Reece Shearsmith

The gloriously silly world of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer draws to a close with Reece Shearsmith joining the gang as poltergeist Martin for a ghostbusting end-of-series romp. There's a chimp up for grabs in a ghost photo competition and Vic's determined to bag the primate but Bob's not keen, so Beef pitches in with his Sword of Draxos - which looks a lot like a clarinet - and Julie whips her torch out. Let's hope there's more to come of this delightful delirium.

Who would have guessed, a generation ago, that in the year 2014 we sophisticated, endlessly demanding television viewers would be falling about laughing over a silent (or at least wordless) comedy starring somebody called Chaplin? The comedy series Inside No. 9 is the creation of The League of Gentlemen duo Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. The second in the series was A Quiet Night In, one of the cleverest and funniest things I've seen on telly for years. It featured Oona Chaplin, the 27-year-old grand-daughter of Charlie Chaplin. She says she thinks he would have approved of the show. I'm sure he would have loved it, not just for Oona's appearance but to see Pemberton and Shearsmith's split-second timing, as perfected by the Master 100 years ago.

It is amazing what can be achieved in half an hour with just a great script, an excellent cast and a large wardrobe. Written by and starring Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, Inside No. 9 is a series of self-contained comedy dramas set in buildings or spaces numbered nine.

Episode one set a very high standard indeed, with an exquisitely crafted tale of jealousy, revenge, ambition, snobbery and murder centred around a country house game of sardines. With each new player discovering the hiding place, the wardrobe fills not only with bodies, but also hidden agendas, strained relationships, sinister backstories and rancid sweat (one eager participant, Smelly John, hadn't washed since he was a teenager).

No review of Shearsmith and Pemberton's work is complete without the adjectives dark and comic getting a mention, and I'm not about to break with tradition. But Inside No. 9 also offered poignancy, tension, intelligence, horror and several surprises. The lean, mean narrative didn't just twist and turn, it folded back upon itself to provide a totally unexpected, profoundly disturbing and deeply satisfying denouement. Even Smelly John's personal hygiene problem was revealed to be integral to the plot, rather than a mere comedy contrivance.

The writers also put in great performances as a bickering gay couple, supported by an impressively stellar cast that included Timothy West, Anna Chancellor, Marc Wootton and Anne Reid.

Ridiculous though it may sound, it is almost a relief to watch an episode of this inspired series that doesn't knock you off your perch. At least it gives you a chance to draw breath. A neat & prissy primary school teacher (Reece Shearsmith) with aspirations to be a writer finds himself having an encounter of the most unwelcome kind with a tramp (Steve Pemberton). The tramp has an eerie resemblance to the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz - only not nearly as benign. "It's nice to talk to a fellow human", says the tramp. "It makes me feel like I exist". It is a sinister tale about the fragile nature of sanity performed by actors who are frighteningly good.

Following the wardrobe-centric murderings of the opening episode, this second tale features creators Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith as hapless burglars attempting to liberate a painting from a couple's home. An almost wordless half-hour of physical comedy, it plays out like a French farce, its comedic strokes far broader than last week. If you find two men silently mime-arguing about how long it takes to have a poo funny, you're on sturdy ground here.

There's some quality comedy on offer tonight, with the second instalment of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's address-based series paying inspired homage to silent movies in a dream home robbery caper co-starring Denis Lawson and Oona Chaplin.

Radio Times review

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton are superb comic actors and ace gag-writers, but what makes them precious is their willingness to attempt difficult concepts, because they know that if it works they'll have something really special.

Last week we spent half the episode inside a wardrobe; this one-off story roams around the house of the week, a glass-walled millionaire mansion. Denis Lawson is at home, arguing with his wife (Oona Chaplin) and oblivious to the presence of two inept cat-burglars (Shearsmith and Pemberton). As they try to steal from him, there are near misses, pratfalls, murder and farce, all beautifully choreographed. But no dialogue.

Having got off to a brilliant start last week, the latest episode in Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's series of self-contained black comedies is so good that it may well leave you speechless. It is the funniest, cleverest, most imaginative and original television I've seen for as long as I can remember - one of those fabulous programmes where time stands still and the world around you disappears. It stars Denis Lawson and Oona Chaplin alongside Shearsmith and Pemberton, and it takes place inside one of those ultra-modern designer homes made of steel and glass that are filled with conceptual art. And that, I'm afraid, is as much as I can say without spoiling the fun.

Inside No. 9 was nowhere near as weird as 60 million people willing two skaters they'd never met to copulate, but it was still simmeringly macabre - as you'd expect, given that it was made by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, two of the team from The League of Gentlemen. It's a series of blackly comic one-offs, a little like Murder Most Horrid. This first episode was about adults at a party playing Sardines - a game that quickly became uncomfortable for more reason than one.

The brilliance of it lay in the structure. For about 29 and a half minutes of the 30, I was thinking, "Where's this going? What's the point?" Then, suddenly, all the action happened in the last 30 seconds - making me want to rewatch immediately to see if there were clues I'd missed. It was horrible. I liked it a lot.

Inside No. 9, the new series from League of Gentlemen and Psychoville creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, is steeped in a love of shows like Tales Of The Unexpected and Twilight Zone.

Those classic series, like BBC2's Inside No. 9, featured standalone stories each week - most of which had a heart of darkness and ended with a ghoulish twist.

One of my earliest TV memories was watching a Tales Of The Unexpected episode called 'Lamb To The Slaughter' in which a housewife bludgeons her husband with a frozen leg of lamb and then feeds the investigating detectives the cooked murder weapon. Totally inappropriate for an eight-year-old to be allowed to watch, of course, but that's what babysitters are for.

Combining jet-black humour and the macabre is something Shearsmith and Pemberton are obviously masters of, and the first episode - called Sardines - had just enough of both to make it a joy to watch. The name refers to the party game in which guests play hide and seek and the 'finder' has to join the 'hider'.

In this case the party guests - including Anne Reid, Katherine Parkinson, Tim Key and Timothy West - all found themselves hiding in an old Victorian wardrobe.

Despite such a simple conceit (almost all of the episode took place within the confines of the wardrobe) Shearsmith and Pemberton still managed to inject the story with their trademark creepiness and dread.

They lured us in with oddball characters to laugh at but then landed a sucker punch of a finale that came with a murderous twist and allusions to paedophilia.

The freedom of anthology shows such as this allows the stories to go literally anywhere - and with Shearsmith and Pemberton at the helm, that's a scary but mouth-watering prospect.