Once upon a time, all television was live. That era, which slowly petered out across the end of the fifties and into the sixties, has been called “broadcast theatre”, but it’s probably more accurate in terms of production methods to call it “radio with pictures”. Such live television drama, usually for the purposes of anniversary commemorations, has had a small renaissance this century, with two celebratory episodes of Coronation Street and one of EastEnders going live. In the former case, it was a nod to the series’ origins as a live programme. In the latter instance, it seemed to happen simply because the former had.
The promise of a live Halloween episode of BBC Two anthology series Inside No. 9 always promised something bigger, better and cleverer than either of the soaps had achieved. Series creators/writers/stars Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith know their television history, and they know their horror, and their series has always shown a willingness to play with form. The first series featured a silent episode, while the most recent Christmas special was shot multi-camera in long takes and straight thought in story order, a reviving of older television production methods for drama sometimes conflated with the similar “as live”, and undertaken by Graeme Harper, one of the few working directors to have shot drama in such a manner, and the only person to direct Doctor Who in two centuries.
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