and a physical castration, he appears to have come to understand the enormity of the crimes he committed. He is determined to prove to society that he can be trusted again, and has been recommended for release by the hospital.

Over the course of Louis’ visit, he finds that, out of hundreds of men the hospital has accommodated, only 13 have ever completed the therapy programme. Most refuse even to participate, and many – fiercely deluded about their crimes – talk bitterly about the programme, arguing that the facilities it offers – therapy, tennis, softball, music – are designed less with the intention of rehabilitation than of the long–term incarceration of men who have already served their time.

Louis explores the dark world of Coalinga, and finds an institution committed to helping and treating people but also a place that ultimately offers society a way of confining its most loathed offenders for the rest of their days.

Not long ago, Stewart Lee was trading on the fact he hadn’t been on TV in a long time.

Though his double act with Richard Herring had a huge following both on television and radio, they disappeared from the nation’s screens at the end of the decade, for reasons that have never been clear – even to the duo themselves – but seemed to involve little more than the personal dislike of a single executive and subsequent reluctance of anyone else to take a chance on them. Indeed, Lee’s most recent live show hinged around the bitterly amusing story of how the cancellation of a planned BBC2 series left him short of work, out of pocket and performing material he wasn’t interested in to an audience who weren’t interested in him… while dressed as a giant insect.

Awning has spoken

"The sat-nav is off!"

Ironically, the success of that same show led to renewed interest from BBC2, resulting in a series that has actually made it to air. Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, rather like the BBC’s 1970s mainstay Dave Allen at Large, takes the form of lengthy and laconic ruminations on various subjects in front of a live comedy club audience, with short sketches (featuring longtime associates Paul Putner, Kevin Eldon, Michael Redmond and Simon Munnery) acting as surreal and frivolous punchlines.

From the opening sequence of Lee driving his ridiculous ‘Comedy Vehicle’ around in a pastiche of the titles of The Pink Panther Show set to shrill, jaunty music (South African kwela song Tom Hark, most famously a hit for ska band The Piranhas), it’s hard to shake the suspicion this show is a deliberate counterpoint to what has become the norm during his absence from the small screen. Television comedy has changed a good deal in the meantime, with taboo-breaking and an increasing reliance on cutting edge technology and interactivity – something Lee and Herring themselves did much to pioneer – seemingly considered as important as actual jokes.

This show is a step in the absolute opposite direction, albeit one robustly supported by a writer and performer with over two decades of experience and enough time spent away from television to tell what works and what doesn’t. It’s all the better for it.

This first edition tackles the subject of ‘toilet books’, with Lee examining several popular tomes he clearly would not have personally chosen to read, among them the works of Dan Brown and Chris Moyles. All of these are subjected to merciless scrutiny, albeit in a manner that seems more tongue-in-cheek than vindictive. Indeed, there is a fair smattering of inspired silliness throughout – notably a superb visual gag about former Grange Hill star Asher D conducting a drive-by sausage-on-forking – and it could be argued some of the more incisive gags (such as Moyles’ choice of the title The Difficult Second Book) had basically already written themselves.

Some will undoubtedly berate the show for an apparent tendency towards ‘predictable’ targets such as The Da Vinci Code, as recent reviews of his live shows have done with regard to sections on Stuart Maconie and Del Boy Falling Through The Bar. The important detail is Lee has plenty to say on these subjects – much of it both new and extremely funny – and any such criticism is doubtless founded more on a personal jadedness with the subject matter than with any problem with the actual material. Indeed, it’s quite refreshing to see such familiar subjects tackled with gags that batter their literary construction, factual veracity and underlying political leanings, rather than just scoffing at the number of people reading popular books in public places.

Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle is a much-needed breath of fresh air, presenting material that is both intellectually and ideologically challenging in an upbeat, laid back and easily accessible format. Lee himself has suggested the show was concieved as a ‘liberal’ mirror to Grumpy Old Men, using the same sort of observational approach to frame less reactionary material, and with a bit of luck it may prove just as popular as the rantings of Clarkson, Wakeman and company.

And who knows, maybe it’ll open then door for a couple of other sidelined ’1990s comedians’ who really ought to have been back on the small screen a long time ago…

The HBO crime drama will begin screening on the channel at the end of March, stripped across the week.

Read the full press release here. And here’s our own Ian Jones explaining why it’s a show worth persevering with.

Upon such enervating trivialities history turns. The condition of the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer’s teeth commanded just as much significance in the fall of Margaret Thatcher as Geoffrey Howe’s desolate resignation speech or Michael Heseltine’s bombastic leadership bid. A quick afternoon nap in the office; whether to take that business trip to Paris; the vagaries of an infected wisdom tooth … in politics it is frequently the less obvious and the otherwise guileless actions that catalyse the most startling of consequences.

Margaret‘s greatest achievement was to colour such incidences with just the right degree of pathos so they appeared culpable but not melodramatic; to draw your attention to less well-known details of this universally familiar story with a subtle, yet brutal, poise. The results were startling. It’s safe to say that the sight of John Major in a sweater sitting on a sofa has never before been imbued with such toxicity.

John Major strikes a ruthless, smart-but-casual pose

An entire generation has passed since these events took place: long enough for them to fade from mere recollection and anecdote and become part of this country’s heritage, with cause and outcome clear to see.

Of those involved, only Ken Clarke remains in the public eye. Everybody else has retired, gone to the House of Lords or died.

All of this worked in the programme’s favour. A dramatisation rushed out by ITV in September 1991, Thatcher: The Final Days, suffered not just on account of its cardboard sets and unexceptional (as in unstylised) script, but because it was too soon. It could not compete with the resonances from the real thing that still lingered in the mind. Plus it had Sylvia Sims as Mrs T, who had the voice and the wig but nothing else.

Come 2009, however, and the real thing is so far in the past as to be ripe for reawakening on its own terms. Only John Sergeant’s reverse-doorstepping in Paris, and possibly the sequences involving Alan Clark (all of which appeared, nearly word-for-word, in BBC4′s 2004 adaptation of his diaries, including the occasion when Peter Morrison, Thatcher’s leadership campaign chief, is found snoring at his desk) seem over-familiar.

What a pleasure it was, then, to get reacquainted with the incredible fall-out to Howe’s speech, as opposed to the speech itself, given a nonetheless suitably under-the-top recitation by John Sessions; or the mood in Thatcher’s suite inside the British embassy in Paris once the result of the first ballot was known: a telling contrast between Morrison (Rupert Vansittart) panicking and Charles Powell (James Fox) sitting in the shadows giving a silent but deadly thumbs down.

Geoffrey proposes a toast; "now go fetch my shawl"

What perverse fun was to be had in revisiting the acclamations-cum-accusations that roared around Mrs T on the occasion of her tenth anniversary in office; or the even earlier Cabinet showdown following the Brixton and Toxteth riots in 1981.

And even the lengthiest flashbacks to 1975, when Thatcher challenged Ted Heath for the Tory leadership and won, defied convention by waspishly turning secondary aspects (Maggie clucking in her family home, Maggie doing a screen test) into matters of supremely primary importance.

Lindsay Duncan may not have quite got the voice of 1970s-era Thatcher (“like the book of Revelations read out over a railway station public address system by a headmistress of a certain age wearing calico knickers” – Clive James) but she certainly had everything else, enough to make anybody who lived through those times feel simultaneously entranced and enraged.

She even provided possibly more humanity than the lady would no doubt like to think she deserved; anybody who prides themselves in informing no less a person than the Queen that “one must always fight – what else is there?” wouldn’t think kindly of the nation seeing her blubbing over the breakfast table.

The levee breaks; Denis dabs the tears amid the toast

Duncan was assisted, nay honoured, by a style of filming that flattered her at every turn. At times it was enough to simply angle the camera straight at her and let that bewitching stare and the viewers’ emotions do the rest.

These were the points where the drama strayed close to GBH territory: a landscape of knowing pauses, cryptic glances and lingering reveries. One scene, where Thatcher appeared to be possessed by a childhood incantation, seemed almost a pastiche of a Bleasdale script.

At other points the lens ducked and bobbed and skulked in the shadows, as if afraid to get too close or reveal too much of the machinations in progress. Then suddenly the camera would be scuttling down corridors in pursuit of this or that character, then circling warily, then shifting focus mid-shot from foreground to background … a fusillade of technical acrobatics and playfulness, in short, that matched the script page for page. It was impossible to not be sucked utterly into this neurotic, demotic world.

The Boss barks at a minion; the camera takes cover

Plaudits must go to director James Kent and, in particular, director of photography David Odd, who in a neat bit of synchronicity also shot Thatcher: The Final Days.

Might it be more than just coincidence that both productions concluded in exactly the same way, with a shot of the protagonist staring directly into the camera with proud antagonism?

That closing frame came all too quickly. This was such a glorious ensemble and Lindsay Duncan such an utterly mesmerising prime minister that it was a shame a full-blown series could not have been produced about Thatcher’s entire premiership, rather than an unavoidably compressed stand-alone play.

Robert Hardy (Whitelaw), Philip Jackson (Ingham), Oliver Cotton (Heseltine), Kevin McNally (Clarke), Nicholas Le Provost (Hurd), Roy Marsden (Tebbit): they all effortlessly inhabited the skins of the once-ubiquitous Tory guard, while Ian McDiarmid pulled off that most remarkable of accomplishments, a portrayal of Denis Thatcher that for once made all the trademark quirks and foibles plausible, even sympathetic.

"There's lasagne in the fridge I've earmarked for tonight"

Unlike the subject herself, this was a drama that deserved to go on and on and on. So many decisions, conceits and schemes from that era are only now making their true presence felt upon the country, not least in the shape of the worst recession since the Second World War. So much of what was then established, in so far as the language and presentation of politics, is only now reaching maximum percolation.

There are many more seams to be mined, and Margaret set a template for those who are so desired to start digging.

Sylar - no more Mr Nice Guy... again

Although the first episode of this third season showed some promise (Nathan’s new found religious fervor, in particular, looked like it might just go somewhere), things have progressed since then seemingly on a “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” basis.  Yup, continuity and logic just can’t shout loud enough when the writing team are postulating, “Wouldn’t it be cool if: Sylar and Noah had to work together/Sylar was revealed as being Peter’s long lost brother/Mohinder got powers/Ando got powers/Everyone lost their powers…” and so on.

It’s resulted in a show constantly backing out of storyline cul-de-sacs (actually, Sylar isn’t a Petrelli; nor is he good; Mohinder’s cured of his powers etc etc) and dropping bits of the plot as it goes along (What happened to Linderman? Where did the Haitian suddenly nip to in the final episode?).

Season one casts a long shadow over the show, a firecracker run which impressed by blowing every trick in the stack – particularly with its various time-shifting episodes. No more can the show jaunt to an apocalyptic future, or take us back for a peek at how things began… it’s been done.

So what’s actually left? And is the show beyond hope? Here, humbly, are a few suggestions for a revived Heroes…

- Kill people! Obvious to say, but it does reveal a lack of confidence that the programme-makers have never yet offed anyone significant. And there are a few characters who’ve clearly passed their sell-by date: Parkman and Mohinder in particular.

- A new point-of-view. The fun of the time travel episodes had been (and notice I say that in the past tense) they offered a different point of view on events. Perhaps this could be achieved in new ways. For example, how about going down the Marvels (a comic book by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross) route and showing us the heroes’ antics from the perspective of ostensibly a by-stander?

- Write out Sylar. The show’s bogey man now seems to be stalking the production team. In series two and three, new villains have been introduced (Kensei, Parkman’s dad, Old Man Petrelli), dressed up as the biggest and baddest threats ever… until suddenly there seems to be a crisis of confidence, and Sylar is hurriedly re-established as top dog. So get rid of him and go for broke with something new.

- Develop Hiro. There’s a pervasive fear in really moving the characters on (Claire and Noah always end up back home, hiding from The Company, for example) which has particularly stultified Hiro. Originally a refreshingly ‘innocent’ voice among the maelstrom, he’s now just unbearably twee. When the show cuts to him, it’s like we’re in a different programme altogether. It was telling that when he was ‘regressed’ to his childhood, he didn’t actually seem any different. How about letting him grow up? And let the show’s immature moral compass waver as he’s forced to make tough choices.

- Have fun with physics. Okay, in a programme where people can fly and spit fire, it seems pointless to nitpick. But that bit when Ando and Daphne used super speed to, not just go back in time, but turn up at exactly the right moment, and across the globe in Toyko, was just too hard to swallow. Reign back in the reality. Wouldn’t it be good if the impact on the human body of travelling at high speed was acknowledged? Or flight – once Nathan got above the clouds, couldn’t he just once panic as he realises he’s confused and no longer knows which way is down (plus, it’s bloody cold). Some exploration of the consequence of powers might just anchor the show a little more.

Anyway, that’s five ideas from me. Suggestions, anyone?

Following in the footsteps of the US networks, the Corporation will be making BBC1 and BBC2 available to view online from 27 November. The channels will join BBC3, BBC4, CBBC, CBeebies and BBC News which are already simulcast on bbc.co.uk.

Director of of BBC Vision, Jana Bennett, said: “Jana Bennett said: “The launch of BBC1 and BBC2 online completes our commitment to make our portfolio of channels available to watch on the internet.

“From 27 November licence fee payers will be able to watch BBC programmes, live, wherever they are in the UK on their computers, mobile phones and other portable devices.

“Through iPlayer and series stacking, they’ll have the option to catch up with them later.”

Read the full story on the BBC press site.

Ali, with his thin smile and gleeful clasping hands really won me over by the end of The Restaurant, but alas, in last night’s final Raymond went into ‘biz-ness’ with The Cheerful Soul. And, inevitably, here’s their blog!

Cheerful, aren't they?

I’ve nothing against Michele and Russell, other than the way they seem to feel their relationship and lifestyle represents something of a gold standard the rest of us should aspire to.

But if The Gallery opened next door to them, I’d be popping in there for petit fours and a disposable camera rather than a big hug and “old food made interesting”.