A Scare at Bedtime
Donal O’donoghue on the chilling delights of Inside No. 9
“The end of an era” is how the BBC continuity announcer recently put it, which really wasn’t that far off the mark. He was talking Inside No. 9, the deliciously grotesque anthology horror series (created, written by, and starring Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton), which is currently shuttling through its ninth and final season. It is – and this comes with a money back guarantee – one of the best half hours of TV you could hope for in any week of the TV year, bristling with brilliant dialogue, brimming with clever ideas, and played by a formidable ensemble (this season’s cast includes Natalie Dormer, Eddie Marsan, Siobhan Finneran and so on).
If you haven’t yet ventured inside No. 9, there’s still time to hop on board with three episodes remaining. The valedictory season’s opening episode – ‘Boo to a Goose’ – borrowed the classic Hitchcockian set-up of Strangers on a Train and took it to places you could not have anticipated. And not even Mystic Meg could have foreseen the ending. But as ever, the joy was in the journey and a screenplay that was both chilling, provocative and comic. Who wouldn’t pay to see Mathew Kelly declare that aliens “put an R2D2 up my bottom” and was it Shearsmith or Pemberton (or maybe both simultaneously) who came up with the line: “He was hanging onto that bag tighter than Judy Finnigan to a wine glass”?
Since 2014 S&P, who cut their writing teeth on the surreal meat of The League of Gentlemen, will have served up 55 offerings of what Shearsmith has described as “intrigue, horror, humour, and ham acting” by journey’s end. That includes several Christmas specials (2022’s ‘ The Bones of Saint Nicholas’ was a delightful antidote to the often-overstuffed turkeys of the festive TV season) but not every show hits the bullseye. Last week’s episode, ‘ The Trolley Problem’, a rare two-hander with just the chameleonlike Pemberton and Shearsmith as a therapist and the man he rescues from a bridge, had too many plot-holes and contrivances to truly work. And not many laughs, black or otherwise (apart from a tired poke at Gregg Wallace).
Yet Inside No. 9 at half-throttle is better than most other contenders at full tilt and who knows what this week’s scare at bedtime – there are new residents in Mulberry Close but something about Damon and Val doesn’t seem quite right – will bring. I will be there for the scare as the revolutionary No. 9 heads towards the final curtain. So yes, the end of an era but not quite as there is a bit of twist with Shearsmith and Pemberton recently announcing that the anthology series will be adapted for the West End stage next year. Stay tuned.