Reece Shearsmith tells Richard Herring of show's pressures, of angering Putin, and of being asked to do Strictly

Inside No 9 is likely to end after its ninth series, Reece Shearsmith has said.

Asked about the anthology show’s future on the new episode of Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, co-creator said: ‘I think we'll get to nine and then we'll then we'll stop. We've got to stop!’

Earlier this year, the BBC commissioned two more seasons, up to and including the ninth.

During his conversation with Herring, Shearsmith comically exaggerated his frustration with fans’ reactions to the series.

’I am sick of it,’ he joked. ‘I am!  You all just think, "Oh when's the next one coming?"

‘Just think when you watch one, you go either "yes it’s great" or "it's shit" or whatever you mostly say. It goes away and then I am still thinking about it from the time you stopped thinking about it and said "it’s shit, it’s losing it now, well that's quite a good one though it's not as good as Christine, the Sheridan Smith one".

‘I wasn't even fucking in the Sheridan Smith one! It's the best one apparently…

‘I read a tweet  saying it'd be really good if them two weren’t in it. At least let us be in it! Nobody else would have us. I saw another tweet, "I think they should do something else now". Every week is fucking something else! What do you think is happening? I am genuinely furious about it.’

And he quipped that the shows would be better if he didn’t have to see the audience reactions, saying: ‘If I had my way I would make them and put them in the safe  and never show them to anybody,  satisfied that they exist and I did it and that's that.’

Shearsmith also revived speculation about a future Inside No 9 stage show, saying: ‘We want to do that. It's suited to it because they're all little theatrical plays really, so yeah. But we would want to make it so it's not just transposing three of the TV [episodes, but] to have reason to make it live. And clever and with a twist…

‘The ideal of course, is that we do it for a couple of weeks and then some other poor fucks actually take over and we wouldn’t have to go in trudging to town anymore. We just get the money. I don't mean that at all!’

He also spoke about how odd it was for Steve Pemberton to win the 2019 Bafta for best comedy performance for his role in  the episode Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room – when Shearsmith wasn’t even nominated. ‘[We] should have been together,’ he said.

‘[Steve] he had the comedic part but I had the harder part, and genuinely was better in it’ he joked. ‘But some people on a panel that day, naming no names – Omid Djalili! – I'd love to know [how they came to that decision]’

Shearsmith also spoke about other recent stage roles, including appearing in Steven Moffat’s new play The Unfriend earlier this year and playing Vladmir Putin in Lucy Prebble’s drama A Very Expensive Poison, about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

Of that role he revealed:  ‘We had meetings with MI5 about the seriousness of doing this play, and [they said], "Tou will all be being bugged now. So if you're going to talk to each other, make sure you use encrypted – don’t use WhatsApp."

‘I was like, "Sorry, what?" "Oh, yeah, he'll know about this." And I was like, "I'm just an actor, dear…. I’m gonna now have red flags going up somewhere in Russia. I'm gonna get got!"

‘I genuinely was frightened for the duration. There was a strict  security around the Old Vic. It was terrifying. It was all very, very frightening to do that. I did genuinely think for a few weeks afterwards I was a marked man.’

He also revealed he had been asked to take part in Strictly Come Dancing, but said: ‘I'll never, never do that. Imagine being told off by them cunts. I couldn't stand it!’

• Listen to Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast here.

Published: 14 Sep 2022