PSYCHOVILLE

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith are two of the greatest creatives alive today and no, I am not being dramatic. If you don’t know who these guys are, let me briefly introduce them to you in this blog post. If you need no introduction to them, you can skip this blog post and watch this great interview, where they talk about their work, inspiration and process. Oh! And I also share a pretty cool podcast at the end of the post, if you’re interested. So, without further ado, let’s get inside the minds of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith.

Still reading? Good. Pemberton and Shearsmith are well known for being two out of the four creative minds behind “The League of Gentlemen” (1999-2017), which they also starred in. The other two minds behind the show were Mark Gatiss who, among many other accomplishments, you might know for co-creating “Sherlock” (2010-2017) with Steven Moffat and also starring in it. Gatiss also wrote for and acted in “Doctor Who” (2005-2017). The last gentleman of the league (see what I did there?) was Jeremy Dyson (who also co-wrote and co-directed one of my favorite ghost films, “Ghost Stories” (Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, 2017). Pemberton and Shearsmith then went on to create and star in “Psychoville” (2009-2011). If you haven’t watched those shows, you should. Fair warning, both series include dark, British humor and might not be for everyone. It’s still great to see the range these gentlemen have, because it’s incredible.

Their latest show (and my personal favorite) is “Inside No. 9” (2014-?). They have written every script, acted in every single episode and even directed a few. And let me not be dramatic again by saying, this is one of the best shows in TV right now. Each episode in the series is a stand-alone story that, very appropriately, happens inside a number 9 building, house, room, spaceship… you name it. OK, there is no spaceship episode. Yet.

The series’ premise allows Pemberton and Shearsmith to really stretch their writing and acting muscles. They dabble in different genres: comedy, drama, horror, thriller… you name it, they’ve done it. Not only that, the show also allows them to play with different formats: there’s a silent episode, an episode where the dialogues are all in iambic pentameter, an episode recorded in CCTV cameras, an episode where the information is revealed in reverse “a la” “Memento” (Christopher Nolan, 2000) and last but not least, a very meta live episode.

You’d think that with all these experiments, there’s bound to be a crappy episode. There isn’t, honest. You might enjoy a story more or less, but they’re all impeccable examples of storytelling. I am in awe of what these two gentlemen have accomplished with this show, because it’s simply brilliant. To me, every single episode is a masterclass in writing. Watch an episode, any episode. Go on, I’ll wait.

You done? Didn’t you have fun? It was great, right? Ok, now do me a favor. Grab your notebook and re-watch it. Take notes. Notice how good they are in defining their characters? In establishing the relationships between them? Look at how precise they are in the withholding information and the slow delivery of it. Check out the impeccable structure. In a sense, they are really classical in their storytelling. But they know the modern audience so well that even in their classical storytelling they are able to surprise us in the end. All their episodes are incredibly satisfying. No line or scene is gratuitous. Everything is where it needs to be.

I say this because although I don’t talk about them in my blog, I do see many shows and films I dislike. Without name-dropping, I’m watching a show where I’m getting incredibly long monologues of exposition not only for stuff I don’t know (which is lazy storytelling, but you know: “whatever”), but sometimes I get exposition of STUFF I’VE ALREADY WATCHED. I had to watch a 10 minute dialogue scene where two characters discussed stuff the audience has known for 3 episodes. I was so incredibly frustrating I had to re-watch a couple of “Inside No. 9” to cleanse my palate. It worked. It always works.

All this to say that Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton (I changed their name order there for once to make Reece happy) are greatly inspiring creatives and that you should check them out. I just found about this while preparing this post, and I find it worth mentioning. For the latest season of the show, there’s a podcast that delves into the making of each episode. The podcast is called “Inside Inside No. 9”. There are spoilers for each episode, so please watch the series before listening to the podcast.

Finally, I don’t think you can talk about “Inside No. 9” and not mention your favorite episodes. I decided to list my two favorite episodes per season resulting in my Top 10 favorite episodes of the show.

Season 1: “A Quiet Night In”, “Tom & Gerri”
Season 2: “The 12 Days of Christine”, “Cold Comfort”
Season 3: “The Bill”, “The Riddle of the Sphinx”
Season 4: “Zanzibar”, “Bernie Clifton’s Dressing Room”
Season 5: “Dead Line” (This was actually the live episode in between series but it’s listed in IMDB as 5×0), “The Stakeout”.

I hope you guys enjoy their work as much as I do. And I hope you learn as much from their writing as I have. I’m just happy to share the work of creatives I admire and who help motivate me to keep doing what I love. Until next time, keep learning and keep doing the work.