Inside No. 9

Inside No. 9 - Episode 4 review

Anthology shows rarely hit home runs every single week, but I wouldn't call Last Gasp a bad episode... it was just difficult to develop as a narrative.

Inside No. 9 is scarily funny

Each half-hour playlet is a chiselled gem, as dark as ink and frighteningly funny.

Radio Times review

Having set an unreachable standard in the previous two episodes, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton ease off a bit here, delivering a tale that's as brilliantly acted and constructed as you'd expect, with several sublime moments - but no knockout blow.

Tamsin Greig plays a friendly but efficient representative of a charity that makes wishes come true for terminally ill children. She brings an Enrique Iglesias-ish pop star to a suburban house. When the visit goes wrong, she and the dying girl's parents (Pemberton and Sophie Thompson) are tempted to take advantage. It's a slight, silly story that can't go anywhere and doesn't. Flawless execution rescues it.

Preview: Inside No 9: The Last Gasp

In the thirty-minute slot it doesn't really go anywhere and it resolves itself a little too simplistically. Not horror, not thriller, just a gently disturbing delve into suburban lives thrown briefly off-kilter.

The grotesque and toe-curling is usually just below the surface where Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith are concerned. In The League of Gentlemen, the fictional town of Royston Vasey - slogan "You'll never leave!" - was sinister in every way, but in this series of one-off tales about houses numbered nine, the cast, characters and setting change from week to week, which allows Pemberton and Shearsmith to demonstrate their formidable talents as writers and actors, and keep their audiences guessing.

Now both in their mid-40s, they 
are at the top of their game. While some of the stories properly give you the creeps, others are just black comedy, 
but there is always a twist. When 
they hit the bullseye, as in the second episode - a silent comedy in which the duo played two hapless thieves tiptoeing around a house occupied by a wealthy 
art collector - they achieve something close to comedy genius.

So what are we in for this week? We meet Tamsin, a little girl who is very unwell. She lives with her parents Jan and Graham in an ordinary 1960s semi and when her birthday comes around, mum and dad want to do something to give her a boost. So they contact a charity called WishmakerUK to arrange a special guest to attend Tamsin's party: Jan's hero, the singer Frankie J Parsons.

The occasion brilliantly captures the sheer unctuousness of fandom. There's Jan in her beige slacks and prim 
lilac jersey, going all giggly and 
high-pitched in the presence of a Beverley Hills tan and a set of highly polished American teeth. Frankie has brought with him an unsmiling flunky with a bluetooth ear piece and is 
escorted by Sally (Tamsin Greig), the groomed PR officer from the charity. It's smiles all round.

But then things take an unexpected turn, in a way that exposes the venality and base instincts lurking behind 
all those fake grins. At the centre of it all, looking worldly and disappointed with the human race, is nine-year-old Tamsin.

Inside No. 9 Episode 4: 'Last Gasp' review

Reece Shearsmith's absence indicates a lightness of touch and confidence in the pair's storytelling that makes Inside No. 9 one of the undoubted highlights of 2014 so far.

If they could only write faster, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith could have a golden age all to themselves. After Psychoville, they have knocked out Inside No. 9, a series of short stories each set in a different No 9 and steeped in their trademark dark humour.

The third No 9 is a flat occupied by Shearsmith's Tom, a primary-school teacher, and Gerri, an actress played by the actress Gemma Arterton. Once you've got over the idea that someone as tall as Gerri would go out with someone as short as Tim, it's all perfectly plausible.

A tramp returns a wallet to Tom, Tom lets the tramp come in for a drink and the tramp takes over his life. Gerri movies out. Tom becomes a tramp. The tramp becomes Tom. Like the best of Roald Dahl, we've been lead, incrementally, plausibly, from a normal state of affairs to the unbelievably bizarre. I won't' tell you how it ends because it's till on iPlayer. Binge away.

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith focus their demonic gaze on celebrity worship and human greed. Tamsin Greig runs an outfit that makes dreams come true for sick children. If a little boy with cerebral palsy wants to play chees with Noel Edmonds, she will organise it. Here she arranges for the pop star Frankie J Parsons to come to the birthday party of a terminally ill little girl. After blowing up a balloon, he keels over - and the balloon filled with his dying breath is worth far more than the kidney stone sold by William Shatner for $25,000. "That's sick!" explains the appalled mother (Sophie Thompson). "The world is sick" replies her husband (Pemberton).

Inside No. 9 review

The writing in all these diverse episodes showcases two creative talents at the top of their game. The excellent calibre of guest stars, the production showing a fine attention to detail, and a level of perfectionism that is way ahead of anyone else writing dark comedy at the moment.

Review: Inside No. 9: Tom & Gerri, BBC Two

After two distinctive episodes which had plenty of laughs alongside the shivers, the third instalment of Inside No. 9, "Tom & Gerri", tiptoes into taut psychological thriller territory, with very few giggles indeed, but an end that may haunt you for days.