TV & Radio Friday October 28

Psychoville: so weird it restores your faith; and Carole King's comfy concert tour.

TV

Psychoville: Halloween Special

Psychoville: Halloween Special (UKTV, Sky 006, 9.00pm). Sometimes the BBC makes a programme just weird enough to restore your faith in the creative process. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s Psychoville is possibly the most bizarre TV series you’ll ever see this side of The League of Gentlemen – which Shearsmith and Pemberton also wrote and starred in. In this special, the pair take their Psychoville characters – including horrible clown Mr Jelly, weirdo mother and son Maureen and David, and Joy the nurse (Dawn French) – and use them to tell a portmanteau of stories centred on the Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital. “Blackly hilarious at one moment, and genuinely unsettling the next,” said the Independent. UKTV begins series two of Psychoville next week.

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Headland: Where Sculpture Meets Nature (TVNZ7 and Sky 077, Friday, 10.05pm). The Waiheke Island sculpture walk has become a lovely day’s outing for many Aucklanders since its inception in 2003. Headland: Where Sculpture Meets Nature goes behind the scenes of the three-week event that attracts around 40,000 visitors to this small island in the Hauraki Gulf. The documentary captures the installation of some of the large-scale sculptures, which are placed on both land and sea, and includes interviews with some of the sculptors and the event’s founders. More information about the headland exhibition is at www.sculptureonthegulf.co.nz.

FILM

Slither (Four, 8.30pm). “Attack of the killer chillis” – or that’s what this film’s poster would have you believe. Actually, they are alien slugs and the evil little critters have invaded a small town in the US. Pretty soon, the whole show is full of dribbling space zombies. (A bit like what you become if you watch TV1 these days.) Nathan Fillion (TV’s Castle) leers his way through this as the local sheriff. But the good news – it’s a zomcom: it’s supposed to look like a low-budget horror. Screenwriter James Gunn also has a go at directing, and you won’t be surprised to learn he also wrote the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, which is similar but not funny. Don’t find zombies funny? Then don’t watch the UK contribution, Shaun of the Dead, either. (2006) 7

RADIO

Classic Concert (Radio New Zealand National, 11.06pm). Singing, songwriting legend Carole King took her comfy chairs all over small venues in the US for The Living Room Tour, and later brought it to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This concert of most of her big hits was recorded in 2004: just King on piano, two backing singers, a bass player and a guitarist.