When I read that Reece Shearsmith - one quarter of the comedy-horror troupe The League of Gentlemen, co-writer of the twisted anthology series Inside No. 9, voice of Wallace's unstoppable robot Norbot - had an autobiography coming out, I was immediately interested. The description put me off however. Still stung by Daisy-May Cooper's awful 'Hexy Bitch', I thought the basic concept of 'Things I Took from the Dark: A Museum of Me' sounded similarly lazy and unoriginal, a quick-fix way of writing a biography that avoided saying anything interesting about its subject. Still, like a virgin to a vampire, I couldn't help being drawn in...
Reece's Believe it or Not
'Things I Took from the Dark' is a museum in a book, housing all the major ghoulish influences on Shearsmith's life and work. While he's known for being a 'horror kid', mesmerised by movies in the genre from a very young age, the exhibits themselves focus on allegedly real-life tales. Curated into four chapters / rooms covering monsters, hauntings, tales of devils and, well, everything that doesn't conform into one of these categories, the book roams the wild edges of reality and human understanding, showcasing the stories of strange happenings from the middle-ages to the near-present day that have been absorbed into Shearsmith's memory and imagination.
(Un)Pleasantly Surprised
'Things I Took from the Dark' was far better than I expected. Instead of a bland regurgitation of the same old stories that we've heard so many times before, ejected onto the page with little thought, effort or interpretation, this is actually a superior sortabiography. I was pleasantly surprised to see several of my favourite and more obscure unexpected tales on display, and described with a healthy combination of wonder, curiosity and scepticism. The Museum turned out to be a far better way of getting to understand Shearsmith's character and influences than any traditional, best-bits biography would have been.
Overall
I'm glad that I took a punt and gave 'Things I Took from the Dark' a try. While none of what I read was entirely new to me, I did learn more about some of the exhibits, and certainly learned more about Shearsmith himself and what steers his particular brand of creativity. I think fans of his darker work will enjoy the book. It's not every day that something manages to both create a rush of nostalgia and tingle in the spine.
Now, what next...?
'Things I Took From the Dark: The Museum of Me' by Reece Shearsmith was published in October 2026 by Quercus, part of the John Murray Group. This post is based on the hardback version, borrowed from the library, but, for some reason, signed...
