"It's more dark comedy and twists"
Yeah, alright. You got me. The first time.
Inside No. 9's live Halloween episode exploited all the problems of live television gremlins beautifully, deconstructing the way that television can go wrong and displaying an incredible amount visual dexterity within the confines of a live studio broadcast. It was an incredibly sophisticated con-job, beautifully realised.
The first time there was problem with the audio, something lurched in my stomach. Because it was all so beautifully seeded: the newspaper stories, the One Show appearance, the plausibility of the story-line...
I can't be the only one who wanted to see "Dead Line" as advertised, with the nine carved into the pumpkin, and Steve's allotment chic and listening to the radio in his "Play for Today" kitchen. The first jump-scare/ fore-shadowing is a "coddled egg" in a microwave. Even his name, Arthur Flitwick, is so delightfully "off", that you just knew there was something afoot. But the premise of an old skool Nokia found in a graveyard that, I presume, gives you texts from the dead is frankly so delicious that I want to see it: widower Moira, in her scene stealing stage Irish accent, signing off the phone-call with "My husband's just come in..." leaving Arthur to say to camera "I thought you said your husband was dead..." I love this stuff. It's comfort food to me.
But when that second, sustained sound-blip came in I smelled a rat. There is is something about the cadence of a continuity announcer's voice that is impossible to get right in drama. It's like watching a man-in-the-street reporter interviewing people in 60s and 70s films: its never right, they're always too polished, too learned. And when we cut from an inadvertent silent film to "A Quiet Night In" I felt I had rumbled it.
What remained was a densely layered fiction that talked about a curse on the Granada studios, lending cameos to Tony Wilson, the cast of Coronation Street and Most Haunted. In fact the entire episode's plot seems to have been reverse engineered out of Most Haunted's bogus nonsense. The most arresting piece of VT featured a de-bagged Bobby Davro in some stocks, while the unholy triumvirate of Cheggers, Lionel Blair and Jim Bowen sang "Always Look On the Bright Side Of Life", something Bobby was unable to do as he fell helplessly face-forward into the concrete of the studio floor. Shearsmith and Pemberton's acid impressions of Blair and Cheggers were glorious, as were the bitchy bits of chit chat that permeated their dressing room conversation: "Can't believe Stephanie Cole can get on-line and I can't." "What's going on with Inside No 9? Is it all part of the twist"? Oh do fuck off!"
Echoes of the seminal "Ghostwhatch" ran through proceedings and Reece's Go-Pro filmed death was lifted directly from The Stone Tape - there was a reason why his vicar was named Neil! With all of Shearsmith and Pemberton's writing there are layers of meaning and reference stacked high - here that was more transparent than usual - they were crying out to show you their working. This tends to have a polarising effect on the audience and the Twitterati were out in force calling it either a work of stunning, subversive genius or a boringly predictable meta textural humbug. On sober reflection - and I am still, mostly, sober - it was pretty great. By its very nature it was more impressive than loveable and it is probably not an episode I'll want to watch again and again, but it was still strong, clever funny and a victory. They pulled it off and they did it with aplomb.
Would I have preferred to see what really happened to get Arthur Flitwick covered in blood in the shower and with a severed head in the microwave? Yes, perhaps. But that looked like the earliest call-back of all - to their post student film Highgate House of Horror. I don't miss a trick fellas. Call me. You got the number: its 444 42 44.
By the way - a fifth of the audience switched off when "A Quiet Night In" started. Dicks.
Inside No. 9's live Halloween episode exploited all the problems of live television gremlins beautifully, deconstructing the way that television can go wrong and displaying an incredible amount visual dexterity within the confines of a live studio broadcast. It was an incredibly sophisticated con-job, beautifully realised.
The first time there was problem with the audio, something lurched in my stomach. Because it was all so beautifully seeded: the newspaper stories, the One Show appearance, the plausibility of the story-line...
I can't be the only one who wanted to see "Dead Line" as advertised, with the nine carved into the pumpkin, and Steve's allotment chic and listening to the radio in his "Play for Today" kitchen. The first jump-scare/ fore-shadowing is a "coddled egg" in a microwave. Even his name, Arthur Flitwick, is so delightfully "off", that you just knew there was something afoot. But the premise of an old skool Nokia found in a graveyard that, I presume, gives you texts from the dead is frankly so delicious that I want to see it: widower Moira, in her scene stealing stage Irish accent, signing off the phone-call with "My husband's just come in..." leaving Arthur to say to camera "I thought you said your husband was dead..." I love this stuff. It's comfort food to me.
But when that second, sustained sound-blip came in I smelled a rat. There is is something about the cadence of a continuity announcer's voice that is impossible to get right in drama. It's like watching a man-in-the-street reporter interviewing people in 60s and 70s films: its never right, they're always too polished, too learned. And when we cut from an inadvertent silent film to "A Quiet Night In" I felt I had rumbled it.
What remained was a densely layered fiction that talked about a curse on the Granada studios, lending cameos to Tony Wilson, the cast of Coronation Street and Most Haunted. In fact the entire episode's plot seems to have been reverse engineered out of Most Haunted's bogus nonsense. The most arresting piece of VT featured a de-bagged Bobby Davro in some stocks, while the unholy triumvirate of Cheggers, Lionel Blair and Jim Bowen sang "Always Look On the Bright Side Of Life", something Bobby was unable to do as he fell helplessly face-forward into the concrete of the studio floor. Shearsmith and Pemberton's acid impressions of Blair and Cheggers were glorious, as were the bitchy bits of chit chat that permeated their dressing room conversation: "Can't believe Stephanie Cole can get on-line and I can't." "What's going on with Inside No 9? Is it all part of the twist"? Oh do fuck off!"
Echoes of the seminal "Ghostwhatch" ran through proceedings and Reece's Go-Pro filmed death was lifted directly from The Stone Tape - there was a reason why his vicar was named Neil! With all of Shearsmith and Pemberton's writing there are layers of meaning and reference stacked high - here that was more transparent than usual - they were crying out to show you their working. This tends to have a polarising effect on the audience and the Twitterati were out in force calling it either a work of stunning, subversive genius or a boringly predictable meta textural humbug. On sober reflection - and I am still, mostly, sober - it was pretty great. By its very nature it was more impressive than loveable and it is probably not an episode I'll want to watch again and again, but it was still strong, clever funny and a victory. They pulled it off and they did it with aplomb.
Would I have preferred to see what really happened to get Arthur Flitwick covered in blood in the shower and with a severed head in the microwave? Yes, perhaps. But that looked like the earliest call-back of all - to their post student film Highgate House of Horror. I don't miss a trick fellas. Call me. You got the number: its 444 42 44.
By the way - a fifth of the audience switched off when "A Quiet Night In" started. Dicks.
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