Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Amanda Abbington, Samantha Spiro, Ayda Kiiza, Moyo Akandé, Leon Herbert, Dermot O’ Leary,

We should be mindful of what we perceive to be irrational phobias; just because we find the notion of being fretful when a black cat crosses our path, that actors’ aversion to mentioning the lead name in Shakespeare’s Scottish play may bemuse us, or that Anatidaephobia is nothing to give a duck about, we must acknowledge that part of our own individuality and reason is immersed in the most simple of these anxieties, that something from the primordial soup attached itself to us and which has grown like a shadow as we have progressed through time.

In western mythology the number 13 is considered one of the unluckiest, the connotations to religious belief, the numerous loose connections to which the digit is attributed can be daunting, but combine that with Friday, give it a sinister feel, and suddenly Paraskevidekatriaphobia can be overwhelming, it can give weight to a physical and mental paralysis to which everything the person does is controlled by the minutest detail, their day stuck in a loop filled with terror.

Such is the fate of Gareth, a man who truly suffers under the weight of the day, his self-preservation on high alert, and as such he entombs himself in a world where nothing can reach him, except perhaps love.

To make light of a phobia would be treading a path to which a respectable and searingly honest series such as Inside No.9. would not be seen to acknowledge, but it wonderfully does not shy away from giving a first-class representation of the suffering in the mind that holding onto such terrors might be inflicted upon the person in question.

In the end love solves all, but there is always a price to pay, and in typical Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith style, the pay-off comes when you least expect it; it is sublime urban horror at its most ingenious.

With terrific support from Amanda Abington as Gareth’s wife Dana, the ever-persistent drive of the gracious Samantha Spiro, and the resplendent Moyo Akandé as one of the local Am-Dram group members, Paraskevidekatriaphobia may well be one of the hardest titles in which to allow the tongue to say, but it is one that is worth the sense of therapy which accompanies it.

Phobias may seem irrational on first glance; but underneath the outward calm on show they can seriously wreak havoc on the psyche, a point to remember when next you see someone agitated by an object or a moment in which you feel they should just get over. Ian D. Hall