Private View

Private View is the sixth episode of the third series of Inside No. 9.

Neil, a nurse present to assist a visually impaired person, is pushed onto a chair with blades by an unseen assailant, where he bleeds to death.

Carrie, a fame-obsessed former *Big Brother* contestant, exits a lift to *Fragments*, a retrospective exhibition of the sculptor Elliot Quinn held in an East London basement gallery. The sarcastic, tattooed Bea serves drinks. Maurice, an academic art critic arrives after, and the humourless council health-and-safety worker Kenneth Williams—who has never seen any of the *Carry On* films starring his namesake—and Irish dinner lady Jean follow. Patricia, a visually impaired author of erotic fiction, is the last to arrive. A projection of Elliot welcomes the guests, who have been hand-picked to attend, the reason why nobody knows.

Carrie and Maurice find Neil's body, but assume it is art. The body falls, to Carrie's horror, when she pulls Neil's lanyard. Kenneth arrives, followed by Jean and Patricia. Leaving Maurice with the body, Kenneth and Jean force the lift doors while Patricia and Carrie talk. Bea is dead in the lift, a telephone receiver in her mouth and the cord around her neck. The lift is broken, and Kenneth heads off to find a fire escape. Kenneth and Jean meet Maurice in a corridor, while Carrie and Patricia wait near the lift. Carrie collapses, having drunk from a Champagne bottle. Kenneth, Jean, and Maurice find that a gate has been chained from the outside. The three split up. Patricia finds Carrie's body; she has burns on her face. Stumbling away, Patricia hides in a cubicle. Neil's murderer enters the toilet, and is revealed to be Jean. She goes to leave, yet Patricia's Mobile Assistant starts talking, alerting Jean to her hiding place.

Kenneth finds Carrie's corpse, which is clutching pills. Maurice finds bolt cutters as Jean hurriedly washes her hands, then screams. Maurice and Kenneth come running, and Kenneth is first to arrive, with Kenneth grabbing the arm off of a nearby mannequin. Patricia is dead in the cubicle, her eyes missing. Kenneth, Jean, and Maurice rush to the chained gate. Kenneth suspects Maurice, as the pills were the latter's heart medication. As Maurice struggles with the chain, Kenneth knocks him out with the mannequin arm. Jean then suffocates Kenneth with a plastic bag.

Maurice awakens tied to a wheelchair, listening to Elliot's projection. Jean is revealed to be Elliot's mother; after Elliot's death, his body parts were donated. The recipients were to be a "living exhibition", but she believes his body parts were squandered. Neil had eaten his way into developing diabetes after a new kidney, Bea had tattooed her new skin after it was previously burned off, Carrie had drunk after a new liver, Patricia had produced pornography with her new eyes, Kenneth had smoked with his new lung, despite Maurice's objections that it was an E-Cigarette, and Maurice was a "heartless critic", even with a new heart, which Maurice admits is "a bit of a stretch". Jean has carved out and placed the organs in jars around them, and wants Maurice's heart. She advances with an anaesthetic in a syringe as Maurice struggles in the chair, the camera cuts to black as his hand slightly slips out of its restraint.

Some time later, a journalist reports from Elliot's art exhibit, featuring organs—including a heart—in jars. It has won the Turner Prize and has broken all box office records. She turns to interview the artist credited for the exhibit, revealed to be Maurice. When she mentions that he's "put [his] heart into" the sculpture, Maurice replies, "Not quite."

## Cast

 Reece Shearsmith
 Felicity Kendal
 Fiona Shaw
 Morgana Robinson
 Montserrat Lombard
 Peter Kay
 Johnny Flynn
 Muriel Gray