Reece Shearsmith has announced that a third series of Inside No 9 is in the pipeline. The dark BBC anthology series features self-contained stories which each take place in a location at number 9.  Each episode features a different cast alongside one or both of the writers Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, the duo who jointly won Best Comedy Performance at this year’s RTS Programme Awards.

This is rumour control - here are the facts. We are indeed making a third series of "Inside No 9". Steve and I have written the new series.

— Reece Shearsmith (@ReeceShearsmith) October 20, 2015

The programme has been well-received by critics, with Chris Bennion writing in The Independent: “If the BBC don’t give Inside No 9 a third series I am going to chain myself to Lord Hall of Birkenhead until he personally intervenes.” In his five-star review of an episode starring Sheridan Smith, The Telegraph’s Benji Wilson wrote: “This was a quiet elegy, terse and polished, in many ways perfect”. Julia Raeside in The Guardian said: “Not since Tales of the Unexpected have British viewers been treated to such elegantly crafted half-hour slices of intrigue, unease and all-out emotional intensity.”

The announcement has been met with enthusiasm on Twitter, with users praising the series’s original storytelling. Some have called for a new series of the duo’s Nineties hit, The League of Gentlemen, to which Shearsmith replied: “That was two decades ago. Get over it.” He has also batted away calls for a web-based companion series for Inside No 9, noting that “They” don’t do that anymore.