Contextual Research - Inside No.9

Inside No.9

Contextual Research - TV Drama

Inside No.9 is a British dark comedy-drama, written and directed by Steve Pemberton and Recce Shearsmith. The show follows a procedural format, each episode linked by only one thing - the main location being a No.9 (i.e a No.9 house, or room). The episodes stretch across genres, but retain a similar style of dark humour, usually with a significant twist at the end of the story. Each individual episode is a brilliant story on its own, combining a blend of comedy with deep, dark horror to create an individual style of writing. In order to contextualise the series, I will be looking at 2 episodes in particular, Sardines and A Quiet Night In.

Sardines

Sardines, taking its names after the game, takes place in an extremely enclosed space. This is perhaps challenging in terms of writing, as hardly any action takes place - leaving the whole story to completely rely on its characters and the interactions between them. 

Sardines' twist ending

The story is also effective as we are introduced to characters one by one, gradually becoming more and more crowded within the small cupboard; and accelerating the narrative's pace. As the increased number of characters begin to clash, they are distracted from more important events - not noticing that one of the missing members of their part is not who they though he was. This therefore acts as a crescendo to a dramatic twist ending.

One of the things I admire in Shearsmith and Pemberton's work (especially in this series) is the ability to create such in depth characters and relationships between them that the audience is gripped to a story with minimal action. Gripped so much in fact, that the final scene has a very powerful shock factor - after watching it myself, I was pretty taken aback.

Character work within my own script

Within my own work, my story is somewhat similar as it focuses on the themes of death and entrapment, with little action and more of an emphasis on conflict between characters. I have looked at this series pretty closely for character work in general, as it harbours such a wide range and variety of personalities from different backgrounds, periods and situations. I aimed to make the characters in my script, Adam and Eve, seem somewhat realistic in an improbable scenario.

A Quiet Night In

In contrast to Sardines, A Quiet Night In is essentially completely silent (apart from a few small lines of dialogue), and therefore relies quite heavily on action and screen directions. For example:

However, this lack of dialogue actually proves to be extremely effective in practice, as the camera is used as an effective tool to assist the action in telling the story:

Constant cutaways to facial expression - before the audience even knows
Eddie is allergic, the audience knows something is wrong.

Low angle of large dog - emphasises its size and significance as a threat to the robbery.

The written script for the dog scene

The importance of camera is vital in any story, but in this episode it works particularly well as from the beginning the audience automatically roots for the burglars not to get caught - constantly suspending them. The fact that there is no verbal explanation to what is happening forces the audience to glue themselves to their screens, making for attentive watching.

In the format of screenwriting, the stage directions may be extensive, but the wording is straightforward and minimal. This adheres to advice given in my tutorials with both Steve and Simon, who when reading through my script both told me to cut down my wording, focusing on:

1. Only writing about what can be seen in the frame (i.e. no "assumes" / what the character is thinking)
2. No waffley words, keep it straightforward

This advice has therefore helped me in my final script edit, helping me to both simplify my directions and make space for more progressive content such as character development through dialogue.

Final Thoughts

When deciding what episodes in particular to look at as part of contextualising this series, I chose these two episodes, Sardines and A Quiet Night In in particular as they are both polar opposites of one another. Sardines contains multiple characters in a small space, relying on character and dialogue to progress its story. A Quiet Night In, on the other hand, has a minimal cast in a big house, with minimal dialogue - relying on physical action to progress its narrative. By choosing these, I could not only look at different aspects of film-making, but also look at camera and dialogue / character individually. Furthermore, I feel these 2 episodes properly represent the series as a whole - depicting its trademark dark comedic aspect, unique format and enriched character work.