FUNLAND, the hotly anticipated collaboration between Bafta Award-winning EastEnders writer Simon Ashdown and Jeremy Dyson, multi-award-winning writer of The League Of Gentlemen, comes to BBC Three tomorrow.

Set in Blackpool over one long weekend, the six-part series takes viewers to the black heart of the resort, bringing the saucy seaside postcard screaming into the 21st century.

Funland goes on a mysterious journey where things are not quite what they seem. The story follows Carter Krantz, played by newcomer Daniel Mays, who arrives in Blackpool to avenge the death of his mother.

Without a penny to his name and carrying only a fragment of paper containing the words Ambrose Chapel, Carter tries to uncover the truth about his mother and in doing so, is sucked into the most disturbing of mysteries.

He meets the dysfunctional Woolf family who are at the heart of everything that happens in Blackpool: there's Shirley Woolf (Ian Puleston-Davies), a borderline psycho; his mother, the evil and manipulative Mercy (Judy Parfitt); and his foolhardy wife Connie (Frances Barber).

Meanwhile, the Suttons - Dudley (Kris Marshall) and Lola (Sarah Smart) - arrive in Blackpool for a dirty weekend to spice up their marriage, but their time at the Shangri-La guest house turns their world upside down and their lives will never be the same again.

Mays explains: "Right at the beginning of Funland, Carter's mum dies in his arms. Her last words are 'Ambrose Chapel', 'Blackpool' and 'Danger' and she also gives him a key. So he sets out on a voyage of self-discovery to find out who killed his mother and also unravel the truth about his past.

"He hitch-hikes to Blackpool on a coach full of women on a hen do who strip him, so he arrives in Blackpool naked apart from the key and a scrap of paper."

Carter doesn't know where to start in his bid to unravel the truth. As he investigates the meaning of the two words, Ambrose Chapel, he is sucked into the most disturbing of mysteries and meets the intriguing array of characters who lie behind Blackpool's funhouse doors.

Convinced that Ambrose Chapel is a person, he tracks down a man with a very similar name called Ambrose Chapfel, a gay taxidermist played by The League Of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss.

"Carter takes what he wants out of any situation," says Mays. "The scenes with Mark are really great because he tries to seduce Carter and Carter goes along with it for a little while, but then he suddenly changes and turns on Ambrose because, for all Carter knows, this is the man who murdered his mum."

"Carter very quickly gets involved with the Woolf family. He is sleeping with the daughter, Ruby (Emily Aston), and starts working for her grandmother, Mercy and then Ruby's father, Shirley, playing them both off against each other."

"Carter can be this young, charismatic guy but there is another side to him, a more demonic and violent side. He's very instinctive and unpredictable. He's able to seduce people, scare people, please people and trick people at any given time. As an actor, I have to decide when and where to reveal his true character."

Meanwhile, the Suttons, too, have arrived in Blackpool. With a big grin, Kris Marshall recalls that when he recently jetted off on holiday after accepting the role of hapless Dudley Sutton, little did he know that The Maldives would provide him with the perfect inspiration for the role.

"He was wearing these awful sandals and long shorts and he just looked like a fish out of water. He had a bad razor rash and a bit of a pot belly and so I was stood in the queue trying to copy his gait and sticking my belly out when he turned round and caught me looking at him.

"But the guy was absolutely perfect and I decided to model Dudley on him. I was chatting to the costume designer and asked if he could get Dudley the same kind of sandals. Dudley has got no dress sense. His shorts are really badly cut and unflattering and he even tucks his shirt into his shorts.

In the series, Dudley has been married to his wife, Lola, for three years. They arrive in Blackpool for a dirty weekend to spice up their sex life. Dudley has booked the B&B as a surprise and desperately wants everything to be perfect but, when they arrive at the Shangri-La, it isn't quite what they were expecting.

"The Suttons are quite a naive couple really and I think their first impression when they arrive at the B&B is abject horror," explains Marshall. "Anyone else would have taken one look at the place and said: 'We're not staying here', but Dudley lacks a bit of backbone when the chips are down. He's quite spineless really.

"So they decide to stay, but that decision is the first of many bad ones that Dudley makes that weekend. The Suttons try to make the best of things as Dudley doesn't want to let Lola down, but it does not end up being the weekend of fun that they had intended."

Sarah Smart plays the long-sufferieng Lola , a part she relished. "I swear, after playing this part I can do anything," she insists. "I feel invincible now. I've never done naked scenes before, but because the script is so good it really doesn't bother me. I would never do it if it wasn't good work, but the nakedness really shows Lola's vulnerability."

Like Dudley, Lola hopes that a weekend away will spice up their sex life. But what happens while she is there changes her life for ever, as Smart explains:. "Lola is really straight, really shy; I think the best way to describe her is a sexual anorexic; she's really uptight about sex.

"Dudley brings her to Blackpool for a romantic weekend but the guest house that they stay in isn't the nicest of places. They're trying to make the best of it but then Dudley loses a game of poker and it all goes completely wrong."

After losing the poker game, Dudley can't pay his debt and Leo Finch, who runs the guest house, asks for the use of his wife instead. Dudley is forced to agree and Lola starts out doing a sexy photo shoot. She does so well that she then agrees to do a guest spot at a lap-dancing club in order to pay the debt off as quickly as possible.

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