Inside No. 9 Stage Fright: Theatre Review

Inside No. 9 Stage Fright is the stage version of the popular TV show, Inside No. 9. It’s an interesting show – clever in some ways, but confusing and unfocussed. Here’s my Inside No. 9 Stage Fright theatre review.

Overview of Inside No. 9 Stage Fright

Inside No. 9 Stage Fright is stage version of the popular BBC TV show called Inside No. 9. The stage show is written by the same people who wrote the TV show, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. The two writers appear in the stage show like they do in the TV show. It’s an interesting show…in both good and bad ways. My Inside No. 9 Stage Fright theatre review is definitely very mixed. The show is clever and memorable, but confusing.

Do I need to watch the TV show to watch Inside No. 9 Stage Fright?

You don’t need to have seen the TV show of Inside No. 9 to be able to see the stage version. Much of the stage version is a separate story, so you don’t need any insider knowledge. In the same way that the TV show is an anthology show that doesn’t have recurring characters, the stage show is its own story and production. It might help you understand Inside No. 9 Stage Fright if you have some awareness of the TV show and the style of writing and humour. But in general, you don’t need to have seen much or any of the TV show to be able to watch Inside No. 9 Stage Fright.

The plot of Inside No. 9 Stage Fright

At the end of the play, the actors do ask the audience now to publish spoilers on social media. But it’s very difficult to write a review of Inside No. 9 Stage Fright without giving away some spoilers. My Inside No. 9 Stage Fright theatre review will talk about the plot and the twist ending. So if you want the show to be a surprise, be warned!

But if you want to know more about the show before going to see it, or if you’ve already seen the show and want to read more about it, then read on. I found the show quite confusing, so I’m going to do my best to explain what I think happened. So if you’re recently seen Inside No. 9 Stage Fright and you’re feeling equally confused, then hopefully my Inside No. 9 Stage Fright theatre review will help you understand the show a bit more. Let me know in the comments what you thought of this show!

Plot synopsis of Inside No. 9 Stage Fright

Act 1

The audience at a theatre performance

Inside No. 9 Stage Fright starts with a theatre audience at performance of Hamlet. Audience members become annoying, with loud talking, eating, mobile phones going off etc. One audience member becomes increasingly annoyed with the disruptive antics of the others. And one by one, he kills the other three audience members.

I think this was a fairly short, stand-alone comedic sketch – I don’t think this scene had much relation to the rest of the show. There was just one part that maybe linked to a later theme – I’ll mention that later.

The writers address the audience

The show then cuts to the two main actors and writers, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. The two are stood in front of the curtain, addressing the audience. They explain a ghost story about the theatre. Apparently, over a hundred years ago, an actress was accidentally killed on the theatre stage in a performance of Macbeth. The theatre ghost story is that the ghost of this actress now haunts the theatre, and a lamp need to always stay lit to appease the ghost.

This ghost story and story about the lamp is important – it’s a theme that comes up again several times during the show.

Cheese and Crackers scene

The show then jumps to another scene. The next scene is about ‘Cheese and Crackers’. If you’re familiar with the TV series Inside No. 9, then this scene will be well-known to you. This scene is an exact replica of one of the TV episodes.

It’s set in an old house/warehouse. And it’s a comedy sketch scene about two older men reminiscing about the good old days, when they used to be comedians in the 1980s called ‘Cheese and Crackers’ performing on stage. The duo re-create a few of their old comedy sketches. One of them is enthusiastic about bringing back the good old days. But the other feels like the magic has gone.

The kidnapping scene

Inside No. 9 Stage Fright then jumps to another scene, the kidnapping scene. I couldn’t work out whether this kidnapping scene was meant to be linked to the Cheese and Crackers scene or not. I think it maybe was linked. The idea was, I think, that the kidnapping scene was one of Cheese and Crackers’s old comedy sketches. So the main two people in the kidnapping scene were actually the Cheese and Crackers actors. But the link was very ambiguous. The kidnapping scene mostly felt like another stand-alone scene.

In the kidnapping scene, two men (possibly Cheese and Crackers, or possibly characters that were played by Cheese and Crackers, or maybe just two random unrelated men) have kidnapped someone. Their characters reminded my of Horace and Jasper in 101 Dalmatians. They’re a bit incompetent and amusing, and they’re on the phone to the person who has ordered them to do the kidnapping.

There’s a big reveal of the man who has been kidnapped. And it turns out to be a guest celebrity Dara O’Brien. The rest of the scene is a bit confusing. In some ways, it felt a bit improvised. It felt like Dara O’Brien was maybe improvising the scene. But other bits felt rehearsed. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to appear improvised or not. After some (possibly improvised) dialogue, the incompetent kidnappers accidentally shoot and kill their subject.

Back to Cheese and Crackers

The show then jumps, yet again, to another scene. But this time we’re back to the Cheese and Crackers story. They continue what they were doing before, with their rehearsal for their comeback show. But then we learn that their double-act fell apart because one of them became an alcoholic.

Then there’s a twist. Cheese’s daughter arrives for the funeral. We discover that Cheese was actually dead the whole time. The whole scene was Crackers imagining that his friend was there with him, but actually he’s about to go to the funeral.

The link back to the ghost story

At the end of Act 1, there’s a slight link back to the ghost story that was introduced at the beginning of the show. When we discover that the whole Cheese and Crackers scene was imaginary and that Cheese was actually dead the whole time, a lamp flickers. It links back to the ghost story, where the lamp appeases the ghosts of people who died in the theatre. And Act 1 ends with a jump-scare where we briefly see the ghost of the actress who died in the theatre while playing Macbeth.

Act 2

Act 2 is all the same scene. It doesn’t jump between different scenes and sketches like the first half of the show does. Act 2 is set in a doctor’s surgery. All of the characters are different to the ones from the first half. The scene that lasts the whole duration of Act 2 doesn’t have any relation to Act 1 of the show, apart from the theme of the ghost story.

The crazy doctor

In the doctor’s surgery scene, a woman goes in for treatment for headaches and issues with sleep-walking. But then we find out that the doctor is crazy. The crazy doctor uses hypnotising to make another patient cut off his own leg.

The crazy doctor then notices that the woman is wearing the ring that used to belong to his wife. We find out that the crazy doctor killed his wife, so he suspects that the woman knows that. Just as the crazy doctor is about to operate on the woman, someone yells ‘cut’ – and we see that it was all just a rehearsal for a play.

Backstage at the play

The director gives notes to the cast, and we see the cast members as themselves. We learn that the woman playing the main character isn’t a serious actress and instead is a pop star. And the female usher working on the play wants to replace her in the play.

The ghost in the theatre

They go back to rehearsing their play. They use live-action camera in their show, to give close up views of the actors’ faces that the audience can see on a big screen. The female usher holds the camera to film the pop star. But the female usher notices something spooky in the background of the camera shot. The pop star goes backstage with the live camera to investigate. So we see footage of her backstage on a big screen on stage. After several minutes of suspense, we see the ghost of the theatre – and a severed head drops onto the stage. The pop star woman is scared off by the ghost.

But then there’s another twist. The female usher comes back onto the stage, and it’s revealed that she was pretending to be the ghost of the theatre to scare off the pop star woman. The director of the play didn’t like the pop star’s acting so wanted her to quit, so he asked the usher to pretend to be the ghost to scare her off. The usher expects that she’ll now get the main role in the director’s play. But the director says he doesn’t plan to hire the usher to act in the play. The usher then breaks the directors neck. She picks up the camera and turns it to view herself, and we see a scary face with a jump scare.

It seems like the show now ends, with the characters coming onto the stage for their bows.

Another twist

But then there’s another twist. After some bows and clapping, the actors on stage address the audience again. And it is revealed that one of the actors in the doctor’s surgery play, who we all thought was Reece Shearsmith, wasn’t actually Reece. It was actually an actor called Toby, who was playing Reece Shearsmith’s characters. So throughout the whole show (including Act 1), we’ve been watching Toby instead of Reece. Because Reece had actually died.

Note: it actually was the actor called Reece Shearsmith who was in the show the whole time. There was something about Toby replacing Reece in the Hamlet scene at the beginning, and so the audience was meant to believe that for the whole show, we thought we’d been watching Reece but actually it had been Toby because Reece was dead. I found this part very confusing, and I’m still not sure I understand it.

The actual ending

The actors show a dedication to Reece, who had died. The curtain closes, and we see a silhouette of a lamp falling on Steve Pemberton’s head. So Steve is now also dead.

Reece enters, and Steve and Reece establish that they are both now dead, and are both now ghosts. They sing a song, which was in the original Cheese and Crackers story in the TV show.

Inside No. 9 Stage Fright ends with the reveal that Reece and Steve are now angels who live on Cloud 9.

What I liked about Inside No. 9 Stage Fright

I found Inside No. 9 Stage Fright confusing. I’ll say more about that later. But there were still elements that I enjoyed.

The first scene of disruptive theatre audience members

The first scene, where the theatre audience member kills the others when they are being disruptive, was fairly amusing. It worked well in a theatre. I’m sure most theatre-goers will have experienced annoying and disruptive audience members at some performances, so it was amusing to see this portrayed on stage with one person’s extreme reaction to the disturbance…

The Act 2 story and ghostly suspense

I preferred the Act 2 to the first half. I liked that Act 2 followed the same story for the whole time, and kept adding to the twists. There were a lot of twists in this section, from the first twist where we find out that the scene is actually a play, to the twist about the theatre ghost actually being the usher, and then the twist that one of the actors was actually dead. These twists were all good and (mostly) made sense. When watching the second half, you quickly learned not to take anything you were seeing at face value, and keep looking for clues about what the next twist could be.

I liked the use of the live camera in the second half of the show as well. I thought the scene where the pop star takes the live camera backstage was really good. There was lots of suspense and a tense atmosphere, as we were waiting to see something ghostly but didn’t know when that moment would come. It was a good portrayal of a ghost story, and worked well on stage. I like ghostly theatre shows, where you’re sat on the edge of your seat and things make you jump, and this section of Inside No. 9 Stage Fright did it well.

The humour and comedy

Some of the humour in the show was good, and there were a lot of moments when the audience was laughing. I found some of Cheese and Crackers’ old sketches funny, and there were funny moments in the kidnapping scene and also the doctor’s surgery scene. If I’m honest, I didn’t find that I was laughing out loud for much of the show. I was expecting it to be funnier. But a lot of the audience was laughing, so maybe it just wasn’t my style of humour. I still appreciate the humour and comedy in Inside No. 9 Stage Fright.

The unexpected twists

I also liked some, or even most, of the unexpected twists. I’ll say more later about some of these twists and how well they worked – as sometimes they didn’t. But in general, I liked seeing a show that had lots of unexpected twists. I like the feeling of being constantly a bit on edge, and not being sure if what you’re watching is really happening or if it’s actually something else. A lot of the writing and the twists were very clever.

What I wasn’t so sure about

I went into the theatre show of Inside No. 9 Stage Fright not knowing at all what to expect. Before going to this theatre show, I hadn’t seen much of the TV show of Inside No. 9. And while (I think) I mostly enjoyed seeing Inside No. 9 Stage Fright, I found it really confusing. And for me, that took away from some of the enjoyment of seeing the show.

Even if I had seen the TV show, I still would have been confused. Seeing the TV show of Inside No. 9 won’t help you understand Inside No. 9 Stage Fright at all. You need to really focus on the stage show, and even then it can be confusing.

The plot – it’s too confusing and hard to enjoy the show

I’ve never written a theatre review where I feel like I need to write over 2000 words just to explain the basic plot. On the train home after being in the theatre, I was making notes about what I’d seen so I could try to understand it later. It took me hours to write out what I think is the plot synopsis – but I know I’ll have missed things, or not explained things well.

I enjoy shows that are a bit unexpected, and shows that make you think. But this show was too confusing. I felt like I wasn’t able to enjoy the show because I was simultaneously trying to figure it out in my head while watching it. I spent so much time trying to work out what was going on, that I forgot to actually watch and enjoy the show.

Confusing with too many different scenes and unclear links

I feel like Inside No. 9 Stage Fright tried a bit too hard to be different and clever, and it didn’t really work.

I found the first half of the show particularly confusing. In the first half of the show, I spent so much of the show trying to work out whether Cheese and Crackers had any link to the man who killed everyone in Hamlet, or to the kidnapping scene.

I feel like the first half jumped around different scenes too much. It wasn’t clear whether there was meant to be any link or not. I was expecting an anthology show, so at first I thought that the first half was just unrelated comedy sketches. But then it felt like maybe there should have been a link. I don’t know. Was there meant to be a link between the Hamlet scene, then the two actors addressing the audience, then Cheese and Crackers? It felt like they tried to link the Cheese and Crackers to the kidnap sketch by loosely implying the kidnap sketch was one of Cheese and Crackers old scenes. But it wasn’t much of a link and I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be linked or not.

The ghost story – inconsistently referenced

I think the theatre ghost story was the theme that tried to link together all the different parts of the show. I liked the theme of the theatre ghost story, and the idea that the theatre was haunted by someone who died on stage.

But this ghost story theme was randomly referenced through the show, not consistently. The first scene, at the Hamlet show, seemed very random and not related to the ghost story. I think the only reference in this scene to the ghost story was that Reece was replaced by Toby. But I didn’t realise that happened until the end of the show when we found out Reece had died. So for most of the show, it felt like the Hamlet scene was random.

The Cheese and Crackers scene was sort of a ghost story, because one of them was dead the whole time. But it wasn’t related to the ghost story about the theatre ghost. And the kidnapping scene also didn’t reference the theatre ghost. The doctors surgery scene in the second half picked up the theatre ghost story a bit more, which I liked.

I thought it could have worked well for the theatre ghost story theme to properly go through the show. But it felt like it was randomly forgotten about and then referenced again. And then other ghost-y themes were brought in.

Unoriginal second ghost theme

Alongside the sort-of theme of there being a theatre ghost, there was the second ghost theme in the show about thinking that someone was alive when they were actually dead. This was a theme in the Cheese and Crackers scene in Act 1, and also revealed at the end of Act 2 that we thought we’d been watching Reece but it was actually Toby because Reece was actually dead.

These ghost themes, about someone actually being dead, didn’t seem to relate to the theatre ghost story. it’s like there were two adjacent ghost stories. And the theme that someone we see in a show has actually been a ghost the whole time feels quite well-used in theatre. I’ve seen two other theatre shows in the last year that use this as the big twist – it’s not very original anymore.

A ghost theme or unrelated scenes – one of the other

I would have preferred if this show had been clearer about whether there was a uniting theme or not. In many ways, the show felt like about 5 completely unrelated stories. And that would have been fine. Comedy sketch shows work well, with a collection of sketches that are completely unrelated to each other. And Inside No. 9 Stage Fright could have done this. It could have done 4 or 5 completely different, unrelated scenes.

But the show tried to link the scenes – but only sort of. And in a really unfocussed way. If they wanted to link the sketches, then they should have been linked much more clearly, and with a more direct link. Vague references every so often to a theatre ghost or to characters actually being dead – that’s not enough for a show to make sense. It just becomes confusing for the audience to try to work out the link, if there’s meant to be a link at all.

The celebrity guest and possible improvised scenes

The kidnapping scene featuring Dara O’Brien was almost funny, but didn’t quite hit the mark. I couldn’t work out whether this part of the show was improvised or not. It sort of felt improvised, but also not. For it to be funny, the audience should know if it’s improvised or not. The audience weren’t falling off their seats laughing, in this part of the show or any parts – there were some laughs but not loads.

It was sort-of implied that they had a different celebrity there every night of the show for this scene, or at least every week of the show. It felt like a big reveal that tonight’s special guest was Dara O’Brien. But I have no idea how that would work. If you’ve been to see Inside No. 9 Stage Fright, then let me know who was the celebrity in the kidnapping scene. Write in the comments section who the celebrity guest was, so then we can work out if they have a different celebrity every week or not.

The twist ending

I found the twist ending confusing as well. And it felt more confusing than it had to be. They were trying to pretend that Reece had never been in the show from the beginning and instead it had been Toby all along because Reece is dead. But obviously Reece had been in the show – because, as the audience, we know we’d been watching Reece Shearsmith on stage in front of us for 2.5 hours. The show tried to pretend that Toby was so good at acting like Reece that we didn’t realise it wasn’t actually Reece. But that doesn’t really work. The whole audience knew it was Reece.

I think there was meant to be a link to the first scene, in the Hamlet play, where Toby leaves his seat and is replaced by Reece. So this is the moment when we’re meant to understand that Toby is actually playing Reece for the whole show. I still don’t think I understand that. It was a fairly insignificant moment in the beginning of the show, where Toby and Reece swap seats. So it doesn’t work for that to be a big clue about the twist at the end – if it’s even meant to be a clue. I don’t know.

The end twist being so confusing was a shame. It felt like it put a bit of a downer on the end of the show, because you leave the show feeling deflated that you didn’t understand the big twist. For me, it took away from the enjoyment of the show. I just didn’t feel like I could enjoy the show because I was too busy trying to work it out in my head.

Would I recommend Inside No. 9 Stage Fright

My Inside No. 9 Stage Fright theatre review is quite mixed, but overall not super positive. So I don’t know if I would recommend Inside No. 9 Stage Fright. There were some good elements. But overall I found it confusing with an unfocussed linking theme.

I was disappointed in Inside No. 9 Stage Fright. I went into the theatre with high expectations. It’s a famous and very good TV series, and it was super difficult to get tickets to the theatre show so I was expecting it to be good. But overall, it wasn’t that good. There were a few mildly amusing parts, and a few good ghost-y scenes and themes. But overall it was just confusing and not very funny and completely unfocussed in the sort-of linking theme.

When I came out the theatre, I wasn’t at all impressed. To be honest, it felt like a waste of my evening. But, one week after seeing the show and thinking back to, I’m remembering it a bit more favourably. After several hours of trying to work out the plot and the twists, I can see that it was trying to be clever. I’ve never spent this long writing a theatre review, and I’ve never written a theatre review this long. So maybe that’s a sign that the complexity of the show is a good thing, in some ways. It’s definitely got me thinking about this show long after I’ve seen it.

You definitely should go to see this show with friends so you can spend time afterwards trying to puzzle out the twists and the themes in the show. And maybe, once you’d had some time to puzzle it out and reflect and understand it, then you might appreciate the show more.

Hope you enjoyed my Inside No. 9 theatre review! Check out my other theatre reviews for more shows in the West End, across the UK and the world.