Inside No. 9

Inside No 9 is back - and it's as creepy as ever

Ben Dowell meets Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton to discuss the return of their unsettling "comedy".

TV review: Inside No 9

This is classy TV, a cracking start to an anthology, in which each episode offers fresh delights unlike the last. Bring on No 2 in this bunch of No 9s.

TV review: Inside No. 9

Spattered with gags both smart and puerile - suicide and explosive diarrhoea have rarely gone hand in hand in such a climatic finale - and rounded off with the sort of smart, subversive closing moments Inside No. 9 has become known for, La Couchette is perhaps more accessible than some of its previous bedfellows, and a solid opening to a very welcome series.

Inside Number 9 review: 'deliciously wicked'

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton gave us a ruthless dissection of human foibles, from an attempt to open a zip as quietly as possible to, well, murder.

'Inside No. 9' Season 2 Episode 1 review

But here's the thing: the two creators of Inside No. 9 are simply too good writers to be satisfied with simple fart jokes. More than that - and this is a separate point, though clearly related - they always make their scripts work very hard with every single line.

Inside No. 9: Was the first episode worth the wait?

Despite starting off with a succession of fart jokes (while I too have a childish sense of humour - fart jokes? Come on...) Inside No. 9 remains resolutely a comedy and the cast mined their cramped surroundings for laughs.

League duo open door to Inside No 9

League of Gentleman and Psychoville duo Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton are looking relaxed ahead of the second series of their dark comedy Inside No 9.

Inside No. 9 - La Couchette preview

It is not just the dramatic elements that work, but also the comedy. Anyone familiar with Shearsmith and Pemberton's work will already be familiar with their dark comic tone.

Last year A Quiet Night In, the second and silent instalment of this series, garnered much deserved praise, but every one of these six modern tales of the unexpected were vignettes of cunning precision. Every word, every line, lifted the curtain a smidgeon more, although what the curtain obscured thwarted where our expectations had led us. Few write with such disguised economy, or catch us as unawares, as this pair.

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's jocular devilry and creeping terror returns for this new run with La Couchette, where the occupants of sleeping berth number nine endure a terrible night's sleep. By contrast next week's standalone film, The 12 Days of Christine, is as haunting a piece of TV you'll watch this year.

The dark imaginations of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith are back with six more self-contained, bleakly comic dramas set in different locations, all of which have a No 9 on the door.

Tonight's opener has echoes of the very first episode of all, in which a diverse assortment of characters at a country house squeezed into a cupboard during a game of sardines. The difference here is that the characters - an anally retentive doctor, a flatulent German, a British couple on the way to their daughter's wedding, a rude Australian backpacker et al - squeeze into a tiny couchette on a train out of Paris. You may think you know where it is headed, but don't be so sure...