Shown in February and March of 2020, the fifth series of Inside No.9 (BBC2/iPlayer) was, perhaps, harder to 'mark' than the previous four. I wouldn't go as far as to say the quality suffered but there wasn't - as with series two's The 12 Days Of Christine or series three's Diddle Diddle Dumpling - one truly outstanding, utterly chilling, heartbreaking episode.
None was bad. Each was good. But to choose one as the best and one as the worst? It's a fool's errand. In many ways though, I am that fool. So, once again, I list the six episodes in reverse order. Starting with Thinking Out Loud which was certainly emotional but possibly suffered from being a little contrived.
There's a touch of the Alan Bennett about it as various characters perform monologues straight to camera. We start with Bill (Phil Davis) who's recording a video dating ad. A very poor video dating ad that seems highly unlikely to find him love.
Nadia (Maxine Peake) is sat in her front room telling her story to a therapist, Galen (Steve Pemberton hamming it right up) is a serial killer, something of a pound shop Hannibal Lecter, incarcerated in a Louisiana penitentiary, Angel (Ionna Kidbrook) is a social media influencer with the legend 'Gorge' on her t-shirt, Aidan (Reece Shearsmith) is a melancholic, nostalgic cardigan wearing middle aged man leaving a message for a child he's not yet met and seems unlikely to do so, and Diana (Sandra Gayer), most oddly of all, simply sings Amazing Grace in a church.
These people are linked in ways that are, at first, not apparent. I was observant enough, or perhaps I do too many crosswords, to spot that Angel and Galen are anagrams of each other but I missed that Nadia, Aidan, and Diana are too. When their relationship to each other is revealed I must admit I didn't see it coming. Perhaps I was still too focused on Aidan's remembrance of Dave Lee Travis's 'Quack Quack Oops' game which I'd only been thinking about the other day.
The Referee's A W***er (their asterisks, not mine) sees David Morrissey as the man in black, Martin, taking charge of his last game before retirement. United v Rovers. It begins with a Bill Shankly quote so famous you don't need me to repeat it and all the action takes place in the training room between Martin and his assistants.
Oggy (Pemberton) and Phil (Ralf Little) are two linesman with competing ideas as to how to present themselves and Shearsmith plays Brendan the fourth official who barely lets a sentence go by without mentioning that he once worked at the San Siro in Milan. There's also a mascot, some unexplained furry animal, and inside that mascot is Mitch (Steve Speirs) but it's when star player Calvin Cooke (Dipo Ola) breaks the rules and comes into the ref's changing room to discuss the game that things take an unexpected turn.
There's a controversial throw-in, a timely reference (for me) to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, and there's a lot of banter that Martin tries, and fails, to quell. There is, too - of course, a neat twist at the end. It's an enjoyable enough half an hour but it lacks any great emotional punch or chill factor.
The latter is certainly not true for Death Be Not Proud. Sam (Kadiff Kirwan) and Beattie (Jenna Coleman) move into a new, bargain priced, flat. But why was the flat so cheap and is the Rita Hayworth poster on the wall a clue? Anyone who's seen The Shawshank Redemption could be mistaken for thinking so.
It seems as if the flat may be home to a poltergeist and when former owner David (Pemberton) reappears and begins to tell his life story things are slowly explained. David is strange. He's obsessed with serial killers and his life, first with his mother Maureen (Shearsmith) and then with his partner Emily (Sarah Solemani) is even stranger.
There's a brilliant, and ridiculous, cameo for David Bamber (as a big man baby), guest appearances from Mr Jelly off Psychoville and the band Black Lace, and a reference to Fred Dineage's Murder Casebook. It's classic Inside No.9 that obscure pop culture references can rub up against stories that are as dark as the Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.
Misdirection isn't just dark. It's actually quite gory - if you class decapitation as gory (which I do). Shearsmith plays a pompous magician, Neville Griffin, who kills another conjuror, Pemberton's Willy Wando, so that he can steal his best trick. Having built a career on that trick, Neville is visited by a young student journalist (and amateur magician to boot) Gabriel (Fionn Whitehead). Ostensibly to be interviewed about his 'craft'.
But soon the tables begin to turn and Gabriel seems to know more about Neville than he would like. With Jill Halfpenny as Neville's wife, Jennie, Misdirection is let down, initially, by having a twist that's a little obvious. But, of course, Pemberton and Shearsmith would have known that. So they give us a second twist right at the end and that one is highly effective.
Love's Great Adventure (yes, they do use the underrated Ultravox song on the soundtrack) is played out in a much more low key fashion. Trevor (Pemberton) and Julia (Debbie Rush) are a loving couple who live with their daughter Mia (Gaby French) and adorable grandson Connor (Olly Hudson-Croker).
There's a son, Patrick (Bobby Schofield), too but he seems to have got in with a bad lot and got himself into a lot of trouble. Patrick's problems aside, family life is a happy and loving one. There's spaghetti hoops, cuddles, driving lessons, baking, and endless banter about grandma's knickers. They put me in mind of the opening line of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina:- "happy families are all alike".
Tolstoy follows that with "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" but it's unfair to say that Trevor and Julia's family is unhappy. It's simply that there's stuff, hidden stuff, going on behind the scenes. Why has Trevor got a black eye and why has their careful budgeting to ensure that they have their usual merry Christmas gone so awry. You'll barely notice that Love's Great Adventure is a semi-improvised episode but you will drawn into a resonant and emotional drama that is all the more powerful for what it refuses to show and only hints at.
It could have been my number one for this series but instead I've plumped for the final episode. The Stakeout is Inside No.9's riff on Line Of Duty. PC Thompson (Pemberton) is an old fashioned copper who's recently witnessed his long time police partner and friend stabbed to death. He's been assigned to a stakeout in a graveyard and paired up with SPC Varney (Shearsmith).
Varney's a vegan, well - a 'flexitarian', and a teetotaller. He's "really sensitive to smells" and, unlike Thompson, he believes in talking about one's emotions. He's also curious to find out what exactly happened to Thompson's former partner.
Which doesn't, at first, endear him to the more senior copper. One who makes it very clear he's the Shaun Ryder to Varney's Bez. A parlour game, 'Fortunately, Unfortunately' eventually brings them together but soon things start to get very claustrophobic and somewhat confusing. The Stakeout, as it reaches its end, plays on of the oldest, and scariest, horror tropes I know and it does so rather fantastically. Not for the first time with this programme, a chill shot up my back.
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