The Cutprice Guignol

You know that a show is really getting confident when they start coming for Shakespeare, you know what I mean?

And that’s exactly what the first episode of the fourth season of Inside No. 9, Zanzibar, sets out to do. And not in the way that season one episode The Understudy used Macbeth as a thematic backdrop for its story, but rather, by creating a modern Shakespearean farce, written entirely in iambic pentameter (which, if you’re not acquainted with it, this article goes into useful detail on!).

The episode, set in a single corridor of the hotel Zanzibar, follows a collection of overlapping storylines and characters – the truly brilliant Rory Kinnear plays a pair of twins, unknowingly separated at birth, one of whom is trying to rekindle the romance with his long-time partner (Hattie Morahan), the other who…uh, hires a sex worker to piss on him. Meanwhile, the twins’ father (Bill Paterson, Scottish TV royalty) is trying to find a spare minute to off himself, and Robert (Pemberton) tries to manage his forgetful mother (Marcia Warren) as she struggles to remember her room.

And, look, let’s be honest – this episode is a great big show-off. To write a half-hour comedy-drama entirely in iambic pentameter, fill it with such an extraordinarily brilliant cast, and actually pull it off? There’s no other way to describe it. Choosing such a specific and potentially restrictive style and not only managing to tell a coherent story within it would be an achievement enough, but what I really love about Zanzibar is that it is not just Shakespearean by definition by using the writer’s most famous technique, but in spirit, too.

And the spirit of Zanzibar is a gleefully silly comedy-of-errors that captures the absurdist sense of escalation that populates so many of Shakespeare’s best comedies. It’s got the unabashed raunch, the misunderstandings, that slow build to an inevitable end that, of course, rounds it all out in a wedding (well, the promise of one, at least, via an engagement). It takes that playful sense of silliness that serves as the starting point for these stories, and runs with it, updating it in an accessible way that still feels true to the source. And all of that is topped off by the fantastic Jaygann Ayeh as Fred, the porter who serves as the narrator for the episode’s runtime – a witty, winking and wildly fun purveyor of asides who manages to lace together these absurdly complex stories into a cohesive whole.

Zanzibar’s an exceptionally fun episode of Inside No. 9, a chance for Pemberton and Shearsmith to play with form and style within the bounds of their own anthology. A show-off start to the fourth season, it’s the perfect way to get things moving – just as long as you can remember which damn room you’re meant to be staying in.

Brief note: if you’re a fan of another one of the greats of modern British TV, Wolf Hall, you should check out my reviews of the just-started second season right here!

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 British Comedy Guide)