The welcome sign as you entered The League of Gentlemen's Royston Vasey famously said “You'll Never Leave”, but Steve Pemberton has done just that. At the moment the man best known as Tubbs, the macabre, piglet-suckling local shopkeeper, is in East London filming the role of a Jack the Ripper-ologist for a new TV drama, Whitechapel. And last year he spent the summer in Spain filming Benidorm, the corny but catchy Costa Blanca sitcom, which returns to our TV screens this week.

It is a freezing afternoon and his thermal undies hang on a hook in his trailer, but Pemberton's cockles have been warmed by the news that Benidorm, co-starring Johnny Vegas, has just been nominated for a Best Sitcom Bafta, alongside The IT Crowd, The Thick of It and Peep Show. Crikey - ITV in successful sitcom shock!

Pemberton is honest enough to admit that he was surprised by the news. “It's great to be up there on merit. It's not a quota system. What really surprised me was that Gavin & Stacey was not nominated.”

In fact Benidorm, in which Pemberton plays the long-suffering Yorkshire hubby Mick Garvey, has much in common with Gavin & Stacey. Both focus on a closeknit extended family and friends. Yet while Gavin & Stacey has been lauded, Benidorm has been dismissed by the culturati. At an initial glance it is easy to see why. It is gaudy and vulgar and resembles a vision of hell on the Med by Bosch, but underneath there is compassion too.

“I gauge its success by friends and relations who enjoyed it rather than the critics,” Pemberton says. An audience of five million suggests that Benidorm is clearly touching plenty of nerves.

The stocky 40-year-old actor, from Blackburn, says that, beyond the leopard-print thongs and beer bellies, the scripts, by Derren Litten, a former Catherine Tate Show co-writer, have depth. “When I first read them I was worried that it might be seen to be taking the piss out of people who go there and that made me uncomfortable. But there is a lot of heart. It's got great northern charm, like The Royle Family.”

On the other hand Benidorm has almost nothing in common with the northern gothic of The League of Gentlemen. This was the attraction when Pemberton started looking for other work after his award-winning team decided to take a break after their sell-out 2005 tour: “I

certainly wasn't interested in doing a similar comedy and this was so different. There was no chance of a comparison.”

Like all comedians with taste, Pemberton loves Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry Sanders Show. Out of the other Bafta nominees his favourite is The Thick of It, but, with three small children, he has difficulties keeping up with other shows. “I haven't seen much of Peep Show but I liked what I saw. Skyplus is brilliant but awful; it just clogs you up. I'm like a doctor who can't take on another patient. I've already got Lost, Damages, Mad Men and re-runs of The Prisoner to catch up on.”

He has certainly been busy since The League of Gentlemen, having also filmed an episode for the next series of Dr Who, in which he plays a futuristic space investigator, alongside Alex Kingston and Colin Salmon. As for the real future, Pemberton is at great pains to confirm that The LoG will be back when they can all find the time. “We haven't disbanded; everyone is too busy,” he assures. “No one is standing at the side of the road shouting ‘Come back!' But I remember after we said we'd have a year off I met Stephen Gately and he said: ‘Yeah, Boyzone decided to have a year off. That was four years ago...' I don't want the break to be that long. I get too much of a buzz out of it.”

The LoG-shaped hole has been partly filled by writing a BBC Two script with fellow Gentleman Reece Shearsmith, called Psychoville. “It's a mystery narrative thriller with lots of characters.” It goes into production in the summer and has not been cast yet, but Pemberton will probably play a few roles. “I owe it all to The League of Gentlemen. I don't ever want to say I want to move away from that. Hopefully Psychoville will be somewhere close to it.” As that Royston Vasey sign said, “You'll Never Leave”. Maybe it was truer than ever intended.

Benidorm returns on March 28, ITV1, 9pm. Whitechapel goes out later this year

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