Reece Shearsmith

Every day, thousands of films and TV shows sit unwatched, forgotten crime dramas, niche sci-fi, and 70s kids TV series about dead Victorian children. But for just a few pounds a month, you can help support Dave Lawrence to continue his charity shop DVD purchases. Without your help, these discs may never be properly cataloged, or worse, used as improvised scarecrow devices. Some of them don't even have cases. By becoming a SCARED club member, you'll receive an extra episode every fortnight. Add free listening and access to our members forum, where people like Dave can finally be understood. You're not just supporting a podcast, you're preserving a way of life. To join, follow the link in the episode description. Now, enjoy the episode. And please, think of the DVDs. Thank you. Hi, I'm Andy Bush. Welcome along to another episode of SCARED FOR LIFE, a journey into the dark dystopian pop culture of the 1970s, 80s, and beyond. I'm joined as ever by Steve Brotherston and David Lawrence, co-authors of the scariest hell SCARED FOR LIFE books go get them now. Every week we speak into a special guest who will be bringing with them three horrific childhood memories of something that has literally terrified them since childhood. Before we say hello to this week's guest, we've got a hell of a guest for you. Very quickly, let's just look at one of your scars, a less than a scar you guys have got in touch with stuff that's freaked you out when you were kids. Hi to Lee Rand, who's got in touch, contact at SCARED FOR LIFE books.com. It's just guys, the Enchanted Castle, 1979 production from the most spine-chilling organization, the BBC. I was four when this was shown, and it has haunted me ever since. The Ugly Wugglies. Here's an extract from Wikipedia, Guy Forkstar Dummies that they made to swell the audience numbers at one of their play performances come to life, horrible actors with terrifying masks on. Thanks BBC. Love the books and the podcast guys. Thank you very much. Thank you Lee. That's it. You guys got any memories of the Ugly Wugglies at all, either you two? Yes. Actually Enchanted Castle is actually horrible because these Ugly Wugglies have brought to life. And the thing that scares me the most is the kids, because the kids lure the Ugly Wugglies out into the garden, into like a crypt and entomb them forever in the crypt. Bloody hell. Yeah, so the scariest thing is not going to be all this, it's the children. Amazing. Well, we love hearing your scars, do keep getting in touch with those they're brilliant. But our next guest, let's get them on, is an award-winning actor, writer, producer, director and magician. His much-fetted career began with the groundbreaking League of Gentleman, which won a British Academy of Television Awards, a Royal Television Society Award, and the Golden Rose of Montreux. He's also appeared in shows as diverse as Dr. Who, Peter K's car share and the great British Bake Off. He's no stranger to stage in film appearing in horror films such as "A Field in England" and "Bowly Rectory". Alan Stage had leading roles in the producers, absent friends and many more. As a writer, he co-created "Inside Number 9" and "Psychoville". I'm out of many talents who could be, we could be here all day with this, so let's just introduce the very talented Rhys Shearsmith and say welcome to "Skared For Life". Shearsmith, it's a real honour to welcome you to "Skared For Life". And the thing that we just can't get over, staring on this video chat as we are, is what an amazing loft or attic you have. Have you ever been complimented on the attic before Rhys? I have, I have had for people comment on it, yeah, it is a sort of my safe space where I creep into and all my horrors are all tucked away up here behind the door. The door is actually a bookshelf. So once I'm in, it looks like I've gone and then you can't get in and you press a button and then the door opens so I can get away from it. Wow! I found it. It's amazing. Panic room. This is a panic, it's like an elaborate panic room. But with all nice things, well all mine, I think they're nice, but yeah, some people might think they're all a bit strange. No, no, it's amazing, I mean, just talk us through some of the things we can see in the background. I've always wondered this when someone like yourself is in TV and film, do you allow to kind of take mementos of things? I've sort of lots of things from productions over the years, this little items and some massive things. There's a huge head right there which you can't see from Psychoville, which was a big Mr. Punchhead. There's the little Mr. Punchhead on there. That's better to go see, that's slappy, peeping out from behind these zigzag lady. That is the homunculus from the League of Gentleman, which I've captured. And there's fat from the film Magic, Anthony Hopkins, Modern, all of Magic tricks. That's a painting that Mark did that was on the Demeter when he did Dami's Dracula. And it's a Christopher Lee. And then we've got Christopher Lee, Peter Kushner, Vincent Price up there as well as Houdini. So lots of-- Amazing. Yeah. And Dave, how are you doing next? Obviously, one of the first episodes we did, Dave shared his quite triggering fear of ventriloquist dummies. And there's quite a few in short as we can see there. I, yes, I'm quite disturbed by the Anthony Hopkins story from Magic, yeah, I'll be honest. Although, I don't think it looks quite as evil as Mr. Powell and she is. Yeah. We've got here, this is one of the-- Oh, no. That's much, that's much worse. That is much worse. This is how we all ran clip from the first League of Gentleman tool that we did. Wow. We had it, and she was in a singing and dancing routine. I can't-- She's at the highlight. It's like cat's eyes, it's horrible. It's like Rosie and Jim, the kids TV show, on horribly wrong. Yeah, exactly. Both of you, Jim, inspired very much so, yeah. So, Reece, have you always been drawn to the unusual, even from a young age, would you say? Yes, I think I was safe to say that I was amongst the kid as John Lannis would call me. You know, like a lot of us was inside reading a grand and poems to even King Rall whilst with the curtains drawn whilst everyone was playing outside, my mom and dad would come and say, they're all knocking for you, can I have a sign and play, and I'm like, no. So I was often to be found, you know, making-- I mean, strange early forays into Mike Flanagan territory, making the removable floorboards from the Telltale House and putting a body underneath it when I was about 10. Wow. I think about that. I wrote Stephen King and he wrote that to me, he was just about to write Christie, but he was very nice. He was very encouraging about, because I said, I'd done a while, I wrote, I don't know what I said to him, but yeah, he'd told me he was writing one about a haunted park and that transpired to be Christie. So, it's amazing to get a little postcard from a man that I thought, how could he possibly, with this brief moment in time, he, you know, he took time out of his day to write back to me and it was very moving, it was great. And I got Peter Cushing wrote to me, Christopher Lee wrote to me. So I actually met Christopher, I couldn't believe it, so that was a real, you know, pinch yourself, going to lunch with Christopher Lee at the behest of John Landis, who is now my friend. I mean, you'd never leave this life that I've cut into, you know, it's an amazing, privileged position that I've got to meet a lot of people that I admired, and my life now is really emulating and trying to dig into the things that used to scare me and I, and our telly is all the stuff that we loved, not hopefully not ripped off, but certainly, you know, inspired by, and I think we did, we tried to make the same kind of telly and that's, it's, it's great. And I do sort of pinch myself every day that I'm still living an adult life, but really I'm still completely immersed, as you can see, in being 15. And then if you're in the business of, of scaring, like you are, is it harder to be scared yourself when you, when you kind of think you're approaching it from almost a professional angle, or say what they've done, they're like what they've done there, that's a unique mechanism. Does it, is it harder to scare you now that you used to be, Reese? I think, I've certainly got more screenage. I don't, I, I watched them talk to me through my fingers either way, and I went to see it, and it was like, it's so horrible, and saw films, and so, a lot of the tortured type of films I can't bear watching really, that, you know, they might be good, and a lot of fright fest, they cheer all the go, but I, I'm sort of like, I don't like really to see it now, but to scare people, yes, I mean, I'm fascinated by the mechanics of horror films, and how they work, and how, certain things, will work, and how things are overused, I went to see the, excess the new one, and I thought it was fine, but it did, it suffered from being a collection of so many things that we've seen so many times before, and it, it was like, I admired the fact that it was sort of trying to do the same again, and it had that feeling of the original, and the editing, and the savage editing of some of the moments, but I just thought it, it suffers from the fact that we've seen it so many times, and yet, of course, many horror films, run the middle horror films and made up of your classic nuts and bolts, jumpscares, which you sort of see coming along, I love, but they sort of work in a way, and they surprise you, I'm always fascinated by when something new comes along, and for whatever reason, I'm always fascinated by what comes along, and for whatever reason, I'm always fascinated by what comes along, and for whatever reason, and it makes my skin crawl out, it does make me jump, and I think what's done that? What is it about the way that's been filmed that's so creepy? And there were a few things like that in the new, the recent "Condering" films that were very well put together, some of them, you know, and it was I think the second country when the first sighting of the nun comes along from down the corridor. It was a really first encounter with her, and I think again, and that comes from that David Lynch thing of things being far away, and you can't make quite make out what it is in the shadows, and the sound in that had a lot to do with it as well. But yeah, it's interesting when you're in a horror type situation filming one, because it's not scary, and when I took over Andy and I know you've had on the podcast, doing ghost stories, I was terrified watching that, and then I was in, okay, his part was Mr Goodman for three months in the West End, and he was like, he wasn't scary anymore, he was sort of the being backstage of it, seeing the running of it was great, but it was a lovely thing to be at the helm of the scares, but suddenly I didn't suddenly feel that spell had been broken because I was looking behind the curtain. I think scares for me are mostly psychological. I watched a film once, I can't remember which one it was, it was absolutely terrifying, up to the point where you saw the monster, saw the ghost, whatever it was, and I think the psychology of horror works on me far better than, for example, good, I don't think good is anything for me, it's like a sex scene, it's like I don't need that bit, I could just, I could have the psychology of it up to that point then, just yeah, cut away, cut away, I think psychology is far more important, so it's the anticipation of the scare that's more scary than the jump itself, the jump itself just annoys me. Right, yeah, and yeah, I get what you mean, I mean, it does some of the more deeply disturbing books that I've read of Stephen King, for example, like "Pet Cemetery" is such a horrible, and the shining fact is the original book of the shining, so it's moving, and it's horrible because there's peril with the main character and the psychology of what they're really about, with "Pet Cemetery" being about a study of grief, really, of when the boy dies, it's horrible, and then when, and Jack Torrent's tussling with this demon that is, is alcoholism, and the manifestation of that through the hotel, and how that becomes this big monster that takes over him, and the tragedy of the book of the shining is that you really get the sense that it's not Jack Torrent's at all that's doing it, it is the overlook, and it's the this, the ghosts of that that are overtaking him, and so it's, it's tragic, I remember the ending when he's smashing his own head in, and the overlooks about to blow because he's forgotten to turn off the boiler, and you get, and, and I think that he writes that there's a glimpse back of Jack in there, and it's heartbreaking because you think, yes, he's not him, it's not just, he's gone mad, which is a little bit what people's criticism of the film of the shining is that Jack Nicholson is mad for the start, but he's great, and I love the film, and I wouldn't ever take away from what that looks good about that depiction of it, I know Stephen King didn't like it, but both work, and I think, yeah, the psychology of getting into the character and feeling for the character, and then having things happen to that character, where it begins to matter, doesn't it, and then the stakes are raised and you care, and then as soon as you care, you're invested, and the whole story will come to life and work. That was the thing that we've just been talking about, the whole go versus psychological versus making you skin crawl, think about horror, and I've been obsessed with horror since there's about three, and I went through every phase. In my teenage years, I was a teenager slapping in the video nasty era, so it was all about going through me, and now I'm like, "You're a Reese, I can't stand it." I watched Midsummer over two nights, because there's a scene in it, an image in it that knocked me sick to the point where I switched it off, and thought, "I've got to come back to this time," and just watch Michael Bentay's potty team time, something to take the taste out of me now, but it's the little things, it's the psychology. I know this got, it's a film that was already divisive at the time, was the first paranormal activity, and loads of younger people are new, because I used to work in Forbidden Planet, lots of the customers said it was just boring, rubbish, where's the scares? There's a scene in it where a door opens by itself, and I remember clutching like the chair I was in, because that can happen. But Freddy Krueger's never going to happen to me, so I should have been scared of Freddy Krueger, so it's the thing that I remember watching the League of Gentlemen for the first time with an ex-girlfriend of mine in 1999. She loved it, we both loved it, but I got something else out of it that she didn't. I've watched the first episode and thought, "These guys grew up with Amicus, these guys grew up with Shiver and Shaken, once the fun, these guys grew up with public information films, and I just felt like it was the same childhood that I did, that you did, which obviously now we know you had." So it's the first thing I remember seeing, that tapped into what we now call this Godful Life era. Yeah, absolutely, we drew on so much of it, and it is all our collective childhoods, and yours, undoubtedly, and it was just all that stuff that was taken for granted, when we grew up, and it was all so dark, and so matter of fact is what I think that's the thing, it was mundane, and it wasn't gothic, and yeah, that's why all that, you know, the TV and the Hammer House, as we were always so more an amicus, actually, than Hammer, because Hammer was gothic and sort of want to remove, because it was in castles, and you know, we didn't, but then the housing states that a lot of Hammer House horror weren't worried on in Great Listening places, it felt very real, and that's why, you know, Stephen King always talks about the ghost in the radiator being far more scary than the monster in the castle or whatever it might be, because it's, glazed, could happen. Your house is where things get you, which is why a lot of the times, a home invasion story films and stories are horrible, because that absolutely tapped into that worst fear. Yeah, I remember Andy Nyman, there were the first bits of ghost stories he talked about what actually scares you as the professor Goodman, and he says he's deaf and dying, but it's also that creek in the middle of the night on the stairs, and it's the fact, and I've always wanted to write to me about just sitting in the bed, and when you're in the bed and thinking to someone's in the house, and you can't get more frightened than that, it's absolutely terrifying, and that feeling of, as a kid having that, I wanted to scurrying to the moment dad's bedroom and just wake them up and just say, will he check downstairs at her noise? Never more scared than that. I mean, most horror films, let's face it, I don't think you're ever that scared, so when one actually does work, it's extraordinary, it's a brilliant sort of thrilling feeling, but also terrifying because you rarely have it, so when actually something doesn't know of you, it's a really unsettling, as it's meant to be, but it's more unsettling because it never normal happens, I think. So something that does that is so cherished, I think. You have a superb talent for playing unsettling characters, Reese, what do you think that is? Where does that come from? And can you kind of define what it is that makes you so good at portraying characters like that? Were you not quite sure? You know, I don't know, I mean, I think I've often, I mean, some of the comedic ones I've played have often, the comedy engine of them is that they are very angry all the time. I play it that the disorder of resoften that I'm really angry, I'm not really, that's not that's another act really. The truth is, I am very content with my life and I'm very happy, but it's always funny in things to turn up the diet of being disproportionately rageful, and I've done that a lot on my characters as well, and I think, and then sometimes that I want to play more sinister characters than it's the, it's the lecture stillness and that sort of detached switched offness that can sometimes settle, and, or the unpredictability of a person. There was never, I mean, one of the scarlet lives choices that I dismissed, and that's because I know one knows this person, but it was the PE teacher, the terrifying, unpredictable nature of the, and we all had to teach to probably that was sort of on the one hand, you didn't know what you were going to get, you were like psychotic, it'd be great, and friend, your friend, and lovely, and then other days, a different person, and terrifying for it, and it's like, you're on absolute eggshells, because you thought, what, which one am I going to get? And that feeling at school was also another one of these things that just, as in the modern parlance is triggering. What you're going to be like, is terrifying to think, I'm going to be on the receiving end of it, and the betrayal of when the teachers liked you, or you thought you got on with a certain teacher, and then they're really horrible to you one day. So wounding and terrifying hurt, I thought, because you think, I thought, you liked me, I was on in the good books, but then all bets are off, of course, and they probably did it to us all, I don't think you're my friend, I'm not your friend. Keep your on your toes. I mean, another previous guest, Jeremy Dyson, was just telling us how League of Gentlemen was such a democratic process, and how well you guys all worked together. I mean, it did sound like, you know, I interview a lot of bands and so on with the radio show, and they always have kind of fallen out in the end, or one of them turns into a big head and doesn't want the others involved anymore. But you guys have kind of, I don't know, you've kind of navigated through this relationship and such success without anyone falling out or anyone trying to start their own band to use that kind of phrase, Jeremy. Yeah. I think we did because it was going all right. I think had it been failing or we were finding it harder, it wasn't working out and we weren't getting anywhere, it would have been more fractious maybe, but because it was every step of the way, it was like, oh, this is where we went to Edinburgh and we did the shows and I remember being sort of, I don't ever, I don't feel that we had a master plan but we were all wanted to do it and we enjoyed doing it. I don't think we thought ahead to the next 10 years that it would take of our lives where we would go to Edinburgh and we would get a radio show and then we would do a TV show. It was just each step of the way we were in it doing it and enjoying doing it and it was working and people that weren't our friends came to see it and Edinburgh and that was like a validation of us, actually it being funny in its own right and not just polite friends coming again and again. And we were very careful, I think, we still were four of us submitting writing to make sure that everyone got a bit of it. Everyone had to have a quarter of Royston-Vasey and we all had to have a share of that collective world. So because there weren't what felt like quite a lot of us and it was, the hardest part of the believe really was the day sitting down with all the material and going, right, how do we pull it all together and make the story? Of course, there wasn't really a story, it was just collective sketches that we had an overarching thing that made it feel like you were flitting around a town. But yeah, we were overly careful, I think, to not upset 'cause it's nothing, you can't play, you can't feel funny if there's any awkward feeling in the room. So it was to be absolutely actively avoided to nurture it and be very careful about that. - I mean, League of Gentlemen, hugely successful. - Insight number nine has taken that to the next level. Is it nine series so far? How many series have you guys done on Insight number nine? - We've done eight series and we've just, we are just now in the start of pre-production for the ninth and final series. So we thought we would get to nine and then, I mean, we thought we'd do one and we never knew it would get constantly recommissioned and yet I have another 10 years of my life taking up doing this one thing. So it's not one, by the end we'll have done 55 different stories. - Does that make it harder to write because you've explored so many different areas and ways of doing it? 'Cause it's very versatile. You try different stuff and do different things. It must be, the ground must be harder to find new avenues these days. - Yeah. What do you think? Of course. (laughing) - Absolutely. - Never stayed to your point. - You're a new, using a lifetime of ideas. 'Cause we know, they're not some bolts of each accent what they draw on and what they do and the sort of mechanics of the twists and everything and the storytelling. So it does get hard to think genuinely, have we done that before and done it better for elsewhere? If we come up with an idea, we think that's quite good. And then we're going to do it like that one. We've done it already, really. So the bar as far as we being creators of it and not wanting to repeat ourselves, which we've always tried to not do is hard, yeah. So yeah, we're gonna get to nine. It's only nine this the end of this year and the start of next year and that will be, I think, it for inside number nine. But, you know, it was a long run at an anthology series where we're in a world where they don't do 'em. So we were so delighted that they wanted to bring such a thing back into the world. - Okay, what do you think is the scariest episode that you guys have done on inside number nine? My personal favorite, Sardines and 12 Days of Christine. What would you say is the scariest one of the lot? - That's hard, I think, I think some people found cold comfort quite scary and that was interesting 'cause that was the one in the help line, which was all the single, the cameras, the fixed cameras. And we was like, boom, meeting and you could see various cameras fixed and they were, what was scary was the sort of leaning in that way where you're watching found footage or watch this ghost appear and you're watching on YouTube, this clip and thing. When is it coming? I can't see anything. What am I meant to see? What am I looking at? And they dreaded an anticipation of just looking at a screen like the pattern on the activities that are just nothing, nothing, nothing. And then this ador will open or the bedsheets will get pulled back. It's that leaning in waiting for the scare, which is like a reverse engineering of a jump scare in a way because the playing field is so mundane and flat. And I think that was what was great about that first paranormal activity, really felt like you were in the real world. But that was a scary one, I think. Some of the darker ones that 10 people have picked up on have been the more mundane, again, not the gothic ones. We've done ones like that, harrowing, which was set with me and Helen Macquarie's weird vampiric brother and sister. And that was very gothic and it felt like a monster in a way. And it was more over ghost-trainy horror. But then we've done more psychological nasty ones, like the one that we did call to have it to hold where Steve was had a woman in the basement. And it was really horrible because it was very ordinary and dreary. Like it appeared to be about a dreary marriage. And yet all the while, you have this terrible dark secret literally underneath the house. And that was a very dark one. And I don't know whether it was scary. It was sort of scary when you knew the reality of him being such a cold reptilian monster. But yeah, the thunder has been exploring and been allowed to so many different types of storytelling, storytelling, and how to tell a story on telly. We've used the medium of television as much as we could without ever hoping, I hope, that we haven't felt like it's gimmick of the week. We wanted to always wanted to do it with the intention, the reason behind it being a valid reason. When we did this silent episode in series One and Quiet Night in, we were robbing the house. So it was like a silent comedy, but it was a reason why we weren't talking. So it was like the valid reason within it to allow the mechanics of the story to work. Hello, I'm Woody from Bastille. Hello, I'm Pears from the Boxer Rebellion. We're here to tell you about a way days with Woody and Pears, the football podcast that puts fandom first. Each week, we chat to a celebrity football fan to delve deep into the unique experiences of supporting their team high with a way. We've had an amazing guest so far this series from Lloyd Griffith, chatting about ships and grimsby. Fat boys Slim and the Porter-Kamming boardrooms at Brighton. And Helen Chamberlain's massive sea goals at Turkey. Other previous guests include Muse, Jeff Norcott, the 1975 and Pete Donaldson from the football ramble. So search for a way days with Woody and Pears now wherever you get your podcasts. I was going to say the great thing I love about Inside Number 9 and Black Mirror is that I grew up in the golden age of the great British anthology. We were swamped with them. It was obviously tells you to be unexpected and how my heart was a horror, thriller, armchair, thriller, shadows of fear, one of the forgotten ones, which is just stunning. - Tonight gallery. - And I thought, night gallery, yeah. - Right scorpion tail. - I thought, yeah, there's so many of them. I thought, when inside, Black Mirror became big, but when Inside Number 9 exploded the way it did for BBC Two, I thought the way things tend to work is another channel, another kind of streaming service, whatever, wants their own little slice of the pie. But it feels more like you guys in Charlie Brooker have just left to your own devices. But the anthology show never came back and I was kind of quite sad about that because I understand you need new sets, new castes. - Yeah. - You've got to write a whole new story. But I do miss those. - Absolutely. - Completing one episode of things. - It's strange that there isn't more of them out. I think it's because it's hard. They're hard to do good ones. Part of the fun of it is that you wouldn't want it to be accused of it if you're the writer of it, but they're hit and misnature of what appeals to you week in week out, and that, you don't know what you're gonna get. It's like a bag of rebels. And this, I met up with Charlie and we had a meal and it was like a support group for people that were right anthologies now. We just know how hard it was. - Anthologists anonymous. - Yes, yeah. I mean, right, it was like it was what war stories about how hard it is to do. But maybe that's why it is, when I guess if you've got teams and teams of writers, you've got that's one way of getting through it. But it's just been me and Steven Arun for 10 years doing all these stories and apps, given it totally a thing because that's, and we're in them of course, and that gives it a continuity. But I think we are proud of it. And the very fact that we've got this far in with, and I don't think that, I mean, there'll be people that say they should have stopped at series two or, but we're still very happy with the amount of invention that we're still injecting into them. And I think that we would have stopped it. We thought, no, we really can't keep it up, you know. So, but the opportunity is love letters. Each week have a clean slate. It's that's the tyranny of course, because you then left with, how do you do it again the next week. But one of the good things about it is you can have these great highs and people can die in these extraordinary endings. In the world of six half hours about the same thing, everything has to reset of course. And you at bat square one, you can't really have these huge main characters dying on these things twisting on the heads or whatever. So, you know, I think if we then, if we ever do anything else after this, which I hope we will, it'll be an interesting exercise to do longer stories. telling because we've done 28 and a half minutes for 10 years so it'll be it'd be nice to try to flex our muscles and do something that you know is on a bit longer in the way it tells this story and a bit more like a big narrative you know we did Recyker though that was really a reaction to doing the leak for so many years it was sketches and then we thought let's do an ongoing story and that was what that was and then we went back to play for today it's really that's what the the number nine's up so one more quick question before we get to your scars Reese in terms of the way you and Steve Wright do you do meet up at a service station and and chat or do you meet at a cafe or is it all emailing how do you guys write together we have a little office in nearby like five minutes from each of us in Muswell Hill in North London and we go there and we write nine to five and sometimes we buy two o'clock and can't think of sick of it and we just think it's not working today let's forget it so and we've done that for right for Cycleville it's been we've added for years this at least very front room nothing in it just a table and Steve's laptop on it and we'll there's not even a kettle in it he's so playing bloody hell and we'll go out for lunch or off into the same place and sometimes things will happen in during the lunch that we will think could that be a number nine and sometimes things have happened and they have transpired and have made their way after lots of talking into a storyline but there is that's the key I think a lot of talking we really will have read something or something about you know Steve will literally one day was walking to the office and he saw a shoe a black shoe on the floor and he he brought me back out the office to go and look at it and so look at how weirdly I was just placed on the floor like that was the story behind that and then we thought it could that be a story and we began just talking and made it into a story and other times we'll have a great what we think is a good ending and think how do we get there what could that be other times we've got a great ending and as we get there we think that's becoming too obvious and then we've got to change it so we're always trying to work out just the best intriguing story and now how what you think you're watching ends up not what you're watching and every few minutes you're sort of you're leaning into it because it's taking you on a journey that you never thought you were going to go on it and just to try and keep you hooked so much telly is it's just on in the background and you just don't care and you're going to make a sandwich and come back and they'll tell you what's happened in the last five minutes because they'll be a recap because that's what telly's like and we just want for you you're required to stay and watch it and spend a bit more attention on our things and that's not for everyone you know where I'm not saying old telly should be like that but ours is and I really like it that they did a study and they showed us it about people on Twitter while style program was on most programs in fact they put them in the corner at a hashtag talk about our program whilst it's on and hours it flat-bind whilst they watched it and then the end it spiked and they all went back on it so they were watching it imagine that I'm actually watching it talking about talking about some of them like we used to do exactly yeah so we were very proud of that we thought we grabbed the attention in this world where you simply can't and it's not geared up to anymore you know we've talked a few years back I'm having a special chair in theater where you tweet from it mean what world we are oh god oh god absolutely terrible well um let's let's get down to it then Reese this podcast works in that you bring three things with you that have scardy for life uh could we please get your first scar Reese yes well I mean god so hard to do isn't it was so many can I tell you some of the ones I dismissed yes please do so yeah here's some that never made it something ever made it mr. blobby's feet it sounds like a bandit I know mr. mr. blobby on now's house party had the most horrible dirty mucky black beat and that that absolutely scarred me for life and the other one was um mr. Frank Spencer's neighbor in some others do have him he had a name I went and looked so it was it was called it was played by Glyn Edwards and he was mr. Lewis from from a many years in and it was Mr. Spencer and his rage against Frank you've absolutely killed me it was like again it was that school teacher thing of oh please don't tell him off please don't tell him off so whenever he was getting into these stripes this man would be his absolute blood boiling maybe it's where I got my characters from but that being on the receiving end of it you I blood one cold so there you are there were two of that I didn't pick but my first one in no particular order is I was always a big fan of two rocks and um one night on the two rocks on his and it's not phantom raspberry blower which of course was brilliance but um there was um one of their musical numbers it came on yeah I think they did a very sketchy isn't in the last bit and it was it was swinging Todd but it was teeny Todd it was called teeny Todd and and um Ronnie Corva was swiney but he was called teeny because it was little and he had like shock of ginger hair and um Ronnie Barker was Mrs. Love it in drag and it was the most grizzly thing I've ever seen I was just remember watching this thing I loved it because I was all into horror and it was all it began with like bats and um missed um but then it became really really horrible because it was he was the cutting of the throats was like to put it it was unlike poor pussy literally cutting throats and going down this trapdoor into the making the pies and it was the the whole story but done with it to Ronnie's doing it I learned from a barber called Slacker he paved with high speed and a lear first lesson was what's this you raise huh the second was where's that very yeah it was such a strange thing and then I remember it absolutely locking you know it was burned into my memory and then I remember waiting however long it was for a repeat because of course this is before you could record anything and it came on again I meant it must have been a year or two later when it was on the repeat of this series and it went on and on a week after week I was thinking this definitely used the series that's got Teeny Todd in it and he got to the point where it was there was only one left and I thought this has to be it and he got to the point where it should have been Teeny Todd and it was a top of the pops skit that they did and they swapped it out obviously too grizzly fatally and I've never seen it say wow wow it's not like you can't find it on you you know normally 30 seconds if you can't remember anything look on youtube you'll you'll have the answer you'll see it again after maybe 20 seconds of looking this I can't find it did you think the did in the key to the scare with this Reese's you know sometimes when you have people we just talking about trusting and never know where you are with the teacher and they might turn or whatever like having someone that you you used to for comedy or japes suddenly turning it's good I mentioned when Matthew Kelly from stars in the rise did he was a it was a murderer in a in a drama and he was it was terrifying because he used to him being tonight Matthew I'm going to be and then the next thing you know he was this kind of old killer and it's like something about maybe when you go from which which is something that inside number nine everything that you guys do works brilliantly is that kind of fine balance between comedic and really unsettling and you don't know where you are with something yeah yeah I mean it's it pushes all the buttons of all the things that in that in the sort of ingredients of the things we do now is is the forefront with the fact that we've you know we do it was a comedy horror sketch really but what was very surprising about it was how grizzly it was how gory it was and how sinister Ronnie Corber especially was with his shock of hair and his white face to face just doing a horror thing and it was like yes this is I shouldn't be seeing it I love that he's doing it but he's also really hard watch so that's my is it on the deep it's on the DVDs you think so I've got the entire ceiling DVD I'm gonna find it instantly Dave I'm gonna get a DVD so I'm gonna watch every single one Dave if you find that there must be a way of ripping the things yeah if you can yeah I've got make it into a fine love to be amazing be traumatized all over again Reese yeah I was going to ask you actually what you know obviously part of what you you know big part of what you do is comedy what we talked about the kind of scary stuff that you watch him when you're growing up what comedy wise you know did you watch was in your formative years had a big effect on you well I don't know about for me I remember always admiring and liking the actor the great comedy actors like Rony Barker Rony Barker Rony coba I mean I thought coba was always very good and I loved Leonard Rossiter in rising damp and Reggie Perrin and Victoria Ward and Alan Bennett and there was a lot of the plays as well I would see and see oh they're sort of different they've they're darker and they're cut above but they resonated with me because there are a lot of northern voices in there and it bind with me as being authentic you know so and Peter Sellers huge fan of him and his uvra and the book Kubrick film wise but so I met real makes but also just all the stuff that was on it was we never had much choice did we? It was the three sides. It was low, low and high, high as well in the mix of all that. But the things I sort of would drawn to were the more sort of characterful stuff that I felt like was and the word play of some sketches as well. A lot of David Wenik's sketches that he would write for the wrongs. I used to enjoy and think, "Oh that's so clever. How's there doing that?" And I remember recording sometimes the audio of them like people did with Python. I was a bit too young for a tele-python. I knew Python from the films more, but then I went back obviously and consumed it all. But yeah, that and the goons as well. Spike Milligan. I was too young for QC, but I used to try and find those. So yeah, a lot of the traditional stuff, but yeah, mostly I think there's sort of the comedy actress because I never thought I would want, there could be an actor. I was always more into drawing an art when I was little and that was what I was going to do. But slowly over time it was the thing that I kept going back to and thinking. I eventually had the crossroads of whether it should be art or drama school and I picked Breton Hall, which is a drama degree. Because I thought, well, I can't do it. I might be able to teach it, become one of those horrible teachers that I'm talking about. So yeah, the normal sort of set of comedy people that you would see back in the day. Little in large. Yeah, I mean, you were just saying earlier on about the fact that it was on at 615 and this is running theme with the Scarred For Life books, is that there was stuff that was on when kids were watching TV back then that was absolutely terrifying. And it's kind of less so now. Do you think kids are scared enough as much as they should be these days? That's a good question. I mean, I don't know what world we're in anymore, to be honest, because you can see everything that you shouldn't ever see in, like saying, 15 seconds, you can see something that you should never have seen in your entire life. And by accident. And so the world that we inhabited, it did feel like it was harder to accidentally see terrible things. But equally, it was, it's all sort of counterbalanced by the fact that it was all just on a prime time television, all the threads and all the terrors that we were just given because we were living in the age of, you're going to be in a nuclear war any minute. Which is the way of living in the 70s and 80s was, how to tell your bodies out. I mean, you're right, I'm obviously got all this in this, but that in itself and the air-raid sirens and the fact that you're going to go out your house to get electrocuted any corner with these ballads. And it was a terrifying world we live. And I don't know whether, because I've had the grownup now, but when Mike is a little, I always remember Mark saying, because I would say, I was quite Victorian, I wouldn't let's see anything. And he said, it won't be, you can try all your life to stop them seeing horrible things, but it'll be something totally innocuous that they're left with that scars and for life. Like Mark was, it was a picture of Jesus on the cross, his eyes raised up. It was like, it was just in a church meeting. It haunted and terrifying, the one in wearing. You know, it's just, you're allowed to see it. It's a picture, it's a painting, but the haunting image of these eyes of this Jesus Christ with a blood in his hands is the thing that Mark's take away of, like, can't bear looking at it. And there's the odd little, you know, there's the odd depiction in a, in Osborne book of ghosts or somewhere where it's not even the ghostly apparition of painted. It's some other weird little thing. I was terrified of, of guests or, I call it guests, it's Jess, the talking Mongols. And there's a dipit, a little bit of that when it's closed through the crack in the wall. But that I cannot even look at it now, terrifying. So he's talking about kids being terrified. I don't think they are, I think they're desensitized because I teach kids maths and this kid says, we wonder, he said, I across see this video on on the internet. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. And it was a, and Steve knows what this is. It's a Mexican drug cartel execution video with these two guys get the heads chainsawed off. No, yeah, yeah. And the chainsaw gets stuck. It breaks down. It's so far off with the second guys now. It was, I couldn't get it out of my head for three days, three days. It'd be three months for me. Yeah. It was, but they thought it's funny. And I think, actually you said 15 seconds, you can see, I mean, on Twitter or Exodus now, the Twitter channels, whatever, the accounts that the follow the Ukraine one or see pictures of soldiers being blown up. You know, and you can see terrible real things. But I think our childhoods, again, getting back to the psychology were far more psychological scares. The effect, especially the fact of going there to truly horrify you and everything, but it still warmed between to your side. The imagination took over the wave. Yeah, absolutely. It was, we filled in the blanks ourselves, even though there's big CSO lines around people's bodies, but I just bought into it all, which reminds me of another story I told before. I distinctly remember watching the seeds of doom where Harrison Chase falls into the, the compost me at the end. And I remember the streams and the blood and the sound of shattering bones. None of that is there. All of that was just in my mind. So I think, yeah, our minds filled in a lot. Absolutely. And I think a lot of our of children's telly was very sick-cated and you know, all the Nigel Neal stuff, it's all off camera and talked about and it's very literary and you've got to sort of really fill in the blanks. And that, of course, is the stuff of MR James, where it's the dread and the creeping up on you of the thing that stays in your head because you've painted all the pictures and it isn't sort of blown by seeing it. You know, it's, it's sort of left to you to think what was this thing around the corner. I was just thinking today watching the fans from the opera. How quickly they show in the musical. I went to see the fans from the opera today. How quickly they see the show. The fans are me singing the fans from the opera and taking it down on the gondola within about ten minutes. And I thought, this is it after you keep it back. No, seeing for ages, it's not aliens, is it? Or can it not aliens? Yeah. I thought this is he was showing the sharps straight away with a half mask on and a rose. And you've got to keep him back. And then he would have had some, it'd be much creepier, I think, but of course, people want to see him straight away. But although that's his first estate, he shouldn't even be in the first art. I keep him back. You pay to see fans of him. You want to see the fans of him and also probably in opera as well. Yeah. You want to pay for that as well. That's what you get. Yeah. And I guess. Yeah. Okay, then Rhysus, have your second scar, please, if we could? Yeah. My second scar, not unsurprisingly probably, is Wuzzle Gommage and his handsome head. Those hands, which is obviously you all know it, but I, and I interestingly, I remember it and thought, well, it's got to be that, but and I thought it was posh head. If I was called posh head, and I went and I look and he's called answering it. And so of course, Wuzzle had all these different heads. I mean, that was always the delight to me to see him swapping heads just because it was like, it just fell into the world of slightly ghoulish, horror-like situation. And of course, it all is really disturbing Wuzzle Gommage. It's violent. There's so much in it that's like zombie apocalypse. I mean, the trial of Wuzzle Gommage, of course, is one of the most terrible things you've ever seen when all these scaperas come alive and are all walking sluggishly across the countryside to go and put him on trial. But the posh head. I've just seen it now for the first time. I really don't see it if it's like, oh my god. It's horrible. Wuzzle with, so he's got this hack called that part in hair right down the middle. And he's got a little, he's got white teeth that are like orange peel, but white. And he's got a monocle. And it's just absolutely terrible. For some reason, Wuzzle wants to have a handsome head. I think he thinks he can get attracts the ladies with it. And then the Crowman makes him this handsome. And he turns up at the house of Jon Sim to have tea. And the most, and then she doesn't really know why he's there, but she goes, who else are you? And he says, I'm, I think it's something like, I'm a scared Crowman. And I've come from my tea and cake. It's just like that horrible if it's out of the skin. Otherwise, just you let him in. And he sits down, makes himself at home. And then for some reason, Mr. Peters, who is also living there, makes him try to, I think he wants him to plug a light it, but he won't touch the electric wire because he's terrified of the electric. Can't touch electric. Now, don't make a electric. He won't touch the electric because he thinks he's going to set on fire. And that's horrible as well. And then he's sort of blown up. Jon Sim is there as well as he falls off the mattress. And so then that's the first thing counter. And then the even worse is the second time he walks out with his handsome head. And he goes up to this, what he's like me. a depiction of like a chrome, she's a scarecrow in the field and he wants to woo her and she wakes up and he's got the posh head up and she just the cackles in his face in that really cruel way that Aunt Sally used to be horrible to him but this is even worse and then she's cackling and laughing I'm like no way in a million years I'm gonna go out with you with that stupid head on and she starts beating him literally to pieces and his arms legs fly out of the core and his head flies off and she's crying my laugh and cackling like a witch and it's again of course past six children's television Dave yeah we went in Liverpool we did a live show in Liverpool and we had a picture on screen of daft head right if you know and that one if I got a visceral reaction from a lady in the front row she couldn't look at it she could not look at daft head cover the face we have to take it off yeah yeah it's just so yeah it it's horrific and I always I always worried about his sentience if you took his head off wise and his body just claps on the floor I was I used to think about things like that yeah the think about the horror elements of um where's the comment we were talking about them because it is pure folk horror yeah I don't know if you remember Reese we you probably will the first episode when it comes to life probably for the first time and it's pouring was rain there's crows corin and there's mud that's caked on his face but it gets washed away by the rain I took that clip took the audio off and put it on me Twitter we're replaced by the soundtrack to zombie flesh eaters but I had people underneath going I don't remember the music being this because they just took it on face by you because it looks like a world film absolutely it is it's complete all right they know what they were doing it can't be by accident that someone to pick the so it's too specific aren't you know what I'm filming is like nothing is sought by accident so is it's a choice definitely it's it and it's proper folk horror you're right there and there is scary bits in it and um but and then so I wanted to cut with the sweetness of of worsel but yeah there is a um a darkness to it all I think there's just sort of creating in that the world that he creates and also there was a strange decision that they make about their heads when they come off they're no longer like him they're much more rudimentary versions and I remember always being finally disturbed by that like why is it changed it's like some magic happens that but the rules of it I just think that's what happens it becomes a sort of simpler simple ahead but yeah posh head I'm going to call it posh head I prefer it to hand something that first episode though is a horror film it's the the car's going down a country lane and the kid wants to pee so he gets out and goes instead that is the start of a horror film as he's yeah sort of I'm out of the horror with the man in the yellow mask dress yes it is you're right yeah Timothy the end the very ending to the first episode of the whole first episode as a completely different tone because it ends with the two kids jumping over the turn style and they're coming to see worsel and I think one of them a little girl says that scarecrow's gonna cause us a lot of trouble in the future but you know we're gonna have fun with them then it cuts the worsel who turns to the camera looks at the audience but without any jollyty with this pure malevolence says those kids are gonna cause a whole lot of trouble something like I'm gonna have to keep me eye on those kids in the future and you say Jesus Christ it's a really scary every scene is not quite the the jolly innocent that he owns though they thought oh we've got to change tack with how dark we're gonna make this relationship yeah it's weird they say every say know what they're doing like it seems to come up quite a lot with some of this stuff in the 60s and 70s or 70s and 80s just like they're almost trying to properly scare kids on on purpose so let me just definitely intend that you think I think they must be yes and of course kids I think can never we underestimate them as well I mean you know I don't know what children of today are like but we we were we were being not spoon-fed in the way that I think we've maybe slipped into so you know to watch chocky or to watch the sapphire and steel the stories are very sophisticated and and labyrinthine and we were just expected to follow it and understand it and and children of the stones and the stone tape it's they were particularly for kids but I think yeah we were given stuff that I think they didn't they were that shy of thinking yeah this is this is going to be scary and dark and it didn't seem like there was a threshold that they were working to it felt like all bets were off and you could just show anything and if it was scary so be it's but maybe I mean maybe it was because we were kids and and it was more scary than it was we looked at it now and think why were we allowed to see it it's so yeah images are so disturbing even now I mean not and it isn't sort of retro specs that you look at it sometimes I mean it's weird isn't it you get people that you show stuff too that you think is disturbing and scarring for life and they laugh at it and people's have got different perceptions about what's what's scary and what what isn't but of course and I think Jeremy talks about it in his on his episode with you about how sometimes when you see something back we couldn't look at it back and watch it and oh yeah it's just the man walking by with a stupid rubber pair of gloves on you know it was like flash of it and that was how it's meant to be seen and that's so you're doing it a disservice to go right well co-white today me stop frees framing it it's rubbish when I yeah it might be but that's not the way we first saw it it was on it was gone and you know we couldn't see it again and it's just in your mind this is that grows and grows and becomes this other thing that scares you and and continues to scare you and obviously you're re-remembering all of it it turns it into something else turns it into a nightmare risk we get your third and final scar then please yes my third and final scar is a particular episode of the adventure game which was on oh and it was early I mean I don't know if people don't know it it was a sort of a 84 runner of crystal maze so it was like and it was all set on the planet arg and two celebrities and a real person a normal human being not in well would be land would land on a planet and they would have to do various trials and then the last part was the vortex where they had to get across this thing and this other invisible sort of vaporizer was also coming towards them and they had to not walk into the shape of the vaporizer but one of the rounds during the whole thing was someone in the on the team was a mole and they had to eliminate who they thought was actually trying to obstruct the whole and winning of the game with actually trying you know yet to be clever with how you kept it hidden that you were the mole and the particular episode I remember that literally scarred me it's the worst of the scarring it's good I've said it's a last was Graham Garden was on it of the good his stop to Graham Garden and he was accused of being the mole and it wasn't him and I knew it was and we you know it is so you're watching the person get away with it and it the injustice of it because I remember him like he's so sad it's horrible he's been brilliant it's really helpful to the game and he's standing there and he had to and the way that they got them they accused them and then they were vaporized and they've vanished and the last thing he said before he was accused so they all they said we think it's you he said but I'm innocent I tell you and I'm literally scarred me and I'm really crying but I'm innocent I tell you it's no way the injustice because I liked Graham Garden anyway and he was just he was like they killed him they sort of happened and I remember meeting him I we met them we met the good is and I talked him about it and he said yes I'm still scarred for about it I feel the injustice I love that he remembered and it was a thing for him either that was it you've just reminded me that was that thing if there was a small spate of those kind of game show with effects kind of thing then the game show night yeah for kids that would have the the kid with the helmet on and the the three kids who would be watching on the screen but they would fall foul of traps they would kind of it was very basic effects obviously but they would fall off a precipice and fall for the sets or one of the the the death counter if they ran out of food or starved was the human head where the bits of skin would fall off revealing a skeletal face and then the eyes would roll towards we had um as they we had a lad in our school this is honestly true called dick and hairs that was his actual name dick and hairs and as if as if that wasn't enough of bigger ledger swear to go to the dick and hairs and he then ended up he went on on nightmares as if you like your your position of legacy is not in in in in trying to enough being having a name like that you can't even shorten wow and trying book a table or order a pizza and then you go on nightmare as well so it's like double legend status for him yeah did he did he lost oh bless him hard yeah hardest game show it was yeah it was Dave I watched the adventure game recently and I put part of the game is to work out the value of the whole drama business and I yeah and I worked it out it's about five seconds flat, you know, just coincidentally. And they couldn't find it for 20 minutes. I drove me around the twist. I was probably sitting there, 58 year old man screaming at the telly. There we go. I'd say it's just, it's the position of the core and the spectrum. Time is by the number of sides. It's not beyond mass. That's a good point. Yes, that is true. That is true. Yeah. But I just, it drove me around the twist. But you know, the people getting vaporised. I think favourite TV stars being vaporised on a week-by-week basis was not a good thing for me either. Yeah. Well, I did me first the escape room, real life escape room a few weeks ago with the girlfriend, new girlfriend. She's Polish. All I could ever think was, I'm in the adventure game, right, wasn't? Because it was, it was like being in the adventure game. She had no frame of reference. So she didn't understand what I was getting as excited about. But I was kind of picking up the puzzles and trying to put stuff together and thinking, I feel like Duncan Goodewall, he's saying it's raining and there wasn't, the threat for that one was we'd been kidnapped and the kidnapper was going to come back and chop us up. So we had an hour to go before the kidnapper comes back. But it was just for me, it was exactly the same as the, what was he called the vaporising beam at the end of the game? The vortex, yeah. And he was with this episode, he was Carol Shell, you know, the play school. She was the one accused him. That was the other betrayal. Oh yeah. Errible. Another person you trust. Oh, she was lovely, yes. It was all this the worst thing to do my fingers. It was like this, she's just monstrous and it would all done before even having a tea and then I was back to school. It was like, I think that's very true. I'd come to this. Well, well, there we go. Your three scars, Reese, number one, two runny's teeny tarned, number two, was all gummage, handsome head, which I've actually not seen before. So that will terrify me for the rest of my life. And number three, the adventure game, the false accusation. Reese has been fantastic to have you on. What's coming up next? I know, obviously, you've just said earlier on you're working on the ninth series or season of inside number nine. Any other projects you've got on the horizon? There's a few things that will come out. I can't talk about you yet, but yeah, we're going to do number nine and then maybe we've got talk of a live play version of number nine. So that will be the next, it won't go away for a while. We've got plans to do a sort of live version of it somehow on stage. So that'd be exciting because we've got to sort of embrace the fact that it's it's live in whatever way we can to make it different again from the TV. So yeah, more anthology on stage probably. Amazing, what's been an absolute honor to have you on the podcast. Reese Shearsmith, thank you so much for talking to Scott. Thank you so much. It's been great. Well, there you go. That's it for this week. Thank you again to Reese Shearsmith. We'll be back next week with another special guest sharing their deepest darkest fears. We want you to get in touch with us. Share your fears and your scars too at SCARD for Life 2 on Twitter. SCARD for Lifebook on Instagram or contact at SCARD for Lifebooks.com. You've been listening to SCARD for Life. Thank you for joining us. And remember, do have nightmares. We'll see you next week.