For maybe the first time in eight series creators and stars Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have slightly missed a trick with an episode of Inside No 9. They ran a Christmassy one at Christmas, a Halloweeny one at Halloween. It's a shame they couldn't run this one, in which Reece Shearsmith plays a man who has an irrational fear of Friday the 13th – Paraskevidekatriaphobia – on a Friday the 13th.
But, hey, schedules are schedules and this current run goes out on Thursdays. I guess you can always skip it and watch it on iPlayer on the next Friday the 13th, but the wait might be too much – the next one isn't until October.
After last week's mix of East End gangsters amd necromancy the tone here could not be more different. Suburban salaryman Gareth Beckman decides to take the day off work and shut himself in the house to avoid anything bad happening. Of course, by trying to avoid something bad happening he triggers a series of bad events happening before you can say watch out for that black cat and don't smash that mirror.
It's dark and nerve-shredding but also very funny, with Shearsmith at times channeling the spirit of Norman Wisdom as he gets into some knockabout business with a ladder that belongs to handyman Barry Styles, played by Steve Pemberton. There's also an echo of Rowan Atkinson in Man Vs Bee as things spiral nightmarishly out of control.
Also appearing are Amanda Abbington and Samantha Spiro. Amanda Abbington (not to be confused with her lookalike Katherine Parkinson, who was in the first-ever Inside No 9, Sardines) has also just played Reece's wife in the stage hit The Unfriend so they clearly have good chemistry together, even though their roles here are very different.
Anyway, as always, to avoid spoilers we won't go into further details even though this is a review - maybe you are going to wait until October 13th to watch it. So here is what the BBC press information says about the episode, which is even less than usual...
"Gareth is definitely going to be working from home today. Just to be on the safe side. He doesn’t want to push his luck. Because today just happens to be Friday the 13th."
Inside No 9, Paraskevidekatriaphobia, Thursday, May 4, 10pm, BBC2.
Picture: BBC/James Stack
