Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language

Just start, I'm filming you. Wait, I want to film you at the same time.

Repeat the question, please. What do you feel

about the fact that we're about to start filming

the last-ever series of Inside No 9?

There's a clue there

in the weary way in which you ask the question. No, no!

You can ask me what I feel, I'm asking you what you fell.

You might be, "I love it"!

Why are we both filming each other on phones?

Well, we have agreed that we are going to document...

Ahem - "agreed".

Half of us have agreed

we're going to be making some form of documentary.

I am feeling quite mixed emotions now,

just the thought that this isn't going to be there

in my diary for next year.

This is very singular, and has been a very massive chapter

in our careers, having not planned on it.

Ahh!

I didn't do nothing!

They are putting Inside No 9 finally to bed.

It's not just about making series nine,

it's about looking back at everything we've done.

We've met so many great people along the way

that have come and done this journey with us.

Yves has been with us since League Of Gentlemen days,

through thick and thin - mainly thick.

HE CHUCKLES

You did the very first poster ever for Inside No 9.

Here we are, the end of it all.

What? Wait, is it the end?

THEY LAUGH

Hello.

Trying to get a spider to go in front of camera.

He's just been there, like, forever.

I would drop him like a hot turd.

Hot turd? Yes. Hot turd. THEY LAUGH

He just makes me laugh.

He makes me laugh so much.

It's the best job that you could have, working with your best friend.

To have had more than 50 different characters over ten years

has been amazing.

These bosoms are playing havoc with my skin.

Put that in your documentary!

We've always maintained, I think, an air of mystery about us

as people, so that's why it's intriguing

when you ever get a glimpse of us being ourselves...

Hello, camera.

Or maybe not! HE LAUGHS

I'm a fan. We're all fans.

I'm not. No, he's not. THEY LAUGH

It's been a great adventure these last ten years.

Last shot.

Now, I am going to lose you!

And I've barely got any real friends as it is!

I don't even know if we are friends any more.

And cut there.

Cut there. Really good.

Happy to move on. Thank you.

Go away, Steve, I'm not in the mood.

Not in the mood? Not in the mood.

Just explain where we're going and what's happening?

You know where we're going.

Is it landscape?

We're going to Manchester on this train

to start the beginning of the end of Inside No 9, series nine.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

GLASS CLINKS Hello!

And welcome to Inside No 9, series nine,

which is a fantastic achievement.

All the pieces are set to make sure that this project ends

on the highest possible high.

We were just talking then in rehearsal about our scenes,

and the director said to Steve,

"Oh, maybe you could be in the back of it"?

And I could tell he didn't want - he said, "If I'm in".

So it's got to the point where we're in our own thing,

and we don't even want to be in it. It's inconvenient.

And now it's coming to an end,

it will be... bittersweet.

Because you've written it, and it's been in our heads for a long time,

doing it becomes...

not quite, I suspect, the fun that you might think it is

being on the outside of it, because it is, it's...

serious, because you want to get it right.

Everyone who we talked to about the series says,

"We're so jealous that you get to do so many different characters,

"so many different stories, so many different genres".

Who else gets that opportunity?

And I said to you, didn't I tell you, almost forcefully,

"We have to enjoy it, because we're not going to do it again".

You did, yeah.

It wouldn't have even entered my head to enjoy it... Yeah.

But he's saying I have to.

Come on, we're going to go now anyway. Yeah, we're going.

Can we be quick, because I've got voiceover at...

Oh, in about ten minutes?

MARK GATISS LAUGHS

What is Inside No 9?

Well, Inside No 9 is...

What's that word that they use for the show?

Weird, uncomfortable.

Well, it's anything you want it to be, isn't it? What's it called?

When there's lots of different ones?

An anthology of beautiful ideas

about the human condition.

Every episode is completely unique.

If you value your lives, silence!

One of the best pieces of television of the last 20 years.

It's beautifully constructed...

How do you turn this on?

Amazing cast...

Oh! You found us.

A fantastical journey through the dark and the daft.

ARMCHAIR CREAKS LOUDLY

Every single week, it's a reinvention.

Because they're self-contained little episodes,

you can sit down and dive into that world.

Love you.

You don't know where you'll end up,

and it completely surprises you every single time.

In the comedy, but also the sort of horror and the darkness.

Ah!

There are no house rules.

It's all about exploring the uncanny.

Spaghetti bologneeese!

Each episode has a different,

not only intellectual conceit or idea for the story,

but they house it in a different genre,

and a different style of filming.

Dial 999 and ask for an ambulance. No.

Series nine of Inside No 9, it's the last one.

After this, no more.

It is an incredible achievement, guys, you must be over the moon.

Could you put it into words?

QUIET CHATTER

I keep catching sight of the Mulberry Close sign.

I'm thinking, "Oh, my God... we called it Mulberry Close,

"and it's there". And here it is. HE LAUGHS

I'm thinking, "Is it"? Yeah.

It's been put in, hasn't it? It's a prop.

This episode is all one shot.

And this is our doorbell cam.

That's our doorbell, so you get that finger that always sort of comes in.

DOORBELL CHIMES

Whenever anyone's rehearsing, they're sort of getting in

and trying to say, "We could have a camera here and a camera here".

No, it's just that.

Everything's got to work on that one shot.

There's something quite unnerving about it.

Hello!

We just thought we'd come over and introduce ourselves.

Ken and Sheila from number eight.

Can you tell a story only with one angle,

only getting the outside bits when it's all happening inside?

I'm in the middle of something at the moment,

so it's not convenient.

It's really liberating, because it's got to be all one take.

It's a bit like doing a play.

What we've found is that with a static frame,

the more you move the actors within it

or use different planes or different angles,

it makes it a bit more dynamic because you can't use the camera.

All set.

Thanks, guys, keep it locked.

And where's Valerie in all this, Damon?

We'd like to hear her side of the story.

She's up my arse, second shelf on the right!

That's disgusting! THEY LAUGH

And then we've got Larry walking in looking for...

Popcorn!

I'm looking for my dog, Popcorn.

I'm getting a bit worried now.

Come on, boy! Where are you?

There he is.

People'll be more bothered by that

than any human we might have killed in the course of all of Inside No 9.

That's pretty horrible. That's more abattoir, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah, also, if that comes down there,

it looks... Yeah. That looks like its willy.

Yeah. We can't have that.

LAUGHTER Willy. Looks like its... willy.

It's hard for us, because we've written it, and it's fun.

But as I said last time you snuck up and filmed me,

it's serious film-making.

Yes. It's not, like, dainty, is it?

I think you're going to have to properly feel, like,

the weight of it.

They've got dark little souls. HE LAUGHS

And they know what will scare you,

and what will make you laugh.

Have you children never heard of taxidermy?

Taxi... what? Dermy!

It's a way of keeping your favourite pets around forever.

Let me show you.

This is my home office.

I've got a lot of fantastic ephemera from League Of Gentlemen,

through Psychoville and Inside No 9.

So I've pulled out a few... a few memories.

This is me and Mark Gatiss.

So we went to a place called Bretton Hall,

and this was before I'd even met Reece.

This was in our first year.

Screws are the keyhole, and then you're peeping through there

and you're seeing the hare and a bit of a nine.

It was my art teacher that told me,

"Have you thought about Bretton Hall"?

And I was like, "What is it"?

It was a left-field choice to just suddenly think,

"I'm going to go and learn about drama and acting".

And I got in.

And the first time I saw Steve, he was in The Taming Of The Shrew,

he did a Shakespeare in his second year.

I played a part which had about 15 lines in the whole thing.

Didn't even have a character name.

So I decided to go full comedy - hat, glasses, tie askew.

An inhaler, a walking stick.

It was like Buckaroo.

It was one of the first times, certainly, that I saw him in action.

Lots of funny choices were being made.

He came up to me afterwards and just said,

"Wow, you know, that was fantastic,

"and, you know, you were so funny".

I can't believe I would have ever heavily praised him,

or indeed anyone.

So whilst we never actually worked together at Bretton Hall,

we were just inseparable.

I'd been in hospital, and he came round to play Scrabble with me.

So eventually, Reece and I ended up sharing a flat in London.

This just sums up our time there.

We would just cry laughing all the time.

I was on the dole. He was working,

and we would start to try and write.

We had our project with This Is It.

And we said, "We'll just do a comedy sketch show",

so we did four shows.

And we just thought, "We've got to do more of this".

And that's what we did, so League Of Gentlemen was born.

I've got, like, a scrapbook of when we started.

This is 1996.

This was such an exciting time.

We had no backing or agent or anything.

We went from no-one having heard of us,

three people in the audience, to doing sold-out shows.

And we collected these business cards -

one of who was from a producer at the BBC.

She had a plan for us, which was that we would do a Radio 4 series,

and then filming a TV show.

I caught him stealing from the shop.

Who is he? Is his identity known?

He's not local.

These characters became, for us, our sort of double acts,

where we would know the other person would be playing the other part.

THEY GRUNT

STEVE SCREECHES

It's never been better than live, I don't think.

Okey cokey!

Pig in a pokey!

What's going on, Pauline? You're supposed to be dead!

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you,

but there's plenty of ink left in this pen yet!

No 9 was very much a telly creature, in a way.

It was about the investment in the characters.

♪ If you're going to cry

♪ Cry tears of laughter

♪ A smile takes much less effort than a frown... ♪

When it came to doing Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room,

We wanted to show this double act that had this long history

of working together, as we had.

We gave the art department all our old pictures, like these ones.

And we just said, "Turn these into Cheese And Crackers".

So, if you look, there's a bit when we're doing the ventriloquist act,

and it's just based on this picture.

Sorry, I don't do impressions! Ayyy!

We've genuinely enjoyed working together.

Even now, 30 years on.

ELEVATOR CHIMES Going down.

Well, I'm filming you. THEY CHUCKLE

Shall we stop at floor nine, just for the sake of it? Yeah.

It won't let us, will it?

Oh, well! We're not even allowed to stop at nine.

Although we are stopping at nine.

We are stopping at nine.

It would be nice to think that this series

felt valedictory, in some way.

But actually, it isn't, it's very much business-as-usual.

And then, maybe... I could throw your hand off.

Yeah, and I...

Well, then you throw that hand off, and if I do that,

then we're back in position. Yeah, yeah.

My relationship with them has been very happy.

When I sort of bring my input to bear,

it's usually about style and tone,

and making sure that all of the episodes feel different.

This is the only pure two-hander we've done.

We've done Stakeout, we've done Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room,

we've done The Last Weekend -

but they always had one other character in,

and this one, we decided, it's just us.

Makes sense for the final series,

so give 'em what they want.

When we've got other people in, we kind of jolly along,

and we're doing stories and we're all laughing at each other -

and me and Reece, we're just, like, "Oh, it's you again".

HE LAUGHS

Let's get some spontaneous fun.

All you people that think,

"Oh, I wish I could see them filming Inside No 9", this is it.

Nothing happens, you just film it.

In the midst of doing your lines... I know what he's going to say!

Very good!

Natural likeness!

Intriguing! Ha-ha, mm!

So, is this... art therapy?

Did you put your fingers in my tea? Ugh!

What's interesting about today is that,

in a sort of weird moment of circularity,

it's exactly 11 years today

since we were shooting Sardines,

the very first episode that was shown on BBC Two.

Sardines is a genius opening to Inside No 9,

and epitomises, really, what they do.

We're going to open this anthology series,

and we're going to do it as a game of Sardines in a wardrobe.

And we're going to pack all these brilliant actors in,

and just let them all speak to each other.

Oh. Hello.

It sets out the stall of what we thought Inside No 9 should be,

in essence, which is a great story with a marvellous conclusion.

It keeps you guessing right the way to the end.

And it's funny.

This is fun, isn't it?

Thank you, Geraldine, yes, it is.

I do remember reading the script from Sardines and thinking,

very quickly, "This is so clever".

As you read page after page, the tension of it ramped up.

Do you have a girlfriend, Ian?

Oh, er, no.

No - young, free, and single.

I was astonished by the tone of it.

I laughed out loud.

There's plenty of room!

I felt kind of terrified by the end of it,

sort of slightly traumatised.

I mean, they set themselves a challenge from the beginning.

It's literally, how do we get all these people inside the wardrobe?

How do you film that?

We did get genuinely claustrophobic.

We have this breakaway version of our wardrobe

with pretty much the same dimensions,

but with walls and sides and doors that we could remove.

It was kind of gloriously indignified,

and I think they all kind of... loved it.

THEY LAUGH

It's me, I farted!

I'm so sorry!

It was a real dream week and, both in terms of enjoyment,

and I knew we made something brilliant.

And what I love about their episodes is,

there's a whole sort of aesthetic world that they build.

So when I came on board to direct the first series,

there was literally no template.

There were simply these six scripts,

all of them amazing,

but all very different.

So the joy of it really was

finding the right form for each story.

So, you enjoyed it, then?

Oh, yes!

We couldn't give them structure,

beyond a sting at the beginning of the episodes.

One of the ideas that we really all connected with

was this door creaking open,

casting light on the shadowy space.

And in many ways, that's exactly what Inside No 9 does,

it opens a door to a new world every week.

Inside No 9 theme

I'd never hear that without smiling,

because the circumstances of how that made is just ridiculous.

We had a string quartet do the sting,

and it was all signed off.

Right at the last moment, they all got cold feet, and said,

"It's just not quite as strident.

"It feels a bit genre" - this, that and the other.

"Basically, they've got an hour left,

"and they need you to come up with something else."

I just wanted to get them something,

even though I didn't have time to work on this.

And I remember my assistant said,

"That'll be impressive if you get that away,

"because it took you a total of one minute, 43 seconds to do".

And then I'll never forget Adam Tandy going,

"Love the theme. Good work."

And just, like, I honestly,

it just was an immediate improvisation that went,

"That'll have to do".

It was about series three when I went,

I think this is probably the best television I will ever work on.

And at that point, I started taking it seriously.

CAMERA CHIRPS

Steve, how do you feel?

Are you actually filming me now?

Yes, just you and me talking in the car.

I mean, we're talking 25 years' worth...

of putting our own scripts onto television,

25 years' worth.

Now, I'm talking seriously to you now.

No, no... Reece.

Do I start here? Yeah.

Are you pleased with what we've done? Yeah.

Because Reece and I shared a flat,

we ended up writing a lot together on League Of Gentlemen,

and Jeremy and Mark were writing together.

And so, when that finished,

Reece and I decided to keep our writing partnership going.

THEY LAUGH

We thought, "We'll come up with a new show - Psychoville".

David and Maureen, you know,

it's become one of mine and Reece's iconic pairings, I think.

David, how many more times do I have to tell you?

I said grapes. I forgot.

What am I meant to do with all these?

We enjoyed writing it, and it went to two series,

and a Halloween special in the middle.

We're still one foot in sketchiness.

Yeah, because he doesn't want to talk to you!

There, I've said it!

We were playing multiple characters,

but we had much more of a steer on where it would go.

This very room is where we wrote it.

We are in a little room that we use as our office.

Nothing's changed! There's still things on that desk

that were there 18 years ago!

That cup's been there 18 years. I know!

We'd prepared ideas for the third series of Psychoville.

We got sat down and they said, "So, guys, what's next"?

And it was like... "Oh, that means not Psychoville."

But we said, "Er, sort of a Tales Of The Unexpected...

"sort of show where it's a different thing every week".

We said it because in Psychoville,

we'd done an episode that was this one shot -

that was like a little play.

CUCKOO CLOCK STRIKES

We thought, "Oh, that was very enjoyable.

"Could a series be six of these?"

Completely different story each week, but different room.

So, we went back into our pot of work,

and we adapted a play that we'd written years ago...

Called The Dole Boy.

And it was about how when you have nothing to do,

this feeling of being on the dole can just suck you down, you know?

It's inertia.

When we got the commission for Inside No 9,

we went back to our play and turned it into Tom And Gerri.

I'm going to give you two twenties.

No, that's too much. Yeah, it is.

And we very much wanted to make six very distinct films.

And the fact that you go to a new house,

the easiest way to do that is just have the number

on the door the same.

And then you just get a different one every week.

And then that became series one of Inside No 9.

Cut... I'm sorry. Our incredibly expensive set.

This is the Bafta we won for series five of Inside No 9.

And you have to choose one episode to represent your series.

And we just said, Death Be Not Proud.

Ooh! Let's go look round that serial killer's flat.

About five or ten minutes into the episode, the door opens,

and you just get this iconic back of head.

Hello.

I'm David Sowerbutts.

And I used to live here.

It just had that more Psychoville knockabout humour.

And sure enough, it did the job.

Crank That by Soulja Boy

URINE SPLASHES

I can probably find... yeah, look, here.

This is The 12 Days Of Christine.

And I remember writing...

the 12 months of a relationship.

And then this was a different idea.

Woman at bedside of her daughter, friend, husband.

So I think it was putting those two ideas together.

This is where Christine took off.

Door flies open, and they're coming in from a New Year's Eve party.

Fancy dress.

He's a fireman, and carries her in.

It's the start of their relationship.

Is that a proper fireman's lift?

We're seeing this woman's life,

but it seems very disconnected.

There are bits that don't quite make sense.

And you realise at the end that what we're seeing is a woman

with her life flashing before her eyes.

The script turned up, and I didn't know what the denouement was.

Couldn't guess.

I got to the end...

Oh...

No, I don't want to.

"Oh, my God!

"This is an extraordinary script."

And I remember being there watching the day that we filmed her saying,

"Goodbye, everyone".

Cameramen were crying.

I was like, "Wow, this is... What's this about?"

Maybe it's to do with that little glimpse

into that thing that none of us want to think about,

which is losing anybody we love.

We're not prepared for it and we don't like to face it,

and that made you face it.

Oh, God, it's just the most incredible half an hour.

It's just the biggest emotional punch.

I mean, I would be surprised

if people were expecting 12 Days Of Christine to be that moving,

because the show had been established as something else.

And I think that's why it holds value for an audience,

because it's unusual for a comedy to do that.

It was a million miles away from The League Of Gentlemen,

and from Psychoville.

That's what I loved about it.

I'll be able to find stuff now in our next project in these notebooks

that I've kept for 10-15 years.

So...

But when these are run out, I'm fucked.

I mean, there's loads of stuff here.

I've got this, which was the first ever hare.

Retired from action after valiant service.

We decided that we were going to play a few little tricks.

There's no unifying thread throughout all of the episodes,

so let's put one in.

The hare?

Whose hare?

The hare. Oh!

There he is, with big paws.

So that's in every episode.

The hare, obviously, is ancient mythology

and this lovely totem, this sort of mystical thing.

We spent weeks perfecting its ears,

choosing the hue of bronze.

Really? No. None of that.

On the first day, the set designer came over and said,

"OK, so, here's a box of random props

"we think might be interesting".

Reece and Steve looked in and pulled out this hare

and said, "Yeah, that's the one we're going to use."

SHE LAUGHS What?

I think my favourite one is Wuthering Heist,

where we had a slow-mo explosion,

and one of the set guys threw it across camera,

and in slow-mo, you just see this fuzzy image of the hare.

You can always spot it with the ears.

Sometimes it's very subtle.

We've had to put it on pictures in people's wallets.

We've seen it as a sticker stuck to a rail,

on a bottle of shampoo in Lip Service.

I feel like a prize idiot.

I'm going to have to watch them all again now

and not be listening to a word anyone's saying

and just scanning the screen for hares.

It's in more eps than me!

Fuck's sake.

Now, breathe. HE EXHALES

I think playing so many different characters

and making them all feel like real people, that's real talent.

I'm sorry, Harry... this is all my fault!

They sometimes alight on their own interests -

Reece's obsession with magic and seances...

Give us a sign.

Steve's massive interest in crosswords...

Have a look at one across, and I'll make us some tea.

They've played over 100 different characters

with wonderful wigs and voices.

I'm afraid we've had another complaint about the noise.

I don't know what you're talking about.

And each time, they are completely different.

I mean, it's extraordinary.

So this space is, in fact, a storage for the costumes specifically.

Let's see what we've got.

Oh, you're like a morgue assistant!

THEY LAUGH I mean, look at this.

This feels - I know exactly where I am with this...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hurry Up And Wait.

I remember, we'd done an episode of The League Of Gentlemen,

where we'd been shown into someone's house to wait

while they were setting up down the road.

And we thought the house was empty.

And there was a character in a dressing gown,

very similar to this, in the corner.

It's like 9.30am in the morning,

and we just heard this voice come from an armchair.

"I'm having a glass of champagne.

"It's my birthday today."

And then, years and years, and years later,

you remember it, and you go, "Is there an episode in that"?

I'm celebrating a birthday today.

Oh! Happy birthday.

I'm having a glass of champagne.

Oh. Lovely.

Now, this at the end is catching my eye.

I don't remember us doing anything so...

gaudy and glitter as this.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia. Of course!

Say that again? Paraskevidekatriaphobia.

Is that the French way of saying it? THEY LAUGH

Paraskevidekatriaphobia.

It's a fear of Friday the 13th.

I'd never heard of this before, that they were unlucky.

But when Reece was a little boy, he had a vivid memory of having,

I think his mum had brought something back

with peacock feathers on it,

and his dad had come home from the pub and gone,

"What are you doing? What have you brought that in the house for?"

And going absolutely mad, and threw it in the fire.

So that scene was a tribute to Reece's dad.

You're covered in them, and they're incredibly bad luck!

Well, don't say that! They're lovely!

Look, feel them.

Get them away from me! Get out!

Get out! Get out!

Proms.

As a kid, I was forced to watch Last Night of the Proms by my dad.

He loved - he didn't do all this, but he was very patriotic.

My earliest memory as a kid is going into a playgroup,

before school, preschool, so you're about four years old,

and just, you know, the joy of seeing a box of hats

and dressing-up clothes.

That, for me, was what made me want to be an actor.

So, this is like that times 100. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm going to take you back now, Yves... Yeah?

To when we had just come out of Edinburgh 1996,

doing our League Of Gentlemen stage show, and we met a producer.

And she said, "I've worked with a costume designer

"who I like very much, I think you should meet - Yves Barre".

And we say, "Well, what has she done"?

THEY LAUGH

I first saw you up above a pub... Yeah.

And seeing you on stage is what was the most electrifying...

And the audience were absolutely on the edge of their seat.

You could sense the electricity flowing in a room.

That's what really, really got to me.

The pleasure that one gets being so creative is so high.

That's a kick.

Literally, this is the reason why we're still together 25 years later.

Yeah, yeah. No other reason.

Now, this, of course, is a beautiful series nine creation.

But we had fun with Wilma Dickshow, didn't we?

Now, Wilma was a real treat. HE LAUGHS

It was a real treat because it was a drag act,

which we'd never done.

And, of course, you went... you went for it.

There we are. My friends.

It weighs a ton. Feel the weight of that!

It weighs a ton. Whoa! THEY LAUGH

Whoa! LAUGHTER CONTINUES

These bosoms are playing havoc with my skin.

I think it's quite uncomfortable for him to wear them, so...

Well, he should have thought about that, shouldn't he?

Yeah, I mean, it's not a look that I do often.

Mark.

My drag name is Wilma Dickshow.

Wilma...? Dickshow. Right.

This is our fourth day of filming Boo To A Goose.

It's a big production for me.

I just had a flash of, like, films about New York's subway,

and you'd always see, late at night,

some drag queens going home from a show, sitting on a tube.

It's just such an innocuous image in a grotty tube,

this fabulous-looking drag queen.

I wanted cock, but there's only...

SHE LAUGHS I'm sorry!

I'm so sorry.

Sorry... LAUGHTER CONTINUES

It's so fun. And when you've got actors of this calibre, you know,

they elevate what you've written.

Mark Bonnar, of course,

the frightening and terrifying Mark Bonnar. As usual.

I'm a fan.

We're all fans, I think, you know,

they're kind of institutional.

I'm not.

No, I know. He's not. THEY LAUGH

They throw things in,

the both of them throw things in.

When I'm kind of just about to hit the zenith of my frustrations,

Reece has a line,

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks".

And he added in, "Shakespeare".

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Shakespeare.

LAUGHTER

Fuck... Oh, God. Oh, God.

I'm sat next to him. "Shakespeare."

This was my reaction.

LAUGHTER CONTINUES

Luckily, I was behind the camera at the time,

but I had to walk into the camera.

I had to do my big kind of mad bit!

But I was just pissing myself.

OK. Ahem.

STEVE SNORTS

LAUGHTER

The characters are so well-fleshed out

that they are a joy for any actor.

And the roll call for Inside No 9 is legendary, of course.

I was just having a nightcap with, erm, sorry, I forgot your name.

Shona. Shona.

It's like a British institution everybody wants to be a part of -

and most people have. HE LAUGHS

I'm so nervous, I'm such a big fan.

I've got some things for you to sign, if you don't mind.

Have you got your notebooks?

I've heard about your infamous notebooks.

I'm going to show you one of the first things we started sketching.

So it was going to be called Number Five?

Well, we were just thinking,

"Let's make the door number the thing that links them".

"Behind Closed Doors". Yeah. That's good, as well.

What does the line through it mean?

That means that the idea has been done.

That's basically 12 Days Of Christine. Yeah.

Yeah, of course. So that needs a red line through it.

Do you want me to do it now? If you wouldn't mind.

He's sitting, reading.

Yeah, I mean, is this going to make it into the interview?

What is the significance of this place?

Because I know that this was the birthplace of one idea.

We were here once.

I don't know if it was that table or that table,

but there was three people - an older gentleman and two ladies -

and he was insistent that he and his wife pay the bill.

It tickled us, because he was very insistent.

"No, you got it last time. Let us get it this time."

"No, I want to get it." "No, no, no, this is our treat.

"We said, we told you, we're taking you out."

By the time we'd got to the office, we were already like,

"Let's start writing that".

No, wait, that's not right! Shut up, I am, it's on me.

No, you got it last time. Let me get this one.

Get off, I'm paying it.

"I'm not having you rule the roost, Malcolm.

"I know what you're doing. You're paying this time,

"so I'll have to get the next one, the big one."

Which is, oh, let me think, wives and girlfriends night at Brown's.

Getting to these characters

to the point where we've got this rivalry seething...

one of them's going to cut themselves,

or there's going to be an accident.

Yeah, but that's obvious that that's going to happen,

because you're there with a knife. Yeah.

What aren't the audience going to expect?

He stood on my hand!

Don't blame me. So close!

And then it was only a few days later, spotted, as you often do,

a lone shoe in the street. Yeah.

That's interesting.

What if someone became obsessed

with finding the story of that shoe? The owner of the shoe.

What's this?

One of the funny things about it was how serious he was taking it.

You can't go for more than two minutes

without banging on about a bloody shoe you found!

'Course I can! You can't!

All right, then - time me!

The whole thing about Inside No 9,

and what has been exciting for us,

is that there's not a template in how to write it,

or the genre that you're in.

Incredibly freeing, yeah. Really, really freeing.

Sometimes, we've actually written it

and we've got to page, you know, 20-25,

and you know the end's coming.

And then we'll sit in silence.

There'll just be, "What if...?"

"Go on." LAUGHTER

And you're praying it'll be really good and solve everything.

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

And you can only do that

with someone you're very comfortable with.

I think we've always had our own little language,

and our own little in-jokes, haven't we? Yeah.

We got into the habit of, when we started sharing an office,

one of us faking a death.

DOOR OPENS

REECE SIGHS

Oh, no... THEY LAUGH

I can't even remember how it started.

But we do it to this day.

Hello.

There's a weariness to it, but we still do do it. Sure, yeah.

And is it just always the same, like, someone in the chair,

sort of like that? Yeah, usually, because...

Or is it, like, props and costumes? We try - sometimes,

if you've got more time, you can set something up

so it's a bit more elaborate.

I eventually want to do, like, the Lecter one

where there's, like, a Union Jack flag,

and he's hanging with his bowels out. Oh, God!

Well, that would be good. It'd take some setting up.

It would be, I've got to be in there, like, the night before.

Out of interest, do you prefer acting to writing, or are they...?

For me, 100%.

I've always thought of Inside No 9 as more of a writing project.

Having to come up with and keep that level high

and keep surprising people,

as much as it's been hard and we've moaned about it,

I have really enjoyed it, and I will miss not having it there.

Steve'll laugh, but it used to be that I didn't like the writing,

but I just did it to be doing the acting.

Now, I don't even like the acting.

LAUGHTER Oh, no!

We like the post-production.

So that's maybe one part of it that I enjoy.

Hello, camera.

Trying to think how I feel.

Imagine doing something for ten years,

same trajectory of your year,

and then not doing it.

And so I think you'd feel strange,

whatever it was that you weren't doing any more.

Even if it was just... taking the bins out.

HE CHUCKLES

Room Nine - which we call "The Killer's Lair".

Are we all ensconced? Excellent.

So, have any of you done an escape room before?

Yes, we all have.

We've all been forced to do one, you mean.

Because this is an escape room,

and we've been playing it at a pace -

"Come on, come on, we need to do this and this" -

we've gone ahead of time, so there's a shortfall.

OK, and we're off!

Oh, Dad, I found a scrapbook!

There might be something in here.

Even if we filmed everything in the script,

we would be at least two minutes short,

which is quite a bit of what we need.

And it's a position we've never been in before.

We've never underrun.

We're having to improvise on our feet a little bit.

Last night, I wrote another puzzle for the escape room.

It's 8.55pm, and we have an episode that's short.

Yeah, trying to write something that we can film tomorrow.

Oh, you clever bastards.

HE LAUGHS

Anyway, I'd better get on with it.

The horror is on its sleeve in this episode.

But then there's a lot of emotional stuff with the family as well.

I still love you.

There's some comedic bits, especially when Reece comes in

with this character of Doug.

Now, then...

Now, then...

I'm sure you've all heard on the news

about the serial killer known as Doctor Death.

Ah!

Ha-ha! Jesus.

We just try to get the balance right

between all these different elements.

It's an interesting thing.

I mean, interesting, when we did Trolley Problem,

the fight that we put in that, which was very comedic,

slow motion, drugged fight.

When you watch it in amongst this really heavy drama,

I'm not sure we've got the balance quite right yet.

One of the options is to lose the fight altogether.

Please, I need my last clue.

It's always a fine balance, but, you know,

they're two sides of the same coin in a way, because, you know,

you're building up to either a laugh or a scream,

so you're creating the right circumstances

for a release of tension.

And it can either be, "Oh, fuck", or it could be, "Hahahaha".

Why can't you hear me?! Over!

HIS VOICE ECHOES

Hello... camera.

Just to say, I'm on my way to see Graham Humphreys today.

I'm going to talk to him about the posters that he's designed

over the years for Inside No 9.

Hello? Graham. It's Reece.

Hello, I'll be straight down. Thank you.

Expect him.

You wouldn't think, would you, in this normal environment,

that there is... dead bodies up there.

There's not.

One of the few things from the past I've really retained

is the original Evil Dead poster.

This is where I tell people my career began.

You're one of the few people

that have been on the journey of Inside No 9 from the beginning.

How many Inside No 9 posters

have you done, entirely?

Amazingly, it's nine.

We thought it would be nice

if each one had its own sort of poster, you know?

Just to sort of set them apart,

and then, think, could we get the person that did

actual proper horror film posters, you know?

It was a dream come true even just to think of the idea.

So this is an original script,

probably the only one left, of Theatre Of Blood.

This is the film that started off my, I think,

my love of darkly black comedy, among the horror.

It's such a clever film.

Vincent Price, playing Edward Lionheart.

I am well.

It is you who are dead.

I think Vincent Price and Theatre Of Blood

has got everything that we love about and,

if we could get anywhere near it,

as far as trying to emulate the tone of a thing.

And it's surprisingly dark and actually... Really horrible!

Surprisingly quite gory, as well. Yeah, it is.

The very first death is really horrible.

I remember it really staying with me,

because they chop him to bits.

EVIL LAUGHTER

SCREAMING

The Harrowing, which is a proper full-on...

That's your... It's a Hammer one, isn't it, really?

Horror homage, in every possible way. Yep.

And even to the look of your character,

which is so Vincent Price.

You have no need to go up there.

He's fine in his room.

You know, with a lot of these images,

it's all about what you don't put in. Yes, of course.

So, you don't...

Because you could have had Andras, the demon himself.

I mean, we've got the light,

so there's a hint of something terrible in an attic.

The actual demon is kind of dead centre in the poster room... Right.

But you don't know that, though.

It was a particular look to try and get him to look

like he could just be an abused brother that they've left upstairs,

and not changed his nappy and left him.

Or it could be a demon upstairs that they're harbouring.

Oh, my God.

Although some people don't like that, and they want to know,

"Oh, was it or wasn't it? I don't get it!"

Devil Of Christmas, which is our first ever episode

we did as a special,

it's the Krampus story, but done like Tales Of The Unexpected

from the early '80s.

Not according to the Krampus.

Oh, Mummy, don't start on about that again.

It suddenly became a really fun endeavour,

rehearsing it for a week.

Adam Tandy, the producer, sourced and got out of retirement

not only the cameramen, but the cameras themselves,

which were antique.

And we filmed this episode that couldn't have been more authentic.

I just thought there'd be an app to make it look like early '80s.

So, you watched it, and then...? Yes, I watched it.

And again, it was like about what you don't show,

what you don't reveal. Yeah.

So, really, although there is some reaction there,

but you don't know what they're reacting to.

Kathy!

Behind you! SHE SCREAMS

And it was a joy to do. It's great.

And it had a really great kicker ending.

I don't think I want to watch the ending.

SHE SCREAMS

The Wicker Man.

They call it the Mount Everest of horror films.

And it's cast a long shadow, as far as affecting our work.

We felt it was time that we should do Wicker Man

smuggled into an Inside No 9 episode called Mr King.

Please get me out of this chair.

There's a moment where you're actually filming it,

and you've got this kind of cabbage thing with dolls,

Steve there singing, "Long live the king",

and then, you've got Reece with a mask on.

And then you've got these kids with masks and, like, tambourines -

and I've got goose bumps now.

You're just like, "This is my Shangri-La of directing, of course".

And it's absolutely delicious to see The Wicker Man come to life

in this completely low-fi, exquisite way.

This year, the crown is yours.

This horrible little thing got put down my trousers

before they sacrificed me to John Barleycorn.

This is from The Bones Of St Nicholas, of course.

So this was Steve's prop that he had. And I thought,

"Well, I'm having that at the end",

my mask as the Captain Scaramouche in episode Wuthering Heist.

Well, this was made for the episode

that we did called Dead Line,

which is our live episode.

It's funny to hold your own head.

Tonight, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith

are tricking and treating us

to a live edition of the award-winning Inside No 9.

So the BBC said to Reece and Steve,

"Oh, have you ever thought about doing a live episode"?

And I was always absolutely dead against it,

because the only reason people tune into one of those things

is because they want to see things go wrong.

I'm afraid I have some rather upsetting n...

SOUND CUTS OUT

So we kill the sound.

I'm very sorry, but, as you can hear,

we're having a few problems at the moment.

And then we kill the continuity announcer.

WOMAN SCREAMS

And then we kill the crew and the cast.

And eventually, ghosts take over the entire studio

and the world falls into chaos,

and the screen goes black.

DISTORTED SCREAMING

MAN SCREAMS

That's quite a journey.

And to do it live - that's a hell of a journey.

They pushed it so far,

I really started to think something had gone wrong,

and I knew what was going on. Isn't that ridiculous?

I heard that they were going to be doing this episode

live to broadcast.

And I remember picking up the phone to Adam and going,

"I've got to do it live, too".

My right hand was playing a piano,

my left hand was playing a cello.

I was quite nervous

because it was only the second time I'd played the score

and actually could hear it.

..one... zero.

CELLO PLAYS Shot one, three next.

Stand by with the caption.

I think one of the nice things that helped my nerves as well

with Dead Line was... it was all about a TV show going wrong,

so I could completely screw up.

To help this genuine liveness of the chaos of it going wrong,

we thought, when it breaks down,

we had got our phones out, and Mark had texted one of us...

During the broadcast.

Have you seen this message off Mark?

On the WhatsApp group?

It says, "Put BBC Two on now". Hmm.

It was weird.

It was like, you know, being part of it as it was going out.

So, then, we put the TV on, and we were on BBC Two,

so it was a reflection of us standing there.

It was a very playful, fun thing to do.

STEVE SCREAMS Fucking hell!

STEVE CHUCKLES

I can't grasp the enormity of it

in the way that everyone else seems to be able to.

It's just, we've been doing it, and we're stopping doing it now.

Endings are hard. We've always known endings are hard.

I know.

Is there going to be a twist?

We'll have to wait and see. STEVE CHUCKLES

I am turning you off. OK.

I am feeling quite mixed emotions now,

and just the thought that it isn't going to be there in my diary

for next year, where I've had that for the last ten years.

I've always known.

Go on, slather it on... Do we use that one? I don't know.

I just close my eyes and things happen to me.

THEY LAUGH

We've been carrying this story for a while,

because I remember reading about The Curse Of The Ninth.

Yes, isn't it a sort of superstition? Exactly.

It's the misguided belief that a composer is going to die

after writing their ninth symphony.

The pressure of what you've done in the past

weighs heavily on your shoulders.

And I think we channelled a lot of that into this script.

So, for us, it's a bit like,

"Well, how are we going to write our ninth series,

"have something that ends what you've been doing for ten years?"

LEAVE ME ALONE!

Just trying to keep my... keep myself busy.

I'm attempting to finish a crossword on my own,

but... I don't know anything.

Steve can get all of them.

He's quite good at this.

We're in the second-to-last week of filming.

This is our period episode.

This is probably my new favourite.

Because I don't play the piano,

they're going to get a hand double that's going to use my jacket,

this man here that's taking his clothes off.

If he makes me look rubbish, I'll have words.

I could do it.

PIANIST PLAYS

Do you want... you want my head more...?

Yeah, I don't know that they know how good they are.

Or maybe they do, and they just pretend that they don't,

so that I say things like this. I don't know.

What's really nice is, they don't take themselves too seriously.

You know? Anybody else in Reece and Steve's position,

they could easily become...

knobheads. SHE LAUGHS

It's fascinating how angry people get

about things that they think aren't funny.

People don't get cross that a horror film's not scary enough.

There was a bit we were doing the night with the jigsaw.

For me, it was, like, one way was funny, one way wasn't.

There... most gratifying.

Glorious to see all the little details.

Yeah, I think it should be fingers clawing at those,

get it all away quicker.

That was almost gone in one. Yeah, we've got another one.

I think, if you do it... All right... more manic.

It's the rhythm of it.

The thing that makes it funny is that it's a, "Duh-duh-duh"!

Do you know what I mean?

I'll tidy this away for you, ma'am.

STIFLED LAUGH

No! LAUGHTER

Well, no, how could anyone? It was impossible. I'm sorry.

Yeah, I don't know what it is that appeals to people.

Some people really like the dark stories.

I sort of like the slightly gorier ones.

Other people just find those too horrible

and just like the silly ones.

I like it when it becomes quite extreme

in a really short space of time.

I don't feel like for the last ten years,

I've only done one thing.

I feel like we've done a lifetime of ideas.

Each one has its own life. Its life is five days.

So, each episode, you know, you just get through it,

but I think knowing next week is the last one,

it'll... hit us, I think.

Is that right?

Is it the last death you see?

What an accolade!

I have died a few times on screen.

I don't think I've ever fallen to my death before.

Always nice to try something new.

SHE LAUGHS

SHE SCREAMS

55 films.

It's an extraordinary achievement.

Reece and Steve have done it all.

Their range and productivity has been so devastatingly prolific.

Any actor would give their eye teeth to work with Reece and Steve,

because they're brilliant writers,

but they're just the best people to be on a set with.

The fact that they were able to have almost total creative control

for ten years, and that they were at the top of their game

is really remarkable.

And it'll last forever.

Hi. Hi.

Welcome to the last day ever of Inside No 9. Yeah.

How do you feel? STEVE CHUCKLES

I feel like I'm sick of being asked how I feel.

That's how I feel. Yes.

Good luck. Thank you. Enjoy your last day of filming Inside No 9.

I'm sure that there'll be more filming like this.

Maybe not by us. Yeah. OK.

I think this is quite an in...

I've never seen this done before.

We could have done a whole episode. Maybe in series te...?

Oh, you don't want to spoil tonight!

Oh, well, that ship's already sailed. All right!

If you want to know the truth,

Reece, I feel like you've been holding me back.

Oh, you fucking what?

I'm just saying, I'm going to miss you.

You're my best friend.

You quoting Merrily Merrily now?

No, I mean it!

Good, well done.

I think Plodding On was, without a doubt, the perfect way

to end the whole series.

It's Steve and Reece playing versions of themselves

at the wrap party for the end of the series.

So they brilliantly got back an awful lot of guest cast members,

really mostly just to be at the wrap party.

I watched it three times.

Cried each time.

It was lovely, all the references.

I love the first beat in Sardines,

it's the carbolic soap.

But here, she just sort of

decides to take it off the wall.

And then eventually ending up in a confined space with Tim Key.

Oh.

Hello. Hello.

It couldn't be more packed with Inside No 9 references.

No. It feels right, yeah.

The scene is horrible.

We find it quite funny,

but it is horrible, that last line,

because we wanted to come up with a really devastating line.

And I think you can't get worse than...

I don't even know if we are friends any more.

But it needed to hit hard, you know?

Exit. Well done. Cut there, thank you. Very good.

That was good.

Playing ourselves, we needed it to be so far removed

from the actuality that we could enjoy doing it.

THEY LAUGH

It's not real! It's not real.

When did we write this, a year? A year ago? Yeah.

At the minute, I'm just quite... fine about it.

I might go to jelly at the end of the day, I don't know.

I'm sure you'll be there to capture it.

I think it'll only be when we're driving home on Friday morning

that we'll start to sink in just what we've done,

and the bleak future ahead of us.

LAUGHTER

This is our updates chat, where we say what shots we're onto next.

So, we're onto four of four,

which is our final set-up of the two boys ever.

Ah! Ever.

I'm doing a bit... Oh!

It's time, thank you.

THEY CHUCKLE OK. The last shot.

I think that was good, putting that last "sorry" in, wasn't it?

Yes, it was good, yeah. It makes it all all right.

All right again, after being horrible. Yeah.

I am sorry.

So, what shall we do, then?

There is a third option.

What?

Good. Cut there.

OK, everybody.

That is a wrap on series nine of Inside No 9!

CHEERING AND LAUGHTER

Well done.

Yeah, whoo!

APPLAUSE

Do you know what I feel like?

I feel like having done exams

and having come out, and the relief of just doing it.

See you all on Plodding On, series one!

LAUGHTER So, that's how I feel.

You finally got an answer.

One, two, three! CHEERING

The end of Inside No 9.

What are we going to do?

We'll cobble a stage show together.

We'll cobble a stage show together at the Wyndham's, January 2025.

"And the cobbled-together stage show can be seen

"at the Wyndham's in 2025." STEVE LAUGHS

Cobbled On. Cobbling On.

Cobbled Up.

Cobbled On. Ahem.

REECE HUMS A SHOWTUNE

Here we are! Here we are.

Look at this.

Stage Fright.

Who's doing this, then? Huh? Who's doing this?

We are.

We are? Yeah.

That's good.

STEVE EXHALES Wow.

Now, you love doing stage work, don't you? I do.

I think I prefer it. Yeah.

You get very bored very quickly, don't you?

STEVE LAUGHS No.

THEY LAUGH Well, this is what I've heard.

I think that we are best live.

Do you? Yeah. That's a bold claim. I know, but I think,

certainly League Of Gentlemen was always best live.

I wasn't sad about the fact that we were finishing TV-wise,

because we knew we had this. Yeah.

But when this ends... Yeah.

Goodbye! That's it.

Really? I think so.

We're not going to do the ballet on ice that we talked about?

Oh, Mrs Tiggywinkle? THEY LAUGH

You know, I think this is the first West End theatre

I ever came into... No! When I moved to London, yeah.

How about that? Where's seat nine?

What are you thinking?

I'm just thinking, you know, obviously,

we met at a drama college.

We started doing theatre.

We did theatre companies, Edinburgh Festival,

small-scale things -

and then we've been doing TV for the past 20 years.

And now we're back in a West End theatre.

And we've gone full circle, but in a bigger space.

Yeah.

Yeah, there is an element of nostalgia, looking back

over this... ten-year period.

But it's not just us that must be feeling it.

We've had people along the way that have come and done

this journey with us.

They must all be feeling a strange sense of disruption

to their next year, because we've had it in our lives

for the last ten years, haven't we, a structure?

I think that's why a lot of people got quite upset at the end,

because it just felt like it's not going to be there next year. Yeah.

I think that's it, yeah. At least we've got this.

Yeah, we have this, and that's why I don't feel so bereft -

but this sort of is the end-end.

But, yeah, I'm sure everyone's feeling a little bit...

Reflective, would you say? Reflective, I would say, yeah.

And it's good, and it's not sad.

We've left a great body of work that we can be very proud of.

Yeah.

Proud.

Hello.

Hello, camera.

Oh, you're about to run out.

Just received this.

What do I feel? I mean, I'm waiting on hearing what I feel.

It's the final lot of posters.

Yeah?

Oh, my dinner's ready.

It was on... and now, it is not.

Steve! Yeah! I'm coming!

And that's probably all you can say about the matter,

because it was a great time.

But...

Oh.

Ah! That's how I feel.

So... let's have a look.

No final words.

It's been a fucking pleasure.

It's nothing very surprising.

Basically, it just says...