Warning - review below is for people who have seen the episode as it does contain a spoiler.
A lot of fans of Inside No 9 have developed an overwhelming tendency to play spot-the-twist and post quickly on social media to show off as soon as they've spotted it. I didn't look at Twitter during the broadcast of Love Is A Stranger but I flicked it on as soon as the credits rolled and my feed was drowning in people saying that they knew how it would end the moment it started. Even if it was one of the more obvious turnarounds this did not take away from it being one of the most powerful, touching episodes in recent runs.
Claire Rushbrook played Vicky, a middle-aged single woman dipping her toes into the online speed dating world. Much of the episode felt like one that could have been filmed during lockdown. Vicky was alone in her flat and one by one the other cast members appeared on her screen as possible dates.
First up was Mathew Horne as Edgar, a decidedly greasy landscape gardener who seemed more interested in himself than any of Vicky's anecdotes about being a former care worker who now worked in a charity shop. The episode opened with a news report about a 'lonely hearts killer'. It surely couldn't be Horne's nasty narcissist though could it? Way too obvious.
Reece Shearsmith then popped up as Norman, a balding, bumptious old duffer who had a list of itemised questions to work through. Not so much a speed date as a clipboard interrogation from a rather officious accountant. He was way too comic to be a killer. Or was that the twist...
Frances Barber, who recently appeared onstage with Reece Shearsmith in The Unfriend, popped up and played Lesley, a character who certainly seemed to have a motive for being there online that wasn;t about dates...
Steve Pemberton played Manny, a far more amiable character. Too amiable it seemed as he and Vicky compared notes about previous dates and started to have a rapport. Until, that is, his wife appeared onscreen and threatened Vicky with violence for chatting up her husband.
Asim Chaudhry's character Jai seemed to be hiding his face behind a mouse emoji. Had his daughter really been messing with his settings or was there something more creepy going on here? Vicky gradually opened up more about her own elderly mother who maybe had had dementia before she died and the two of them seemed to hit it off. Asim did have something to hide, but it wasn't what we thought. Could this turn into a real date in the flesh?
Rushbrook's performance was outstanding. A thirty-minute comedy doesn't give the greatest scope for a dramatic performance but it can be done. Take Alan Bennett's Talking Heads for example. The writing has to be exemplary though and not waste a word, and it was here. Rushbrook gave Vicky humanity and pathos and we felt for her throughout the programme. Not the funniest or the most chilling instalment but one that certainly left its mark. Interestingly it's the second episode in this run, after The Bones of St Nicholas, that has reminded me of a certain Nicholas Roeg film.
Watch episodes on iPlayer here.
