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Reece Shearsmith

Date of birth: 27-08-1969

Hull-born Reece Shearsmith is a quarter of The League Of Gentlemen alongside Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Jeremy Dyson (who writes, but does not perform)

They net at Bretton Hall drama school in their late teens, and began performing a sketch show at London’s Cockpit Theatre in 1995, soon afterwards landing a residency at the Canal Café pub theatre, which compelled them to create new material at a fast pace.

In 1997 they won the Perrier, and their subsequent radio series On the Town with The League of Gentlemen, set in the fictional town of Spent, won a Sony Award.

In 1999 the League moved to television – and Royston Vasey – with subsequent series in 2000 (including a typically sinister Christnmas special) and 2002; plus a feature-length film, The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, in 2005.

On stage, they toured large regional theatres in 2000, had a six-week run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in spring 2003, and toured a pantomime-themed show The League of Gentlemen Are Behind You in 2005.

Outside of the League, Shearsmith played the insane villain Tony in the Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer comedy Catterick; Robot-Wars obsessed TA soldier Dexter in Spaced; and neurotic Dr Flynn in BBC Two hospital sitcom TLC.

On the West End, he appeared in Art in 2003, alongside his League Of Gentlemen costars, in As You Like It at the Wyndhams in 2005, and in The Producers as Leo Bloom in 2006.

Inside No 9: Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Spoiler-free review of tonight's episode

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton can be forgiven for a little bit of showing off in titling their latest Inside No 9 Paraskevidekatriaphobia – the fear of Friday the 13th – though this episode, for the most part, is a (relatively) conventional farce. And certainly of a much lighter tone than last week’s tense and occasionally gruesome affair.

Shearsmith is in fine neurotic form as the uber-superstitious Gareth, who plans on spending the whole ominous day holed up at home alone, taking no chances. But his personal sanctuary is soon invaded by the over-chatty postwoman (Samantha Spiro) who needs a signature for a parcel… as well as a pee.

Inviting herself into this No 9 sets in motion a ridiculous train of events which triggers just about every harbinger of bad luck you could think of – and maybe one or two you couldn’t – from black cats to spilled salt to a very improbable appearance of a ladder poor, nervous Gareth really doesn’t want to pass under.

Everyone, with thanks to director George Kane, keeps this increasingly preposterous state of affairs just about credible, while Gareth’s increasing anxiety levels are almost palpable.

We could probably have seen him suffer even more, but before matters start straining the credibility, Gareth’s wife Dana (Amanda Abbington, who was also married to Shearsmith in Steven Moffat’s West End comedy The Unfriend) returns home with a perfectly rational explanation for everything.

This reveal doesn’t quite have the flourish of the writers’ finest twists, and leads to scenes that require probably a greater suspension of disbelief than the risible misadventures of the first half. But it features a surprisingly chilling moment, as well as allowing for an exaggerated comic parody of a world Shearsmith and Pemberton know well, even if the mockery runs along stereotypical lines.

And it wouldn’t be an Inside No 9 if there wasn’t one last surprise, too…

• Inside No 9: Paraskevidekatriaphobia is on iPlayer now.

Published: 4 May 2023

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