The Daily Telegraph

INSIDE NO 9

BBC Two, 10pm

- Vicki Power

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s darkly comic anthology series continues its triumphant seventh series with another twisty tale. Attracting more strong guest actors, this week’s tour de force comes from Sophie Okonedo as a Detective Inspector called Katrina, a dogged sleuth who wakes in the middle of the night to pore over her latest pressing case – that of a missing boy called Ashley.

She’s a maverick cop and tough single mother with a drinking problem who lives for her job and gives speeches about how she’ll step on any misogynist who attempts to get in her way.

If DI Katrina sounds like a bit of a TV cliché, then that’s as much of a clue as we can dispense about this episode, except that, in a nod to classic British cop dramas, Siobhan Redmond (Between the Lines) also guest stars alongside Okonedo, Shearsmith and Pemberton. The co-writers play with what’s real and what’s a dream, which keeps the sands shifting under our feet and makes us feel like we’re in a hall of mirrors. It’s another heightened playlet that cleverly delivers Twilight Zone-style plots with a literary sensibilit­y and a deft mix of comedy, psychologi­cal insight and well-drawn characters. Armchair theatre at its finest.

 ?? ?? Sophie Okonedo’s hard-boiled cop is one of the many crime-drama tropes played with
Sophie Okonedo’s hard-boiled cop is one of the many crime-drama tropes played with

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