I belatedly turn to the charms of Inside No. 9, Series 1 of which has the unexpected delight of turns by the late Helen McCrory and Timothy West
“Sorry, we weren’t properly introduced. I’m Ian by the way”
I couldn’t really tell you why the idea of Inside No. 9 never really appealed to me back from its 2014 start on BBC2. I suppose I was never the biggest fan of writer/creators Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, or at least not of The League of Gentlemen, and so it made it easy just to choose not to bother. But over the years, it has grown in repute and stature to the point where its finale this year was a big TV moment and an unexpected stage play – Inside No. 9 Stage/Fright – will be opening in January at the Wyndham’s.
Part of the issue, maybe, is that it is so hard to describe for those looking in from the outside. Wikipedia goes for “British black comedy anthology television programme” which is certainly factually correct but doesn’t quite nail the spirit of the thing. It’s a show where anything goes really, self-contained stories with their own casts alongside Pemberton and Shearsmith who appear in each one and usually a whopper of a twist which takes several of the tales into the realm of psychological horror, although there’s a smattering of Gothic in this first series and a whole load of the darkest vein of humour.
Take the opening Sardines for instance. You’ve Katherine Parkinson, Anne Reid, Anna Chancellor, Julian Rhind Tutt, Timothy West, Tim Key, Luke Pasqualino, Ophelia Lovibond, Marc Wootton and Ben Willbond (and Pemberton and Shearsmith) playing the titular parlour game and one by one, ending up packed in a wardrobe. That alone is worth the entry price as adult siblings squabbles, work colleagues bitch about each other and cleaners get ideas above their station and then in the final moments, all gets turned on its head due to a character by the name of Ian. Genius.
Later episodes take in hapless art thieves, teachers being kind to tramps, pop stars and balloons and straight up Gothic mansion horror, all with distinct twists that you will rarely see coming. Predictably I adored The Understudy, set backstage at a West End production of Macbeth with all sorts of shenanigans going on, loosely based on Shakespeare but given its own creepy life through excellent work from Lyndsey Marshal and Rosie Cavaliero in particular. I also have to mention the joy of seeing the much-missed Helen McCrory in something I hadn’t seen her in before, eating up the Grand Guignol excesses of The Harrowing with real relish.
