Nana's Party

Nana's Party is the fifth episode of the second series of Inside No. 9.

A paramedic is let into a house to the sounds of panic. Earlier, the fastidious Angela prepares to host a party for the 79th birthday of her mother, Maggie. Angela's daughter, Katie, heads to her room to complete her homework. When Angela moves a cake, she reveals the head of Jim, her husband. Jim plans to play a trick on Pat—a practical joker and the husband of Angela's sister, Carol (a recovering alcoholic)—by hiding under the cake. Maggie, Carol and Pat—the latter wearing a wolf mask—arrive at the house. As the three settle, Pat plugs in his mobile to charge—something Jim had asked Angela to prevent—and secretly places ice in a bucket. Carol privately drinks from a sunscreen bottle while ostensibly unblocking the toilet after her mother could not flush it. Angela is proud that the party food is from Marks's, but Carol mocks Angela's middle class affectations. Maggie wants a photograph with the food on the table, and Carol lights the cake's candles, which burn towards the flammable fake cake—under which Jim is still hiding. Katie greets her nana and aunt, with Maggie insisting that she tell the joke from Pat's card. Panicking, Angela blows out the candles. The room clears, and Jim is left frustrated.

Katie shows Maggie her tablet as the pair sit in the former's room. A visibly-drunk Carol enters and talks to Katie about the importance of having fun. Katie wants to finish her homework, but assures Carol that she would make a good mother. Downstairs, Jim persuades Angela to take up position under the table as Pat replaces the soap in the toilet. Pat joins Jim next to the table and returns a VHS; it becomes clear that Jim's apparent love for *Countdown* is actually a cover for his pornography habit, and Jim tries to steer the conversation away from the topic, worried that Angela will hear. Carol enters and puts on music. Pat sees Carol's sunscreen, and prepares her a drink of "Adam's ale". Carol aggressively flirts with Jim, who does not reciprocate. When Pat hands Carol water, she throws it in his face and he leaves. Carol confronts Jim about promises he made to her, and how this house should be hers, not Angela's. Jim remains terrified that Angela can hear the conversation.

Katie and Maggie enter. Maggie talks about Pat's "frozen willies"—novelty ice cubes—as a distressed Jim makes her a drink, and Carol dances with the uninterested Katie. Jim pulls Carol away from Katie, but Carol hits him; when Carol talks to Katie about becoming her stepmother, Jim shouts at her. Pat stops him, and, after Carol storms out, tells Jim that "he knows". Katie is distressed, and interrogates Jim as Maggie plunges a knife into the cake. Jim panics, believing Angela is still under the table, but Angela enters from the kitchen, and reveals that she left to buy a real cake—the story that Jim had told to cover her apparent absence. Katie wants to talk to her mother, but chaos ensues when Maggie chokes on an ice cube, which Pat reveals contains a fake spider. Carol enters, her face blackened by Pat's fake soap, and Pat, reaching for his charging phone to call the emergency services, receives an electric shock, his hands wet from the ice bucket. Angela performs the Heimlich manoeuver on her mother; Carol kneels by Pat and shouts for help. The new cake is pushed into Jim's face by Katie, who then answers the door. The paramedic enters, then begins a striptease for Maggie to the *Casualty* theme. His performance, it is revealed, was Pat's present to Maggie. Later, Jim talks to an oblivious Maggie. He sees Angela and Katie come down the stairs with bags. In silence, he watches them leave as Maggie tells him the joke from Pat's birthday card.

## Cast

 Steve Pemberton
 Reece Shearsmith
 Lorraine Ashbourne
 Elsie Kelly
 Eve Gordon
 Christopher Whitlow