Acclaimed black comedy Nighty Night has been recommissioned by the BBC.

Julia Davies’s bleak show, which covered terminal illness, disability and suicide, attracted a moderate 1.2 million viewers when it aired on BBC2 earlier this year.

And it was toasted by reviewers who relished Davies’s heartless maneater Jill Farrell, a woman who "makes Lady Macbeth look like Mother Teresa”.

The final episode saw her smother her husband with a pillow and back out of a suicide pact with fiancé Glenn after he had already eaten the poisoned Angel Delight.

Henry Normal, from producers Baby Cow, told the Guardian: “It was a bit of a bloodbath but certain people survive.”

He also hinted that the second series might be even darker than the first.

The show also saw the partial rehabilitation of Angus Deayton, who played a victim of Farrell’s affection in his first major BBC since being sacked from Have I Got News For You.