"Cold Comfort" is the fourth episode of the second series of the British dark comedy anthology television programme Inside No.

Most of "Cold Comfort" is composed of a stream from a fixed camera on the desk of Andy, the protagonist, with smaller pictures on the side of the screen, in the style of a CCTV feed.

The episode starred Pemberton, Shearsmith, Jane Horrocks, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Tony Way as volunteers at Comfort Support Line, a crisis hotline.

After taking a particularly disturbing call from Chloe, a suicidal teenage girl, Andy begins to struggle, but he is offered support by his supervisor George (Shearsmith), the gossipy Liz (Horrocks) and the officious Joanne (Amuka-Bird).

Vilma Hollingbery, Vicky Hall and members of the comedy group Gein's Family Giftshop (Edward Easton, Kath Hughes and James Meehan) voiced various callers, with the Gein's Family Giftshop comedians also appearing as on-screen extras, playing unnamed call centre volunteers.

Commentators praised the format, the writing and the performances, especially Horrocks's, but offered differing views about the episode's conclusion, plot and atmosphere.

[2][3] The idea for "Cold Comfort" began with the call centre,[4][5] with Pemberton having kept a newspaper article on the subject from 2005 as a potential inspiration.

[11] Jane Horrocks, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Tony Way feature respectively as Liz, Joanne and Michael, other volunteers at the call centre.

[15] Edward Easton, Vilma Hollingbery, Kath Hughes, James Meehan and Vicky Hall provide the voices of various people who call in to the centre.

[1] Some of the voice actors were drawn from the comedy group Gein's Family Giftshop,[16] the performing members of which are Hughes, Easton and Meehan.

[16] Hollingberry, who voiced "Ivy", an old woman caller, had previously starred in Pemberton and Shearsmith's Psychoville as Mrs Wren/Mrs Ladybirdface.

Guillem Morales and Dan Zeff each took on directorial duties for two episodes, while Pemberton and Shearsmith decided to direct the remaining two.

[4] Extras are seen moving back and forth in the smaller screens, with Pemberton having initially been keen for things to be happening away from the main feed.

[28] Shearsmith felt that a whole series filmed in the same manner "would be a bit wearing on the eye", but that the style could be used for a single episode.

[36] As most of the episode was filmed in real-time, George is visible making calls as Chloe,[37] meaning that he hides in plain sight.

[21][40] Both episodes were highly experimental—"A Quiet Night In" being mostly silent and "Cold Comfort" being filmed mostly from a fixed camera—something which the writers felt suits anthology format.

[22] Andy starts to volunteer at the Comfort Support Line (CSL), a crisis hotline, after the death of his sister.

He finds his first few calls difficult, and Joanne, a volunteer who shares a mutual distaste with Liz, advises him not to get emotionally invested in the callers.

He immediately takes a call from an elderly woman distraught that one of her cats has died, but responds insensitively, and hangs up.

The following day, George thinks Liz is breaking the rules by taking a personal call; he gets angry and wrestles the handset from her.

Later, Andy is upset that he listened to Chloe in her final moments, and Liz, who has made a complaint about George's conduct, tells him that she took a call from an ex-soldier, in tears because his mother committed suicide following the death of her cat.

In Chloe's voice, George says that he just wanted someone to listen to him, then warns that he has told the dead woman's son where Andy works.

David Chater, writing in The Times, described "Cold Comfort" as "a breather" after the "small masterpieces" of "The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge" and "The 12 Days of Christine".

He said that "Cold Comfort" offers "a promising set-up, but ... doesn't unfold with the same simple, logical elegance as others in the series".

[21] The television critic Julia Raeside discussed the unusual style of "Cold Comfort", saying that "You could argue [that the writers] are at the stage in their careers where they don't need to experiment.

"[48] For Claire Murphy, writing in the Daily Mirror, the episode "makes great use of CCTV split-screen footage".

She said that the split-screen set-up increased the tension, and that the "gimmick is a good one"; though it could "have worked well as a pleasing novelty on its own, [it] also makes this 'whodunit'/'who's doing it' a refreshingly inventive take on the genre".

[42] Owen, similarly, found the motives of "Chloe" unconvincing, and considered "the surprisingly nihilistic final shot perhaps not fully earned or plausible", but confessed that the episode was able to "outmanoeuvre" him, as he did not foresee the ending.