The 12 Days of Christine

"The 12 Days of Christine"
Inside No. 9 episode
Episode no.	Series 2 Episode 2
Directed by	Guillem Morales
Written by	Steve Pemberton Reece Shearsmith
Produced by	Adam Tandy (producer) Jon Plowman (executive producer)
Original air date	2 April 2015

"The 12 Days of Christine" is the second episode of the second series of British dark comedy anthology series Inside No. 9. It first aired on 2 April 2015 on BBC Two. The episode received acclaim from critics.

Production

The first series of Inside No. 9 consisted of six episodes, each with a different cast and collection of characters, aired from February 2014.^[1][2] The programme was inspired by an episode of the first series of Psychoville, which was in turn inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. The episode took place entirely in a single room, and it was filmed in only two shots.^[2] The BBC ordered a second series of Inside No. 9 before the first episode had aired.^[3] The second series was written in 2014, and then filmed from the end of 2014 into early 2015.^[4][5]

As each episode of Inside No. 9 features new characters, the writers were able to attract actors who might have been unwilling to commit to an entire series.^[2] "The 12 Days of Christine", in addition to the writers, starred Sheridan Smith, Tom Riley, Stacy Liu, Michele Dotrice, Jessica Ellerby, Paul Copley, Joel Little and Dexter Little.^[6]

Plot

External video

"Happy New Year" Christine brings Adam back to her flat after the pair have met at a new year's party.

Christine (Smith) arrives home to her flat with Adam (Riley), whom she has just met at a New Year's party. Thirteen months later, it is Valentine's Day and Christine chats with her flatmate Fung (Liu) at home. Christine is dating Adam, but receives a card from her first boyfriend, whom she has not seen since childhood. On Mother's Day, Christine's mother Marion (Dotrice) visits. Marion reveals that Christine's first boyfriend died as a teenager, which Christine had forgotten. Marion urges Christine to marry Adam; Christine's father Ernie (Copley) has Alzheimer's disease and is deteriorating. The following year, Adam moves in with Christine at Easter. Christine begins to prepare a surprise for him, but is disturbed when an egg smashes on a nearby wall. In her kitchen, she is approached by an unknown man, the Stranger (Shearsmith).

Christine, now pregnant and married, awakens on a May bank holiday. Thirteen months later, it is Father's Day and Adam tends to their son Jack (Joel Little) in the night. Christine hears the Stranger's voice, but eventually finds Jack with Adam. Christine celebrates her birthday thirteen months later. Ernie no longer recognises Christine, while Adam is more interested in his colleague Zara (Ellerby). Marion blindfolds Christine for a game of blind man's buff. Christine hears noises from behind a door and removes her blindfold to step through. Thirteen months later, Adam is packing a case for a family holiday. Ernie has died, and Christine's relationship to Adam is strained.

Now divorced from Adam, Christine films Jack (Dexter Little) as he gets ready for his first day of school. Left alone in the flat, Christine is comforted by Ernie as she cries. By Hallowe'en of the next year, Christine lives with her friend Bobby (Pemberton). They prepare to go out to a party as someone Christine assumes to be Adam enters the flat. When Adam calls at the door, Christine goes to Jack's room and finds Jack in the arms of the Stranger. On Bonfire Night, Christine arrives home with Jack, who has burnt his hand. Marion finds that Jack is not injured, but says that Christine was burnt when she was Jack's age.

It is Christmas, and Christine is having dinner with Marion, Ernie, Fung, Bobby and Adam. Christine unwraps her present to find an album of photos from her life. She says that she feels as if her life is flashing before her eyes, and then realises what is happening. Christine sits in a car wreck as emergency services attempt to free her. The Stranger is explaining to the police that he stepped into the road, causing the crash, and, though he could free Jack, he could not reach Christine. At the dinner table, Jack enters dressed as a Nativity angel. Marion says it is time for Christine to move on. Christine says a final goodbye.

Interpretation

For Chris Bennion, writing in The Independent, the events of "The 12 Days of Christine" are a life review; the viewer shares Christine's visions of her life as she lies dying.^[7] However, like Christine, the viewer does not realise this until the end. For Bennion, Christine does not merely relive key moments of her life, but attempts to "snatch at lost moments" as she longs "for second chances".^[7] Julie McDowall, who reviewed the episode for The Herald, also considers the viewer "totally immersed in one character's confused and flawed point of view". She argued that "there was no thunderclap moment when the story's twist is spectacularly revealed. There was just the slow and terrible realisation which we shared with Christine. We were with her, thinking 'Oh god no, not that. Don't let it be that!'" Ultimately, claims McDowall, the oddities and confusion in the episode's plot is revealed to be the product of Christine's "brain slowly fading, her memories blinking out, light by light, into darkness".^[8] Phoebe-Jane Boyd, who reviewed the episode for entertainment website Den of Geek, likewise saw the episode as Christine's life flashing before her eyes, with a variety of elements from the scene of the crash—police cars, car sounds, the song on the radio—indicative of "her consciousness ... becoming muddled as parts of the car accident crash through into her memories".^[9]

Andrew Billen argued that the episode used the link between the "breaches of realism" in ghost stories and the "transgressions" of comedy in order "to make a serious statement about the supernatural". For him, the episode was a story about "human memory's spasmodic grasp" and Christine's "friable mental condition". The fact that Christine has forgotten about the death of her first boyfriend—that Christine as a "memory like a sieve"—is, for Billen, "inexplicable". The haunting element of the story, Billen suggests, is indicative of mental illness; specifically, Christine's early-onset Alzheimer's disease.^[10] That Christine is afflicted with the condition means that her life has become a "nightmare version" of blind man's buff. The motif of blindness—Christine's mental blindness juxtaposed with physical blindness—again emerges with the recurrence of "Con te partirò", performed by Andrea Bocelli, who is blind. Billen conceded that his interpretation may be incorrect, and that the episode may have been a single "dying dream".^[10] McDowall noted that, with Christine's growing unhappiness and increasingly disheveled appearance as the episode progresses, it is easy to see the story as about a mental collapse.^[8]

The episode can also be seen as a story of revenge; it can be imagined that Christine has repressed the memory of her first boyfriend, and that he "has come back into her life seeking revenge". On this interpretation, the Stranger is the boyfriend, and causes the crash by stepping out in front of Christine's car.^[10] McDowall suggests that the oddness early in the episode suggests that the story may about about "an obsessive ex [or] a stalker".^[8] There is also indication that the episode is a ghost story.^[9][11] While Boyd sees this as misdirection on the part of the writers,^[9] for Benji Wilson, writing in the Daily Telegraph, the story is about ghosts, "but not in the normal way – by the close you realised everyone's life is a ghost story, it’s just that your memories are the ghosts."^[11]

Reception

"The 12 Days of Christine" was extremely well-received by television critics. It was awarded five out of five stars by Billen (The Times) and Wilson (Daily Telegraph), who, respectively, called it a "masterpiece" and "a quiet elegy, terse and polished, in many ways perfect".^[10][11] Comedy critic Bruce Dessau said he could not "speak highly enough of this episode",^[12] while McDowall (The Herald) said it was "best thing [she had] seen all year", and "the finest" episode of Inside No. 9 yet.^[8] Bennion (The Independent) finished his review of the episode by saying that Inside No. 9 was "one of the best pieces of British television in years".^[7]

David Chater, writing in The Times, said "The 12 Days of Christine" was "not quite perfect", as the "spooky" elements suggested that the writers "may have spent more time with The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville than is strictly healthy". Nonetheless, he felt that "the episode is a distillation of accurate observation that says more about the hope, messiness and disappointment of life in half an hour than most dramas say over an entire series". There was, he thought, "something infinitely poignant" about the way the episode showed the difference between what could have been and what was.^[13]

For Bennion, it was "a credit to the two creators that they can pack in such a depth of emotion into 29 minutes".^[7] Similarly, Wilson praised the writers for achieving "genuine poignancy" in half an hour,^[11] and critics in the Metro said that the episode "packs more drama and suspense into 30 minutes than many a five-part series".^[14] Mulken said the episode was a "superb piece of drama, imbued with an increasing sense of dread".^[15] The story's ending was praised, with Dessau saying that "One of the skills of actor/writers Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton is the way they plant seeds and gradually leak out details. They do it so expertly here that one really doesn't see what is coming."^[12] McDowall expressed a similar thought, saying that the "writers so cleverly threw us off the scent, making the eventual realisation so agonising".^[8] Wilson called the ending "devastating and unforeseen".^[11]

Bennion praised the performances of Smith and Riley, but said that Smith was "undoubtedly" the star of the show.^[7] Patrick Mulkern, writing for Radio Times, said that Smith offered "another multi-faceted, stunning performance as the troubled Christine";^[15] Chater said that Smith's role was "superbly performed, as always",^[13] and Billen said that Smith offered "tragic depth" to her character.^[10] Wilson commended Smith's "arresting performance", saying that "No one does girl-next-door naturalism better – she has the actor's elixir of making you think you know her, just by a smile or an inflection."^[11] Dessau commended the writers for allowing other actors to play the lead roles, praising the performances of Ridley and, especially, Smith.^[12]

Critics commended the episode's music, with Mulkern comparing the use of "Con te partirò" in "The 12 Days of Christine" to its use in Benidorm, in which Pemberton starred, but noted that in "The 12 Days of Christine" it was used "with devasting effect".^[15] Ellen E Jones, writing in The Independent, said that the song "was deployed on the soundtrack to devastating effect - we'll be humming it uneasily for another 12 days to come."^[16]

References

Further reading

• "Catch-up television". i. 3 April 2015. p. 39. 
• Dugdale, John (29 March 2015). "Critics' choice; Thursday 2 April". Culture, Sunday Times. p. 60. 
• McDowall, Julie (30 March 2015). "This week's television highlights". The National. Retrieved 6 April 2015.  (subscription required)
• Power, Vicki (2 April 2015). "Comedy; Inside No 9". Daily Telegraph. p. 36.