The Cutprice Guignol

As far as I’m concerned, Nana’s Party is one of the episodes of Inside No. 9.

Not just because it’s great, though it is. But because it sums up so perfectly what I think this show does uniquely well – this mix of horror, drama, banality, and comedy, lovingly-rendered and perfectly-performed, is something that only Pemberton and Shearsmith, through the lens of Inside No. 9, could do. There are other episodes of the show that could, feasibly, fit amongst the roster of another anthology, but Nana’s Party could only belong to Inside No. 9.

It’s another entry into one of my favourite sub-genres of the show, The Weirdest Shit You’ve Ever Seen Happen in a Suburban Semi-Detached – last season’s Last Gasp was the opener to this bizarre little nightmare-in-miniature setting, but Nana’s Party perfects the formula. The premise is pretty much entirely in the title – a family gathers to celebrate the birthday of their elder relative, and soon, some uncomfortable truths start rising to the surface.

Nana’s Party is a really subversive episode, in the ways that it taps into what would normally be comedy set-ups (the person hiding beneath the cake, the drunken, dancing aunt, the porn VHS disguised as a Countdown tape) and shifts the perspective slightly to turn them into something more sinister. While the episode starts off feeling like a classic sitcom storyline, the way these plots play out give it the feel of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Middle Class Edition – everything is just slightly off, everything out of whack in a way you can’t entirely put your finger on. The tension between all the characters imbues the episode with a sense of unease from the start, and it’s one that only grows as the story unfolds.

This episode is, pretty much, the social equivalent of a Final Destination movie. Every second is dripping with hideous possibility of how everything could go wrong in the most explosive way possible. Carol (Lorraine Ashbourne, who you I will bully you into watching in Alma’s Not Normal if it’s the last thing I do) is probably the most obvious ticking time bomb, as the alcoholic sister to Angela (Claire Skinner) who shares a complicated physical relationship with Angela’s husband (Pemberton). It’s an unsettlingly apt performance, one that speaks to Ashbourne’s command of her craft, and one that’s probably a little too familiar to plenty of people out there (myself included), the way she starts to spin out and lose herself as the pressure and the alcohol take control.

One of the things that makes this episode such a standout for me is how much it rewards a rewatch – once you have an idea of how these relationships between family members actually work, every interaction is imbued with a whole heap of meaning that wasn’t there before. Shearsmith’s performance, especially, benefits from this perspective – whereas Pat, at first, seems like a moderately obnoxious bloke, the kind who would describe himself as “a bit of a cheeky chappy”, the slow unravelling of the truth behind his marriage to Carol and how the affair has impacted him lends him an air of tragedy that the comedy is just a cover for.

I have no doubt I could write at least a post-graduate thesis on this episode alone – the familial relationships, the setting, the story, the characters, the performances, the influences, all of it. Nana’s Party is still an all-timer for me in the annals of Inside No. 9, but I’d love to hear what you think of it – let me know in the comments (and, if you happen to have that Countdown VHS tape you mentioned the other day, well, we can chat about that later, alright?).

If you liked this article and want to see more stuff like it, please check out the rest of my Inside No. 9 reviews. I’d also love it if you would check out my horrible short story collection, and, if you’d like to support my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon!

(header image via BBC)