Of all the TV that I saw this year, one of the most enjoyable viewing experiences that I had was watching Inside No 9 from the very beginning. Although it started in 2014, I confess that I had some serious catching up to do, having only ever watched the odd episode here and there. This is one of the benefits, and drawbacks, of an anthology series: every episode stands alone, so it is all too easy to dip in and out. When I finally committed, just in time for its last ever series, I realised that I had been missing out on a modern classic.
Inside No 9: The Party’s Over commemorates its demise, after nine series and 10 years, with a behind-the-scenes documentary, mostly pulled together as those final episodes were filmed. Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith guide viewers through this modest victory lap, filming each other on their phones, digging out old photos of them sharing a flat in their 20s, looking through a scrapbook containing The League of Gentlemen clippings and reviews and notebooks with single lines scrawled in them that would go on to be shaped into some of Inside No 9’s most innovative instalments.
Pemberton seems up for it; Shearsmith has a curmudgeonly reluctance. “Half of us have agreed we’re going to be making some form of documentary,” says Pemberton. For fans, and I now count myself to be a big fan, this is a treat, the equivalent of a DVD special with director’s commentary, decent trivia and plenty of Easter eggs. I feel less bad about not knowing that a hare appears in every episode, after learning that Ophelia Lovibond, who starred in the first ever episode, Sardines, seems similarly perplexed by the news.
There is a lot of detail. We meet the designer of those horror-homage posters. We meet the composer of the sting which begins each episode, and discover that what he originally made was rejected at the last moment, so he knocked this one out in just over a minute, an hour before it was due. We meet the producer, director, costume designer. It is a peek at how a TV show is made, which, when each episode is as innovative as these are, is much more interesting than you might expect. Seeing how they filmed Mulberry Close, where the only footage the viewer sees is that captured on a doorbell camera, is fascinating.
There have been 49 episodes, so it cannot go in to detail about every single one, but it takes a handful and tells us more about them. As its debut, Sardines is a perfect representative of what the series does. The setup is smart: stagey, theatrical and self-contained, it features a wonderful cast and builds towards a horror-twist that makes your stomach drop. For those who like to know how filming inside a wardrobe works, there is some old footage of the set, which is also satisfying for those of us who want to know why actors talking to each other in a wardrobe for half an hour is so clever and effective.
It digs into Dead Line, the live episode. Producer Adam Tandy says he usually hates live episodes, because people only watch to see if it will go wrong. Naturally, they built “going wrong” into the fabric of it. And of course, it focuses on The 12 Days of Christine, which may be the most devastating Christmas special ever made and certainly represents Inside No 9 at its peak. They knew that it had hit the mark, they say, when they noticed that the cameramen were crying.
Pemberton and Shearsmith have played more than 50 characters themselves, but starring in Inside No 9 seems to be a rite of passage for British actors. Katherine Parkinson and Lovibond reminisce about Sardines. Mark Bonnar, who played an angry tube passenger in the episode Boo to a Goose, says it is a British institution. Nick Mohammed, who appeared in Simon Says, does overtime and briefly interviews Pemberton and Shearsmith. The most insightful chats, though, are the ones they have among themselves. They have worked together for 30 years and still share an office. Learning about their macabre office tradition feels like being let in on a little secret.
That’s what Inside No 9 can do. It may have wrapped for good, but the party isn’t quite over. This is also a bit of an ad for what Shearsmith says really will be its final act, a stage version due to open in London early next year. For fans, there are numerous anecdotes, facts and technical details that break this one-of-a-kind show into its component pieces. For more casual viewers, it can be a little luvvie, at times. But this is a timely reminder of what treasures are waiting on iPlayer, if you, too, want to go back to the very start.
• Inside No 9: The Party’s Over aired on BBC Two and is available on iPlayer.
