There is, in my mind at least, a strong similarity between Dunedin and the fictional town of Royston Vasey, the centre of the dark dealings of The League of Gentlemen.
There are many Dunedin characters that bring to mind, for instance, Pauline Campbell-Jones, the officer at the local "job centre" who hates the "dole scum" she has to work with, or Barbara Dixon, the transsexual taxi driver who goes into great detail about her process of sexual conversion, or Bernice Woodall, the local priest who does not believe in God and spends her time berating her parishioners.
Then there was Tubbs and Edward Tattsyrup, who ran the "local" shop in Royston Vasey, and used fair means or very foul to protect the localness of their town.
In the same way, Dunedin's local police force and local council protect us, the local citizens, against the outside world.
And if you have not seen League of Gentlemen, go to your DVD shop and hire it.
If you do not like it, you have no taste.
Anyway, it makes sense that there should be a strong following in this city for other creative works by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, two of the writers of the very best coupling of horror and comedy so far known to mankind.
Three series of the League were produced, and while there were murmurs there could be more, Pemberton and Shearsmith moved on to Psychoville, a worthy successor.
Psychoville debuted in 2009, and, happily, UKTV is promising a second series, preceded by the Psychoville halloween special, on October 28.
The special reintroduces us, in a series of vignettes, to some old favourites.
Mr Jelly (Shearsmith), the one-handed clown from Salford, Greater Manchester, is being cruel to children trick or treating in his street, and planning a night watching DVDs of horror movies, a meal of chips and baked beans, followed by a visit by a local prostitute, when things start getting weird.
Joy Aston (Dawn French) is a midwife who believes a plastic doll she carries round is a real baby.
In the Halloween special, the dark menace of domestic violence clouds the life of both Joy and plastic baby Freddy, ending, unsurprisingly in death and mutilation, with pumpkins the link.
The stories are linked by a visit to the Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital by Phil, from a television production company, who is scouting for locations for a "new" show where psychics are brought together in a haunted house and followed by night vision cameras to see what happens.
It's a television in-joke.
Series two of Psychoville will increase television quality by at least 33%. The Halloween special will be the best thing on television in October. Do not miss it.
