Inside No. 9

Radio Times review

The No 9 we visit this week is the flat of Tom (Reece Shearsmith), a primary school teacher whose disdain for hard work contrasts with his sunny, beautiful girlfriend Gerri (Gemma Arterton) and her efforts to make it as an actress. Tom keeps peeking scornfully out of the window at a homeless man in the street, until circumstance brings the vagrant, Migg (Steve Pemberton), into the flat while Gerri's away on a job. The gimmick of the show is that we never leave No 9, and maybe the persuasive Migg won't, either.

By halfway you'll have confidently announced where it's going, but Shearsmith and Pemberton give their story of how we're all one slip away from the gutter a chilling sense of rising dread. Nobody plays wicked games with the audience more skilfully.

Inside No. 9 Episode 3: 'Tom and Gerri' review

With sterling support from Gemma Arterton and Conleth Hill as the most important people in Tom's life, this is a tightly scripted half hour that has much in common with a stage play.

Inside No. 9 looked at life behind closed doors. After last week's silent-movie hijinks, it was back into the darker recesses of its creators' psyches.

It's always trepidatious when Reece Shearsmith dons the clothes of an ordinary man - something wicked this way comes.

Here we started with Tom, a clean-cut primary school teacher, and his girlfriend (Gemma Arterton). Tom rapidly descended into an almighty funk with the help of a homeless man called Migg (Steve Pemberton).

What began as a study into the unspoken horror of Tom letting the filthy Migg into his house, took a turn for the darker as Migg slowly imbibed Tom's spirit. Or did he? The timing of the "twist" that he didn't actually exist suggested early on that there might be more to come and there was.

This third episode wasn't really in the slightest bit funny, but that's no complaint - I found myself moved by its sad brilliance. Its ambiguity about Tom's state of mind a fine - if cartoonish - take on mental illness. It also featured the glorious line: "You're not Charles Bukowski, you're just a primary school teacher who had a nervous breakdown." So that's one laugh, at least.

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.

Inside No. 9, 1.2 - 'A Quiet Night In'

The script's farce worked like clockwork, delivering an almost theatrical experience, all building to another delicious twist I didn't see coming. I know it's only February and Inside No. 9's only aired two episodes, but it might just become one of my favourite things this year. Please watch it.

TV review: Inside No. 9 - 'A Quiet Night In'

Perfectly weighted, and superbly composed; nowhere else will you howl at two men miming bowel movements, and witness such vicious twists of the knife in the same 30 minutes.

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.