Four series down, three to go. Which makes it sound like work - and it is very much not like work. It's pleasure. Sometimes a funny pleasure, sometimes a chilling pleasure - but always a pleasure. Series four of Inside No.9 (BBC2/iPlayer) initially went out in January and February 2018 (with a live Hallowe'en special later that year - in October strangely enough) and it saw Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith both keeping the quality as high as ever as well as diversifying into more experimental modes of short film making.
So here's my list, as ever in reverse order, of all seven episodes from least impressive to most impressive. It's not a definitive list. It's a personal, and objective, one and you can happily argue among yourselves about accurate it is.
Once Removed is a story told backwards and it suffers, just a little bit, from being a little too clever for its own good. The narrative device was difficult to follow and that's a pity because there's some good ideas here. We begin with removal man Spike (Nick Moran, whom I saw in the Trinity Arms in Brixton on Friday evening) arriving at the house of May (Monica Dolan) to help her move.
Soon we're introduced to people who appear to be her friends and family but we're never quite sure who exactly Charles (Rufus Jones), Natasha (Emilia Fox), and Percy (David Calder) actually are or where their motivation lies. I enjoyed all the references to Richard Stilgoe, Hot Gossip, erectile dysfunction, Julie Covington, and Tim Rice, I was amused by a debate as to how long a "yonk is", and I wasn't offended by all the dead bodies that kept appearing but I was a little befuddled by this one and it left me cold rather than chilled.
The Hallowe'en special, Dead Line, was also confusing. But it was clearly meant to be. The story begins with Arthur (Pemberton) returning home with a mobile phone he's found in a graveyard. Soon he begins to receive unusual calls and soon the sound cuts out and a BBC2 continuity announcer tells the audience there's something wrong and instead they'll be screening A Quiet Night In. An episode from Inside No.9 series one!
It's quite bizarre but it gets weirder still. There's an appearance from Stephanie Cole and there's scenes and happenings which appear lifted from Most Haunted, The One Show, and Coronation Street - as well as others showing Shearsmith and Pemberton, ostensibly playing themselves, sat around in the dressing room grumbling and looking at Twitter.
I think what they were trying to do here was a riff on the infamous Ghostwatch and although Dead Line is pretty chilling in places it seems a modern television audience are simply too wised up to be taken in hook, link, and sinker by such trickery. Though, having said that I did fast forward at one point as I thought my connection was faulty.
And The Winner Is made for a far more traditional episode. Giles (Pemberton) is tasked with leading a jury through a list of potential winners of a best television actress award. The jury consists of successful TV producer Gordon (Noel Clarke), old luvvy actor Rupert (Kenneth Cranham), critic June (Fenella Woolgar), fomerly successful, but now down on his luck and eager to ingratiate himself with Gordon, writer Clive (Shearsmith), American star slumming it in theatre Paula (Zoe Wanamaker), and competition winner Jackie (Phoebe Sparrow) who's been brought in to represent audiences at home.
As they sit round a big table and winnow their way through the list of nominees, we witness the conversation drift into personal enmities, snobbery, racism, sexism, diversity, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and hand jobs in cars outside pubs in the 1970s. It gets pretty heated and if the final twist is not the most macabre, or eerie, in this show's repertoire it's still pretty neatly done.
Zanzibar is another episode that tries something different. The whole episode is delivered in iambic pentameter. Which, when you get used to it, is nowhere near as off-putting as it may sound. Zanzibar's the name of a hotel and on the ninth floor a motley assortment of guests are staying whose fates, it will transpire, will be dependent both on each other and some frankly unlikely coincidences.
Prince Rico (Rory Kinnear) is a rich businessman who wishes to procure a lady for 'water sports', Vince (Kevin Eldon) is a stage hypnotist, Marcia Warren is Alice, a confused old lady and Pemberton plays her son. Hattie Morahan plays sexually frustrated Amber, Tanya Franks is call girl Tracey, and Bill Patterson plays the depressed Mr Green.
The bellboy Fred (Jaygann Aneh) and Helen Marks is his girlfriend, the waitress Colette. Between the lot of them, they manage to go from changing rooms, apple tarts, and spaghetti bolognaise to marriage proposals, prostitution, and mistaken identity. Then even further on to potential murder and suicide. Despite the sometimes dark subject matter, there are a couple of genuine LOLs and the whole things is a rather ludicrous, but thoroughly enjoyable, romp.
Which is probably not how you'd describe Tempting Fate. Council works Keith (Pemberton), Nick (Shearsmith), and Maz (Weruche Opia) have been assigned the task of clearing out the flat of a dead hoarder. It's not a clean flat, there's even a dead rat in the kitchen, but what they find in his safe seems to be of even more concern.
There's an old VHS video cassette and some kind of bronze ornamental hare. To say any more would be to move in to spoiler territory but suffice to say things get pretty spooky and some scenes are very tense. There's even a brief, but vital, cameo from Nigel Planer.
To Have And To Hold is equally dark. Wedding photographer Adrian (Pemberton) and his wife Harriet (Nicola Walker) are bored of their marriage. She wants things to improve but he only seems interested in doing jigsaw puzzles and eating Pot Noodles. He also spends a lot of time in his dark room. His very dark room.
Quite often he wanders round the house in his boxer shorts. There's some very funny stuff in this one (a dream about John Prescott and some creme eggs, a story about being sucked off in a Wolverhampton chain hotel) but when it goes from comedy to horror it is surprisingly effective. There's an element of Bong Joon-ho's Parasite about it but as that film came out in 2019 it seems Pemberton and Shearsmith got there first.
Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room, now there's a title, isn't as dark as To Have And To Hold (or Tempting Fate) but it's still very chilling and even surprisingly moving. Surprising given the subject matter anyway. Minor 1980s comedians Cheese (Shearsmith) and Crackers (Pemberton) have reunited to do one last show and their act is horrifically dated.
It seems unlikely it was ever funny in the first place. It's been three decades since they split and the reasons they did won't become clear until well into the episode. At first we see the spiky, and now business like, Cheese (or Thomas) becoming frustrated with his former partner as he pours whiskey into his tea, appears to be stuck in the past, and is possibly living on the street.
And to be in denial of all these things too. Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room is rich, even by Inside No.9's standards, in references from the era of my youth. There's The Grumbleweeds, Blankety Blank, Ted Bovis, Bobby Knutt, Lorraine Chase, Kenny Everett, Joe Pasquale, Sid Little, Jeanette Krankie, Mr Peevly from The Hair Bear Bunch, Mary, Mungo, and Midge. Even The UK Subs and Kajagoogoo get a look in. Though I'd have chosen Jimmy The Hoover over Kajagoogoo.
I reckon that would have worked better. It's the only thing I'll knock about Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room because it wasn't until right at the very end that I realised what had happened. Even writing about it now, I've got a chill going up my back. With Inside No.9 that's something that happens in almost every episode. I'm just glad I'm finally catching up with this work of genius.
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