Review: INSIDE NO. 9 STAGE / FRIGHT, New Victoria Theatre Woking - Tour
Photo credit: Marc Brenner
If you are an Inside No. 9 fan, you will love this stage adaption that is now touring the UK, and this week plays to a sellout audience at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking.
If, like this reviewer, you did not see the TV series, it still works as a theatrical event although some of the references will be missed. Inside No. 9 ran from 2014 to 2024 for nine series. Each of the 55 thirty-minute episodes was a self-contained story with new characters and a new setting but all starring Pemberton or Shearsmith, the show creators. For an older generation, it will have reminded them of Tales from the Unexpected which ran from 1979 to 1988 but with more comic elements to juxtapose the horror. The show is a mixture of old favourite moments from TV and new elements inspired by the stories of ghosts that are said to haunt so many buildings and references to current trends in theatre. Perhaps some of the references back to comedians (like Mike and Bernie Winters or Bernie Clifton) or TV (such as Crackerjack) will pass over the heads of the younger generation but still resonates with many in the audience.
Like any sketch show, some elements work better than others but the joy of seeing two performers who are masters of the form live on stage carries the audience through the weaker elements and dazzles in the stronger ones. Indeed, the slower moments cleverly build the tension of what might come next. Steve Pemberton dominates throughout with an excellent range of comic creations and an energy and delivery that entertains in every scene. Reece Shearsmith provides the more serious characters, often the straight man to the clown, usually in charge of the situation while Pemberton creates chaos around him. They work in the great tradition of 20th century double acts and the front curtain chat with the audience and finale song and dance is a powerful tribute to the greatest of them, Morecambe and Wise.
Fans of the TV show will recall the episode, Bernie Clifton’s dressing room which featured two ageing comics Cheese (Shearsmith) and Crackers (Pemberton) meeting up after 30 years to discuss recreating some of their routines for one last time. Their reunion and rehearsal is full of pathos and laughs which resonates with the older modern audience who can reflect on how comedy has changed over the past thirty years and an excuse for some material no longer deemed acceptable. It is beautifully conceived sketch with a clever final twist.
The freshness of the sketch show format is enlivened by the Kidnap sketch where two incompetent men grab the wrong person from No 6 instead of No 9 and each night, a different guest star is revealed as the unfortunate prisoner and is required to improvise most of the scene that follows. We saw the eighty-five-year-old Jimmy Tarbuck, warmly received by the audience and clearly a great fan of the creators. He cleverly used his age with a sense of bewilderment to get laughs and when left alone on stage went into his old stand-up routine! At times, he seemed to be wrong footing the captors which added to the fun. The sketch includes a nod to a TV episode called ‘Sardines’.
However, most of the show plays on the meta-theatrical lampooning of current theatrical experiences with a brilliant opening sketch around the behaviour of audiences watching a play, and then the second half focuses on a horror/ghost story that extensively incorporates the current trend of the overuse of video camera capture of action both on stage and around the theatre. To say more would spoil the experience but there are some good jump scares and ideas that seem borrowed from Mel Brooks’ Frankenstein and the psychological thriller by Anthony Horowitz, Mindgame. These provide the opportunity for John Bulleid’s wonderful illusions which bring a strong comic twist to the horror.
The sketches are cleverly weaved together around the themes of death and ghosts, a creepy and macabre theme, and play with the idea of what is real and what is make believe. Pemberton and Shearsmith embrace the theatricality of the location and use their comic timing to heighten the anticipation of the horror which make the performances all the more enjoyable. Having seen it in the West End, we can confirm that it is a show that stands a second visit if only you can get a ticket, not just to see who the latest guest star is but to truly appreciate their mastery of the form.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne