The popular black comedy Inside No 9 is coming to an end after the stars and writers of the show have finished filming — rather fittingly — series number 9.
But even with that announcement comes a twist typical of the show itself. For Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, who also co-created and co-wrote The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville, have announced they are going to "pause" the programme, rather than press the "stop" button.
Pemberton, 55, told The Sun: "We feel it is a good time to pause Inside No. 9 after we finish filming Series 9 next year." He added: "We're not saying it's over for good. After all, The League Of Gentlemen came back, but we won't be looking to make any more episodes for the time being."
The news shocked many fans of the show, but the man behind the Twitter account InsideNo9Tweets reminded them: "Before you get too depressed about the ‘Pause’ on Inside No 9, please remember you still have two more series and a Christmas special on the way."
Both the eighth and ninth series of the comedy anthology have yet to be aired and were commissioned by the BBC in June. According to the British Comedy Guide website, Series 8 has been filmed ready for broadcast in 2023, and Series 9 is being written and will be going into production next year.
The eighth series begins next week, with a festive ghost story titled The Bones Of St. Nicholas. Starring Pemberton and Shearsmith, it includes guest appearances from Simon Callow and Shobna Gulati and will be broadcast on BBC Two on December 22 at 9pm.
Shearsmith and Pemberton have occasionally hinted that they may be considering putting together an Inside No. 9 show for the theatre. Promoting series 7, they stated: "We have flirted with the idea of doing a play and now we are moving into the heavy petting stage."
Pemberton added: "I think a stage play is good because the episodes are in many ways little theatre pieces. They started off life in our minds as plays and there is no reason why we couldn't transfer them."
For the uninitiated, Inside No 9 features half-hour self-contained stories, each with a new setting, new characters and a new storyline, with little or no reference to previous shows. They all star Pemberton or Shearsmith — often both — but each episode has a new cast, which gives the writers the opportunity to invite celebrity actors to take part.
The only perceivable link is the number 9 itself, sometimes in the form of a door marked with the number, and a brass hare statue that appears in the background of all episodes. Pemberton and Shearsmith are said to have taken inspiration for the programme from an episode of Psychoville that was filmed in a single room, something that was in turn inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope.
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