Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton bring ten years of Inside No 9 to a close in spectacular style with Plodding On, here’s our review.
There’s a moment in Peter Davison’s glorious Doctor Who 50th anniversary parody The Fiveish Doctors Reboot where Sylvester McCoy wonders why they’re bothering to break into the BBC Studios to appear in Day Of The Doctor, to which Davison responds, “For the fans”.
Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton applied the same ethos to Plodding On, the series finale of Inside No 9 that was written purely for fans who’ve stuck with them for the past ten years. Although I try to be reasonably objective in these reviews, I have been a huge fan since the first episode, Sardines, aired in 2014, and I did audibly gasp when Katherine Parkinson and Tim Key were revealed as the first two people onscreen in this latest episode.
Not only that, but they even mirrored the plot of that episode briefly when they both squeezed into a toilet cubicle together, with Anne Reid joining them shortly thereafter. After a beautifully deadpan bit of business about Key confusing Parkinson with Amanda Abbington, the plot was set in motion – set at an awards party for Inside No 9 itself, a conflict soon emerges about Steve booking a high paying job overseas, abandoning his next series with Reece.
But before we get to that, let’s take a moment to appreciate the comedic high point of the episode – Shearsmith and Pemberton are very clever fellows who’ve written episodes about cryptic crosswords and iambic pentameter, but sometimes the broadest laughs are the best, and I challenge anyone not to laugh as Robin Askwith brazenly takes his trousers down to answer the call of nature as Shearsmith tries to avoid looking.
For all nine series, Shearsmith in particular has been vocal about his hatred of fans asking “when will you write one set on a bus?”, to the extent that they advertised an On The Buses parody episode featuring Askwith in the last series, which turned out to be a hoax. Instead, the actual episode featured a fake gameshow called 3 by 3, hosted by Lee Mack. It was lovely that they got Askwith, for the final episode.
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Shearsmith and Pemberton are clearly students of comedy, and there was a lovely line from Askwith about innuendos “like David Renwick writing for the Rons”. The meta tradition also goes back a long way in sitcom – Eric Sykes’ long running 1970s comedy Sykes also ended with a meta episode, with Sykes and Hattie Jacques going into the BBC to collect an award.
There were callbacks galore, from cocktails named after episodes, Steve saying it felt like his life was flashing before his eyes a la The Twelve Days Of Christine, but the most impressive thing about this episode is the cast. It says a lot about Shearsmith and Pemberton that so many people happily came back to be featured in a single shot lasting a few seconds each. From Jason Watkins to Sian Gibson and Adam Deacon, a scene with deaf actress Emily Howlett from Empty Orchestra to Steve lording his ego over Rosie Cavaliero and, last but by no means least, Shearsmith begging his League Of Gentlemen comrade Mark Gatiss to work with him after he learns about Steve’s new series. Take a second to pause the credits on the list of names and marvel at the astonishing achievement Inside No 9 has been. Speaking of the credits, using the Dad’s Army style montage of the cast waving at the camera was a lovely touch.
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Because, above all, this episode was a celebration of two men. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. 55 scripts. Ultimately, the real story of Plodding On is an ode to the enduring friendship between the two, evoking one of the very best episodes, Bernie Clifton’s Dressing Room – did anyone else smile at Steve’s reprise of Tears Of Laughter at the end?
It turned out that all the horror, the twists and the turns aside, the real drama is two best friends arguing, Steve feeling trapped, Reece feeling betrayed. They went meta in feature film The League Of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, which featured the characters from Royston Vasey breaking into the real world, killing Jeremy Dyson (as played by Michael Sheen) and trying to bargain with their creators to write more.
Perhaps fittingly, Plodding On was the opposite. Shearsmith and Pemberton have kept the quality of writing incredibly high throughout the show’s run – lots of fans will have grinned at the “There’s a twist”, “Has it been seeded?” exchange – and they’re ending it on their terms at the height of its popularity
Of course, there’s still the West End play Stage/Fright to come in early 2025, and the beauty of Inside No 9 is that it could return at any point in any format, television or film. But if this is to be the final ever episode, it was a wonderful way to sign off.
