Reece Shearsmith is at his best when the frightened man gets as much attention as the clever plot. We recommend his work with Steve Pemberton for its cruelty, comic precision and unexpected tenderness.
Fi1m perspective
In Inside No. 9 (2014), Reece Shearsmith often plays men too pleased with themselves or too frightened to say what they mean. He makes both worth watching. His acting belongs to the same uncomfortable comedy as his writing with Steve Pemberton: people expose themselves while trying to preserve their dignity.
The League of Gentlemen (1999) gave that approach a whole town to work on. Shearsmith, Pemberton and Mark Gatiss play nearly everyone in the fictional northern Royston Vasey, with Jeremy Dyson also writing. The first two series repeat familiar beats too often, and some of the jokes were already tired. Yet we found the town frightening even when the routines became predictable: its shopkeepers kill visitors.
The third series, in 2002, is the decisive turn: six plotted half-hours follow individual characters through the same week. The quieter, colder approach produces the strongest work under the League name. Psychoville (2009), co-created with Pemberton, carries that interest in plotting into a continuing mystery. Inside No. 9 then gives them a fresh story every half-hour, and remains the best thing they have made together.
The guest actors are crucial to making those new stories matter. In the opener of Inside No. 9, Timothy West plays a man in a wardrobe whose dignity makes the scene work as drama. Shearsmith and Pemberton can be cruel without making everyone disposable. The weaker episodes arrange their people chiefly to reach a final shot, and we stop worrying about them.
The films offer only a partial introduction: he plays Patrick Troughton in the Gatiss-written An Adventure in Space and Time (2013), and Nathan Steele in Ben Wheatley's High-Rise (2015). We would not start with either role when the writing is such a large part of his appeal. Begin with the opening episode of Inside No. 9, and resist looking up what happens.
Biography
Reece Shearsmith is a British actor, comedian and writer. Born on 27 August 1969 in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, he attended Andrew Marvell High School and Bretton Hall College of Education, where he met Mark Gatiss and Steve Pemberton.
Shearsmith was a member of The League of Gentlemen, alongside Pemberton, Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson. The group began as a stage act in 1995, moved to radio in 1997 and to television in 1999, winning a British Academy Television Award, a Royal Television Society Award and the Golden Rose of Montreux. With Pemberton, he created, wrote and starred in the sitcom Psychoville and the anthology series Inside No. 9.
He appeared as Dexter in two episodes of the series Spaced (1999). Other credits include roles in Shaun of the Dead (2004), The World's End (2013) and Saltburn (2023).
