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The true story of how an encounter on the set of League of Gentlemen inspired this week鈥檚 episode of Inside No. 9

Lauren O'Neill

“We were in the lovely town of Hadfield filming The League of Gentlemen,” Steve Pemberton remembers on this week’s instalment of Inside Inside No. 9, the podcast where he and co-creator Reece Shearsmith discuss the making of their comedy-horror anthology series Inside No. 9. “We were shown into this person’s front room. And unbeknownst to us, there was a lady in a dressing gown sitting in this room. We hadn’t really noticed her. And she just looked over at us, and went: ‘It’s my birthday today. I’m having a glass of Champagne.’”

鈥淲e were shown into this person鈥檚 front room. And unbeknownst to us, there was a lady in a dressing gown sitting in this room"

“It was a rather unusual situation,” Shearsmith says. “But it stayed with us all these years.”

The meeting stuck with the pair so much that it is replicated at the beginning of Hurry Up and Wait, the latest episode of Inside No. 9. The instalment takes place on a caravan park where a big budget crime drama is being filmed, exploring a concept that Pemberton and Shearsmith had been interested in developing since Inside No. 9’s third season.

When TV crews film on location, they frequently pay local householders in exchange for the use of their homes as holding areas for actors. In Hurry Up and Wait, we find Shearsmith’s James – a bit part player in the cop drama – introduced into a caravan occupied by Oona (Pauline McLynn), Stan (Pemberton), and their daughter Bev (Donna Preston, resplendent in aforementioned dressing gown). Inside No. 9’s signature claustrophobia ensues, as James starts to believe he is uncovering a terrible secret about the family.

“The comedy with the awkwardness and the silences is what we were going for with this ep,” Shearsmith recalls on Inside Inside No. 9. Matt Lipsey, who directed Hurry Up and Wait, details how this was achieved: “The sound design is very subtle but it’s very good. If you listen to it on headphones you can hear the soundscape that’s going on outside of the caravan, that comes into its own in those silences, creating what’s supposed to be moorland outside the caravans. It’s almost like another character in the piece, the silence,” he says.

鈥淭he sound design is very subtle but it鈥檚 very good. If you listen to it on headphones you can hear the soundscape that鈥檚 going on outside of the caravan"

“The budget dictated that this couldn’t be built in a proper studio,” Lipsey adds, recounting the filming process. “We were going to have to be in a real caravan, therefore the camera’s going to be in there with you, but that’s kind of the point. It’s inherent in the script: this poor character that Reece is playing is trapped.”

Though the part was not originally written for Dunbar in particular, Pemberton and Shearsmith were delighted he agreed to take part, considering his best known role in Line of Duty. “He is someone you can imagine heading up a big ITV drama like this,” says Pemberton, explaining their choice.

Dunbar’s casting makes for a loving send up of the crime drama genre (“[The episode] becomes its own thriller when James thinks he’s uncovered this horror,” says Shearsmith), and both Shearsmith and Pemberton believe that while “Hurry Up and Wait” doesn’t compromise on the sinister or the uncanny, it is the comic high point of Series 6. “For us this is the funniest episode in this whole series,” Pemberton says. High praise indeed.