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| “ | A baby sardine Saw his first submarine. He was scared and watched through the peephole. "Oh come come come" Said the sardine's mum. "It's only a tin full of people". |
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| ~ The "sardine song" that Andrew would sing while molesting his victims. |
Andrew is the secondary antagonist in "Sardines", the first episode of the British black comedy anthology show Inside No. 9.
He was portrayed by Timothy West, who also played Rex Fortescue in the 1985 film adaptation of A Pocket Full of Rye.
Biography[]
Andrew was a wealthy businessman associated with a man named Dicky Laurence, although by the time of the episode he hasn't spoken to him in two years. He was particularly enthusiastic about playing sardines - a variation of hide and seek where one person hides and everyone else looks for them and joins them when they find them until everyone is in the same place. Andrew would have his family play sardines at parties and family gatherings and would sing the "sardine song" by Spike Milligan.
However, Andrew was secretly a paedophile who would take advantage of his position as a cub scout leader to bring children up to his room and molest them while singing the sardine song under the guise of showing them how to wash themselves. His victims included his son Carl and Carl's schoolfriend John. One year, while hosting the cub scout jamboree at his home, one of Andrew's victims, a scout named Pip Harrison, publicly accused him of abuse, but Andrew avoided consequences by paying his family to move to Spain. He continued molesting Carl over the coming years, which Carl's sister Rebecca was aware of but did nothing to stop. As a result of the abuse, Carl was left with a fear of intimacy and John developed a fear of washing himself.
"Sardines"[]
At Rebecca's engagement party, Andrew insists on all the guests, who include Carl and John, playing sardines. He himself is absent for much of the game because two guests, Mark and Elizabeth, are having him show them round the house in an attempt to get close to him due to his business contacts with Dicky Laurence, unaware that the two men haven't spoken in years. The game is started by Ian, a co-worker of Rebecca's fiancée Jeremy, who hides in a wardrobe in Andrew's room (kept locked since the cub scout jamboree). Ian is gradually joined by the other guests, with Andrew being the last to arrive; however, by this time several guests have vacated the wardrobe due to it being too crowded, including Ian, who is hiding in the en suite bathroom.
Andrew arrives last and finds Jeremy preparing to leave to pick up another guest from the station, John hiding behind the curtains and guests Stuart and Lee hiding under the bed. Frustrated by this disregard for the rules, he bullies all of them into getting in the wardrobe with him, including an understandably reluctant John. Once in the wardrobe, Andrew begins singing the sardine song over Carl's objections before ex-nanny Geraldine begins reminiscing about the cub scouts jamboree and mentions Pip Harrison. This provokes a strong reaction from Carl, who reveals what Andrew did to him and John.
Stuart points out that they shouldn't still be in the wardrobe as everyone's found them now. Lee replies that Ian is still in the bathroom, at which point Jeremy reveals that Ian was the guest he was going to pick up from the station: the Ian in the bathroom is an impostor. Just then, "Ian" locks the wardrobe and begins pouring lighter fluid over it while singing the sardine song, causing Carl to realize that he's actually Pip Harrison. The episode ends with Ian/Pip igniting his lighter in preparation to set the wardrobe alight with Andrew and everyone else still inside.
Trivia[]
- It's mentioned in the episode that Andrew has another daughter, Caroline, who has children of her own and has decided not to attend the party. It's implied she is also aware that her father is a paedophile and is trying to protect her sons from being abused by him.
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 Villains
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League of Gentlemen Psychoville Inside No. 9 | ||