Six down, one to go. The sixth series of Inside No.9 (BBC2/iPlayer) aired in May and June of 2021 and if I'm to be quite honest there was a slight deterioration in quality. It's still very good. But it's just not quite as good as some of the earlier ones. Which I know makes me sound like one of those dreadful old bores who when they talk about their favourite bands always include the caveat that they prefer "the early stuff".
Anyway, series six was still eminently watchable so, once again, I run down the six episodes from my least favourite to my favourite. Once again it's pretty arbitrary and if I did the list a month earlier, or in a month's time, it may well be completely different. Things change. How you feel about things changes too.
I wasn't overly taken with Last Night Of The Proms, an episode which saw Mick (Steve Pemberton) and Dawn (Sarah Parish) host an awkward party at their home to celebrate the titular event. Guests include Brian (Reece Shearsmith), his son Ollie (Jack Wolfe), Penny (Debra Gillett), and Yusuf (Bamshad Abedi-Amin).
While Ollie and Brian argue about music 'these days', bigger disagreements seem to go (mostly) unspoken. Against a soundtrack of Auld Lang Syne and Henry Wood's Fantasia on British Sea Songs, it is not long before the b-word, Brexit, is mentioned and the episode soon becomes a well meaning but somewhat clunky meditation on a Britain divided by the remainers and their Ocado deliveries and the 'left behind' who cling to the Union Jack like a lifeboat.
It's an attempt, by Pemberton and Shearsmith, to do something different and it very nearly comes off. But not quite. The same, possibly, could be said for Wuthering Heist. Performed in the style of commedia dell'arte (one character even jokes to camera that you have to expect some "artistic exhaustion" by series six), it features a selection of stock, and mostly masked, characters whose attempt at a diamond robbery is hindered by the fact that most of them are blundering buffoons.
The gang leader, the eternally frustrated Pantalone (Paterson Joseph) has rounded up the foolish Arlo (Kevin Bishop), the maid Columbina (Gemma Whelan), the soldier Scaramouche (Shearsmith), a doctor (Steve Pemberton) and his son Mario (Dino Kelly) as well as his own daughter Hortensia (Rosa Robson) but can they trust each other?
Not just not to fuck up - which seems baked in - but to not double cross each other. Can Pantalone trust any of them? Amid all manner of fourth wall breaking, there's confusion on Scaramouche's part between the words 'bumming' and 'bombing' and Pemberton's doctor can't stand the sight of blood (or even ketchup). Despite the hi-falutin' idea of performing an episode in the style of Italian 17c theatre, most of the jokes are pretty base - though often quite funny.
The twist comes early and is effective but Lip Service scores much better on that front. Pemberton plays Felix Hughes who, holed up in a hotel room, has employed the services of expert lip reader Iris (Sian Clifford) to spy on his wife who he believes is cheating on him with a business colleague.
As Felix slowly begins to reveal the true story to Iris, he is constantly interrupted by the condescending, judgemental, and ingratiating hotel manager Eric (played, of course, by Shearsmith). Lip Service was one episode which went to places I really didn't expect and was all the better for it.
Simon Says tells the story of showrunner Spencer (Pemberton) and his meeting with a megafan Simon (Shearsmith). Simon's fantasy TV drama The Ninth Wave has just ended and many fans, Simon included, felt that the seventh series finale was disappointing and weak.; He wants Spencer to write another series and is prepared, if Spencer likes it or not, to help him do so.
Simon, a podcast presenter (of course) is very persuasive and circumstances have made Spencer very easily persuaded. They're both complicit in a serious crime that has bound them together for good or bad but what exactly does Simon ultimately want from Spencer. With guest appearances from Lindsay Duncan as Spencer's agent Loretta Lamb and Nick Mohammed as another Ninth Wave superfan this is a highly enjoyable, twisty, turny romp.
Better still is How Do You Plead? in which the bed ridden and dying barrister, highly successful barrister at that, D. Webster (Derek Jacobi, back again after a speaking role in the third series) wishes to ease the burden of guilt before he shuffles off this mortal coil. So he calls for his carer, Bedford (Shearsmith).
Webster is irascible, foul mouthed, and claims to be busy - despite being on his death bed. Bedford is kind, encouraging, helpful and doesn't even swear (unless you count the odd use of the word 'fiddlesticks'). This seems to be setting us up for a very obvious switch of personalities and when Bedford claims to have fathered a daughter by the name of Xylophone we do start to doubt who he really is.
But Shearsmith and Pemberton are too good at this, have been doing it too long, to perform such an obvious switcheroo. They'd not be so lazy. So the last third of How Do You Plead? sees a dream of some scary Boris Johnson lookalike vomiting in someone's face and a pay off that owes more than a little to the brilliant and, in my view, underrated Alan Parker film Angel Heart.
It's topped, just, in this list by Hurry Up And Wait. A tale of a young actor, not much more than an extra really, James (Shearsmith) who has been cast to play a policeman in a drama based on the real life story of a boy who went missing twenty years ago.
He's asked to wait in a green room that is actually a static caravan and there he's joined by the caravan's owners. Angry Stan (Pemberton), his wife Oona (Pauline McLynn), and their somewhat strange child Bev (Donna Preston). Bev drinks champagne in her dressing gown and always carries with her a creepy looking doll.
Stan's anger always looks likely to result in violence and even friendly Oona wonders how wise it is for them to be dredging up such an old, and awful, story that still haunts those that live locally. But, with the appearance of a dinosaur shawl and a reference to Dumbo, James starts to suspect that Stan and Oona are hiding a very dark secret. It's brilliantly done and, of course, there's a smart twist. With an excellent cameo from Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar (playing himself or at least a version of himself) it was my most enjoyed episode of series six. It may not have topped the list in some of the earlier series but it's still a great deal better than a lot of other stuff on telly.
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