Reece Shearsmith

Maybe some of you are sick of hearing it by now, but I personally think that this series of Inside No. 9 is possibly the best so far certainly in terms of variety. After last week's clever Memento-style darkly comic murder mystery, we have a much more subdued tale that has the usual twist-in-the-tale that we've come to expect from the show. To Have and To Hold feels like Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's tribute to Mike Leigh as it focuses on the strains in the marriage between wedding photographer Adrian (Pemberton) and Harriet (Nicola Walker) over a handful of scenes. Adrian is painted as the most boring man in the world; a jigsaw enthusiast and pot noodle eater he spends more time in his darkroom than he does working on his marriage. Even though Harriet wants to renew their vows, Adrian is still simmering over a dalliance his wife had with a former colleague in a Premier Inn in Wolverhampton. In the episode's most excruciating scene Harriet attempts to inject some spice into their relationship however their role play doesn't go to plan and is soon interrupted by a recently-wed pair (Shearsmith and Miranda Hennessy) who have come to look at their wedding pictures. What I liked most about To Have and To Hold was the attention-to-detail in the scenes between Harriet and Adrian that added to the realism of the piece. Nicola Walker's casting was a piece of genius and her performance here was utterly heartbreaking as the woman stuck in marriage that had lasted due to habit rather than romance. She and Pemberton were utterly believable in their roles as they convinced as a couple who still loved each other but struggled to show it. I was utterly shocked when the twist involving Adrian was first revealed and as ever the writing duo gradually peeled back the dark side of the character before the dark denouement. Like the best episodes of Inside No. 9, To Have and To Hold is an instalment that you can revisit and try to spot all the clues that Pemberton and Shearsmith dropped about the true nature of Adrian's personality. Unlike many of the shows that have debuted this year, every episode of Inside No. 9 has provided memorable moments and that's especially true of To Have and To Hold which may be the best thirty minutes of TV that I've seen so far in 2018.

Review: Inside No. 9 - To Have And To Hold

As a dull wedding photographer's marriage hits the rocks, a secret puts things in a fresh light...

TV Review: Inside No. 9 - To Have and To Hold

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have proven themselves, time and time again, to be masterful writers of dark comedy. But while all of their projects contain a certain ode to horror, this latest episode of Inside No. 9 might just be their darkest yet.

Irony defines Adrian's life. As a wedding photographer, he provides undying records of newlyweds' blossoming bliss - a high-contrast counterpoint to the lack of love left in his own marriage to Harriet. She struggles to reignite an emotional flame long extinguished, but Adrian is reluctant to leave his basement darkroom. The spleen-squeezing unease in this latest episode of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's anthology leaves little room for laughter, but is as essential a visit to No 9 as ever.

Inside No 9: To Have And To Hold

After all the fun - if occasionally murderous fun - in this season of Inside No 9 comes an episode with a distinct chill in the air.

Inside No 9: To Have and to Hold, review

Just when you thought this series couldn't get any darker.

Inside No. 9: Series 4, Episode 4 - To Have and To Hold

A terrace house is the setting for this week's tale, about a married couple and some dark secrets.

Inside No. 9 series 4 episode 4 review

A wedding photographer's tired marriage comes under the microscope in yet another tremendous Inside No. 9 episode.

Inside No 9 (BBC Two) continues its most successful series ever. Perhaps it will never quite reach the inspired heights of last week's "Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room" episode, a quite beautifully judged (and touching) jewel of a half-hour's acting/writing/comedy masterclass; already, there's talk of awards. But the relatively mundane "Once Removed", which aired a few days ago, still stood on commanding heights. Not only did it successfully manage to tell the story of a series of (comedy) murders backwards, timeslipping back 10 minutes every 10 minutes in a way the makers of Rellik must have gritted their teeth to see executed so well - ah, so that's how you do it. It also had one tiny gem that could be said to sum up an entire philosophy. Reece Shearsmith, being suffocated by bubble wrap, has to pause to poke quick, staccato holes in the bubbles before his hands can grab the polythene properly to rip an airhole (and let him continue on his killy spree). In this tiny, wordless mix of wanton silliness and dark peril lie oceans of singular comedy.

Inside the many number nines stretch continents of the imagination, and they can now call on the finest actors, such as Monica Dolan, Rory Kinnear, Jason Watkins, Kenneth Cranham, Zoe Wanamaker, to aid and slyly abet them... let it long be inexplicably underrated, so I can just squeezefully enjoy it on my own, before the bandwagon-jumping begins.

In my review of the opening episode "Zanzibar", I theorised that there were better, darker stories to come from Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith and thankfully I wasn't wrong. Last week's poignant and funny "Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room" was the duo's love letter to old British comedy whose twist was heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure. However, in terms of narrative complexity, I found this week's "Once Removed" even more enjoyable as it kept you guessing up until the end. The episode starts quite inconsequentially with May (Monica Dolan) moving home and welcoming in removal man Spike (Nick Moran) from the hilariously titled firm Handle Me Gently. However, all is not what it seems especially when we meet May's husband Viktor (Shearsmith) who appears sinister from the outset and becomes more so as the episode goes on. "Once Removed" gets its name from the fact that the plot flashes back every ten minutes to roll out the story even more and every time our perception of the characters change. "Once Removed", like most Inside No. 9 episodes, benefits from a fantastic guest cast with special praise going to David Calder playing a character who believes he's Andrew Lloyd Webber. Similarly brilliant in this episode is Pemberton who plays a nervous estate agent intent on selling the house that is central to the plot. But it's the storytelling that really makes "Once Removed" one of the greatest thirty minutes of TV I've seen in a while and makes me marvel at the brilliance of the show's writing duo. The narrative flashbacks all work and don't feel like a gimmick as they did in last year's disappointing crime drama Rellik. The final reveal also plays with the title of the show in a very clever way and shows how the episode's case of mistaken identity occurred in the first place. Although you'd feel that "Once Removed" was where this series of Inside No. 9 peaks fear not as, in my opinion, next week's "To Have and To Hold" is even better.