Six-part series Ann Droid, made by Boffola Pictures and Witchcraft Industries, will launch later this summer on the BBC.
Written by Diane Morgan (Mandy, Cunk) and Sarah Kendall (Frayed, The Other One), Ann Droid tells the story of an unlikely friendship between Sue (Sue Johnston) and Linda (Diane Morgan) a social humanoid robot, created to keep elderly people company and monitor their health.
Here, Diane Morgan answers questions about the creation of the new series.
You are back with a brand-new show and character – can you set up Ann Droid ?
It’s set three years in the future where robots have been rolled out to care for the elderly, when their children aren’t around to look after them. I play Linda, an Ann Droid robot who is reconditioned and strikes up an unlikely friendship with widower Sue, played by Sue Johnston.
Where did this idea come from – was there anything that inspired this story in particular?
I read a story in the paper which said that apparently they were rolling them [robots] out in Japan and I told Pippa my producer and we started laughing about it. It was also inspired by the time in lockdown when I decided to send my mum a tablet so she could do online shopping – she reacted like I’d sent her a nail bomb.
You have a great cast attached – how was it working with comedy royalty in Sue Johnston and reuniting with Paul Ready?
I was a fan of Sue’s from The Royle Family and I’d worked with her on Cockfields, so I knew she was easy to work with and a great comic actress. Paul’s funny, he’s very good at physical comedy and he was who I had in mind for the role when I was writing it, so it’s great he’s doing it.
So you wanted Sue and Paul for their roles when you were writing them?
Yes, I did have Sue in mind. I mean the character’s called Sue so that’s a big clue.
You co-wrote the series with Sarah Kendall – how is the writing dynamic when you do it together as opposed to writing by yourself? Does it make the process harder?
It’s less hard because we really make each other laugh. We’ve known each other from the days we were both doing the stand-up circuit. We share a sense of humour and she’s got a great sense of structure.
Can you tell us what the preparation was like to become a robot, and where did Linda’s voice come from?
I worked with Dan O’Neill, who was movement director on Humans, another show about robots, to help me get the walking right. There are several robots in the programme and the modern ones have voices like Siri or Alexa but because I’m reconditioned, I wanted a more retro robot voice.
When filming what would you do to get into the mindset and physicality of becoming Linda?
I had to bend my knees and go into a certain posture that was sort of a neutral pose. It really hurt my back!
What would you use an Elder Care robot if you could?
I haven’t got kids so I’ll probably end up with one feeding me soup!
There are some incredibly touching and poignant moments in the series – not what you would necessarily expect from a comedy – was that a different kind of writing to what you are used to?
That sort of accidentally happened. The more we wrote the story and realised it was about grief and looking after elderly parents it started to become more poignant. And then when Sue was doing it, it started to have heart, which was incredible because that’s not what we set out to do. We thought it would just be a silly comedy about a slightly rubbish robot.
What do you think of AI and the role it has in society? Do you think you’re somewhat predicting the future and how AI can and will be used moving forwards with this series!?
I definitely think we’ll have robots looking after us in the future. Whether they’ll end up killing us or not I can’t say. That’s none of my business.
Linda at times feels like a real person with real feelings, does this robot have a heart?
No, of course she doesn’t she’s a robot. But stick a pair of plastic eyes on a computer and you want to believe it’s got emotions.
This interview was conducted and published by the BBC.
Pippa Considine
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