Inside No 9 Stage/Fright review: Fans are served and opportunities are missed
Inside No 9 – Stage/Fright review | Wyndham’s Theatre | ★★☆☆☆
Inside No 9 is one of the best British comedies of the last 10 years. Finishing a decade-long run last year, the smart, self-contained episodes – all somehow linked to the number nine – riff on everything from grand guignol theatre to kitchen sink drama, combining pitch black jokes with macabre gothic horror.
Theatreland spin-off Inside No 9 – Stage/Fright promises to be a triumphant send off for creators Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. But while there are moments that evoke the best of the series, this production leans too far and too often into fan service, like a reformed band going through the motions, playing the same old hits.
It takes the form of a variety show, albeit one where all the different elements are interwoven: characters in one sketch will reveal themselves as writers or actors in another, peeling back the onion layers until we’re left with Pemberton and Shearsmith themselves.
The premise is the theatre in which we’re all sitting, Wyndham’s, is haunted; it’s a matter of when rather than if the ghost will make an appearance. In the first major thread, Pemberton and Shearsmith bring back ageing comedy double act Cheese and Crackers from the fourth season of the TV show. Reunited for one last gig after 30 years, they run through their dated and rather racist act. The joke is that they were never very funny, and, unfortunately, neither is watching them come to this realisation. We then enter the world of one of Crackers’ unperformed skits, which borrows elements from more episodes of the TV show, including the award-winning silent episode A Quiet Night In, in which two thugs stage an ill-fated break-in. On stage they’re not silent, although I kind of wish they had been.
Things pick up markedly in the second half, in which we’re given a glimpse at what this production could have been. In a genuinely creepy sketch that recalls the excellent “live” TV episode Dead Line, characters rehearsing a play meet the strange presence haunting Wyndham’s. It combines horror tropes with cutting satire of modern theatre: “You can’t walk down Shaftsbury Avenue without seeing some c**t with a camcorder,” bemoans one character, in a nod to the surge in popularity of using live video in stage productions. I’d have loved to have seen more of this but soon enough we’re back to crowd-pleasing territory, taking the sheen off the good work.
Inside No 9 – Stage/Fright isn’t bad, as such, more frustrating. Indeed it’s far more interesting retrospectively than it is in the moment. There’s a satisfaction to be found in realising that seemingly throwaway lines in fact sowed the seeds for later reveals, in discovering what a fully-formed machine this series of apparent vignettes really is. I just wish it felt as clever when you’re actually sitting through it.
Not that this seemed to bother the audience the night I was there. A woman sitting behind me cackled like a hyena throughout, beaming the world’s most abrasive laugh track directly into the back of my skull, clearly delighted to see these characters one last time. All power to her: I wish I’d found it even a fraction as funny.