{"id":147145,"date":"2025-09-16T03:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/147145\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T03:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:06:07","slug":"theres-magic-blood-and-gore-reece-shearsmith-and-steve-pemberton-on-touring-inside-no-9-and-being-megastars-in-china-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/147145\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018There\u2019s magic, blood and gore!\u2019 Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton on touring Inside No 9 \u2013 and being megastars in China | Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do you make a shopping centre in Woking spooky? I bow before Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton\u2019s many career achievements: Perrier award-winners, makers of successive hit TV series, not to mention megastars (as I shall soon discover) in China. But can they convince us that there are old ghosts haunting the 90s-built New Victoria theatre, located in a shopping mall? Such is the challenge faced by the Inside No 9<\/a> duo as they take their hit show-of-the-series<\/a> on tour. \u201cWe made it very much about the ghosts of Wyndham\u2019s theatre,\u201d says Shearsmith of the show\u2019s West End run. \u201cNow we have to change it so that every place we\u2019re in, that\u2019s where there\u2019s a legend of bloody Belle, and that\u2019s where she haunts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the tour, that may mean the 100-year-old Liverpool Empire or Edinburgh Playhouse: no problem. Or it might be the rather fresher Marlowe in Canterbury or Milton Keynes theatre, which opened in another shopping precinct in 1999. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t lend itself to a legend,\u201d admits Shearsmith<\/a>, chatting over lunch at a London rehearsal room. \u201cSo we are amending the phraseology to make it sound older than it is. We\u2019ll say \u2018a quarter of a century\u2019 rather than \u201825 years ago\u2019. One sounds recent and the other sounds old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grotesques \u2026 as Edward and Tubbs in The League of Gentlemen. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc\/Alamy<\/p>\n

None of this was anticipated when the pair created Inside No 9: Stage\/Fright earlier this year. \u201cWe never intended it to tour,\u201d says Pemberton. Nor did they take it for granted that a stage show based on their 10-year anthology series would necessarily fly. That seems bizarre to me: the avalanche of praise for Inside No 9 since its final series makes the success of a live outing feel nailed on. But its creators made no assumptions. The TV show\u2019s popularity \u201ccrept up\u201d, says Pemberton. \u201cThere were times when people used to go \u2018Any more League of Gentlemen?\u2019\u201d \u2013 their cult sketch show that ran from 1999 to 2002<\/a> \u2013 \u201cand we\u2019d say, \u2018Well, we\u2019re doing Inside No 9\u2019, and they\u2019d say, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve never seen it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He continues: \u201cSometimes you\u2019d feel, because it was on BBC Two at 10 o\u2019clock, you were falling into a crack, and it wasn\u2019t the show everyone was talking about. It\u2019s only when you announce something\u2019s ending that you start to feel this enormous love for it.\u201d Making the stage show reinforced the point. \u201cI remember feeling with League of Gentlemen as well,\u201d adds Shearsmith, \u201cthat you never get a sense of who\u2019s watching it, apart from your mum and dad telling you that there\u2019s someone in the post office who said, \u2018I saw your son last night.\u2019\u201d With Stage\/Fright, \u201cyou get to meet your audience at the stage door\u201d, says Pemberton, \u201cand hear what it means to them. That\u2019s been amazing. We now feel,\u201d he says, with satisfaction, \u201cthat it\u2019s been a good decade\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside No 9 was far from a surefire hit when it launched in 2014. There may have been, as Shearsmith contends, a noble tradition of anthology shows<\/a> on TV (Alfred Hitchcock Presents; Tales of the Unexpected) \u2013 but the tradition was dormant. TV orthodoxy demands recurring characters with whom audiences can build a relationship. The only constant in Inside No 9 was Shearsmith and Pemberton as stars (or cameos), and their horror-meets-comedy sensibility. And the quality and variety of their ideas \u2013 which became ever harder, says Shearsmith, to sustain.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing six new stories every series for the last 10 years, it was always, \u2018Wow, we got away with it again,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cAll we were ever thinking was, \u2018What next? Have you got any more new ideas?\u2019\u201d To the viewer, I say, it felt effortless. \u201cIt may look effortless,\u201d responds Shearsmith, \u201cbut under the surface, the swan\u2019s feet are \u2026\u201d, and then Pemberton finishes his sentence: \u201carthritic\u201d.<\/p>\n

The challenge with Stage\/Fright was to capture the spirit of the TV show \u2013 not just its laughter-meets-chills vibe, but its tonal variety. And so Stage\/Fright re-used existing Inside No 9<\/a> content (they reprise most of the series four episode Bernie Clifton\u2019s Dressing Room, about a clapped-out comedy double act), featured a celebrity guest star at each performance (Lee Mack at press night, along with Ian McKellen, David Tennant and Bob Mortimer), and also addressed the question: \u201cWhat can we do \u2013 with the bows at the end, even with the pre-show message about mobile phones \u2013 that can really play with the idea of being in a theatre?\u201d<\/p>\n

That led to the decision not to spin a purely fictional tale, but to appear \u2013 unprecedented this, for both of them \u2013 as themselves. \u201cWe were reticent about that,\u201d says Shearsmith. \u201cWe were terrified of looking indulgent in any way. But [director Simon Evans] said, \u2018No, the fact that you\u2019re there, and it\u2019s live, is a massive new thing for anybody coming to see it. People don\u2019t see you, ever: you\u2019re always hidden behind the characters in the stories.\u2019 So we put ourselves in it. It\u2019s not a fourth-wall show. We acknowledge we\u2019re all in this building together, and then things happen\u201d \u2013 spooky things, as the ghosts of each individual theatre are summoned to the stage.<\/p>\n

\u2018We were terrified of looking indulgent\u2019 \u2026 playing themselves in Stage\/Fright at Wyndhams Theatre. Photograph: Wyndhams Theatre<\/p>\n

Without ever stinting on the entertainment, this all makes for a wonderfully tricksy and destabilising show, its strands united by Shearsmith and Pemberton\u2019s palpable love for theatres and their hauntings \u2013 and for old-school entertainment, its double acts in particular. Is that a personal concern? \u201cWe never really thought of ourselves as a double act in the traditional sense,\u201d says Pemberton. \u201cWe\u2019ve sort of accidentally become one, haven\u2019t we?\u201d says Shearsmith. Their relationship isn\u2019t toxic, like Tommy and Len (AKA Cheese and Crackers) in Bernie Clifton\u2019s Dressing Room, with \u201cone always feeling stuck in a certain role\u201d, says Pemberton. \u201cWe\u2019ve always been able to change it up. We often don\u2019t know until days before we shoot who\u2019s going to play which character.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that proves,\u201d says Shearsmith, \u201cis that we\u2019re interchangeable.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as for all those theatre ghosts, that\u2019s been an obsession since at least their League of Gentlemen days, when they considered setting that show\u2019s movie spin-off in a haunted playhouse. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to be the last person to leave the theatre at night, making sure it\u2019s all closed up,\u201d says Pemberton. But is it harder frightening people on stage than on screen? Shearsmith had prior experience with that, having starred in League co-writer Jeremy Dyson\u2019s long-running stage hit Ghost Stories<\/a>. \u201cHow do you frighten people who\u2019re aware they\u2019re surrounded by lots of other people, in a theatre, who\u2019ve all been laughing together?\u201d he muses. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to switch gears like that. But they\u2019re linked, aren\u2019t they, laughter and fear? Playing with that is fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a technical feat on stage. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of special effects,\u201d says Shearsmith, \u201ca lot of magic, gore and blood. Timing is everything: there\u2019s a ballet of stage hands and crew working in tandem with what we\u2019re doing.\u201d But it works: I teetered on the edge of my seat for the entirety of Stage\/Fright \u2013 and you might too if you catch it on its tour. Its creators are delighted to be bringing it to their home patches of Hull and Manchester in particular. \u201cIf you\u2019re a fan of a thing and it turns up in your town,\u201d says Shearsmith, \u201cyou can\u2019t believe it. I used to go to Hull New Theatre<\/a> and once saw Peter Davison from the telly in some play, and couldn\u2019t believe he was right there. It\u2019s great!\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Shanghai Grand there\u2019s an Inside No 9 experience. It\u2019s like walking into our minds<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unlikely, mind you, that the good burghers of Hull and Manchester will be as excited as the Chinese, who \u2013 as surprising as anything in Inside No 9, this \u2013 turn out to be obsessive fans of the series. \u201cThey\u2019ve got their own live show of it that\u2019s been running for two years now,\u201d reports Shearsmith. \u201cWe went to Shanghai last year to see it. We got to the fifth floor of the Shanghai Grand, which is massive, and there\u2019s a whole interactive Inside No 9 experience. It\u2019s like walking into our minds. The show is far bigger there, and we were massive,\u201d he says, a 56-year-old man bewildered to be treated like a pop star. \u201cWe had security, people trying to grab us \u2013 it was mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are no plans, as yet, to tour Stage\/Fright to the Middle Kingdom \u2013 but then, the Inside No 9 boys have no plans at all right now. \u201cWe don\u2019t have next year set up,\u201d says Pemberton. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time in a decade we don\u2019t have anything at all that\u2019s definite. We\u2019ve just been rolling along with Inside No 9 for the last 10 years.\u201d This tour lets them roll along with it for a few months more, soaking up the love. And then? \u201cWho knows? And that\u2019s scary, but it\u2019s freeing as well,\u201d says Pemberton. \u201cWe\u2019re used to the feeling of, \u2018Oh God, what are we going to do now?\u2019 \u2013 because that\u2019s what writing Inside No 9 has felt like all along.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside No 9: Stage\/Fright is touring to 6 December<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do you make a shopping centre in Woking spooky? I bow before Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-147145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}