Air date revealed for series two of Inside No. 9

Inside No. 9 will return to BBC Two later this month.

The second series of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s hit comedy anthology series will kick off on Thursday 26 March.

Each story in the series will again be set in a different location – from a séance in a grand Victorian villa to a 17th century village witch trial and a volunteer call centre.

The first episode, La Couchette, is set on board the sleeper from Paris to Bourg St. Maurice, as a motley collection of passengers try to get a quiet night’s sleep as the train makes its way across France.

Reece Shearsmith said: “We thought it would be a funny idea that you are at the point where you want to be relaxed and it’s where you are the most embarrassed because you’re potentially in a room full of strangers when you try to go to bed at night – that’s kind of an odd frisson to play with.

“So we thought it would be a good idea, six people arriving in a tiny carriage to go to bed and their experience of that night.”

The episode also features Jack Whitehall, who plays a character called Hugo.

“Hugo is a sort of trustafarian interrailer who’s on the train on his gap year,” Whitehall explains. “It’s definitely the most intimate location I have ever been on.

“[The set] is all on springs so it moves around like a train carriage – and I suffer from very bad motion sickness so on the first day I threw up.

“I had to literally run off the set half way through a scene and throw up in the loo. So it was quite an auspicious start.”

Julie Hesmondhalgh and Mark Benton also guest star in La Couchette, while a host of big names have been confirmed for the remainder of the second series.