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How did Inside No 9 spring the biggest live TV surprise of the year?

Live episodes are often a painful, gimmicky exercise but Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s take on the format was one of 2018’s stand-out moments

For the first five minutes at least, it looked thoroughly generic. Arthur Flitwick (Steve Pemberton) is back from the shops. He puts a mobile phone on the kitchen table, sticks Symphonic FM on and sets about coddling an egg. The phone rings, there is some sinister but indistinct white noise, the egg explodes in the microwave and the caller rings off. Flitwick redials the last number and what appears to be some vaguely underwhelming domestic farce involving a lost phone and a confused old lady begins to ensue.

It is often said that in the age of Twitter and on-demand streaming, secrets are impossible to keep; shocks are diffuse and signposted; TV is no longer a communal experience. This autumn has presented two strong rebuttals to that idea. First, there was Jed Mercurio’s frantic drama Bodyguard. But last night, the truly audacious live special of Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s dark anthology comedy Inside No 9 went further still. You really did have to be there.

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