No mention as far I can see so far for what round ours is the comedy event of the year so far, the return of Bolton’s finest deadpan comedian in Ann Droid. We’ve been big Diane Morgan fans since Philomena Cunk first appeared on Weekly Wipe well over a decade ago. Ann Droid’s her most mainstream venture yet: writing and leading a classic BBC1 sitcom.
And it’s a triumph. The set-up is that somewhere in the very near future robot carers are available to those needing a little more help around the home. When Sue Johnson’s elderly widow Sue-Sue-Sue-Sue (first episode gag) breaks her arm, her son arranges for the equivalent of a 10-year old Skoda to help bear the load: the titular android (in fact named Linda by Sue), played by Morgan in a light purple tracksuit get-up and trademark bob. Initially angry and refusing to engage (much like the arrival of the robot vacuum in our house), by the end of episode one she’s accepted her new robot underling as a life companion. There’s the inevitable set-up work to do in episode one, but we’re up to episode four and it’s getting better and better.
The basic gag is Linda’s complete literalism about any social situation or conversation. Hey, it worked for Mork and Mindy. Gag after gag flows from a situation in which Sue Johnson offers a nuanced socially polite comment, and Morgan completely undercuts it with a less than helpful statistic or overly truthful observation. It works a treat and plays to Morgan’s deadpan delivery style. Their onscreen chemistry and timing, both verbal and physical, is pitch perfect.
Gag two is of course how much more reasonable a robot is compared to the bizarre and inexplicable behaviour of human beings. A cast of supporting characters that includes Paul Ready as Sue’s sadsack son Michael (reprising his useless act from Motherland), Kathryn Hunter as no-nonsense charity shop manager Eileen, and Margot Leicester as stuck-up alpha pensioner Phyllis provide the situational inputs for Johnson and Morgan to riff off.
Not everything is perfect. The sub-plot about her son and his less-than-reliable girlfriend takes swipes at influencer and fitness culture that don’t land as well.
It’s not all about the gags. Running through the whole storyline is Sue’s unprocessed grief at the death of her husband. It’s not afraid to acknowledge the trials of being old. One of the sharpest lines is when she asks her dead husband how she is supposed to do this bit of life on her own. At work Michael’s job is under threat from a (of course) cheaper and more competent robot equivalent.
It’s not our favourite ever Morgan show, that would be the completely unhinged Mandy – which packs more surreal humour into its 15-minute episodes than most manage in a series, but it’s very welcome.
It’s also been a massive ratings hit at a time when the BBC could sorely do with some in-house wins. What with this and Small Prophets, series 2 of Amandaland (enough SoHa though now probably) and the Dawn French/Mark Heap canoe man show Can You Keep A Secret? We’ve probably watched more BBC1 9pm style comedy this year than in a decade.
Prepare yourselves for the inevitable and deeply unfunny American remake.
Yes we love it. DM and SJ are good in everything and together they offset each other perfectly.
We thought it was jolly good fun in an “Ok, it’s almost bedtime, what shall we watch now?” I remember smiling quite a lot but not one out and out belly laugh. I’d like to see what they might do with a second season.
Since then we’ve started re-watching Parks & Rec for the third time – now that’s a comedy series!
Sadly it’s disappeared off Netflix – shame as I loved it and had plenty left to go at.
@Twang Parks and Rec is on U Stream Free. I watched all 126 episodes a couple of months ago. Excellent stuff.
I was a bit dubious before watching it, but it was charming, thoughtful, funny and had some great performances, especially from Diane Morgan (her best role to date by miles) and Sue Johnston. Other more minor characters also seemed well-rounded and fully thought out. As a family we really enjoyed watching it at the same time, a rare thing these days.
It’s definitely BBC 1 not BBC 2 so it’s both gentler and broader than something like Mandy or Philomena Cunk. But full marks for taking on the time-slot and channel and keeping the Morgan vibe intact.
I have actually laughed rather than smirked at this.
Linda reminds me of a toddler. Able to speak and not yet aware. “Yes, it looks big on you because you are fat.” type bluntness.
We liked it a lot, which was a relief after the trailer which made it look like it was one-note and one-joke. I should have known to trust Diane Morgan.
Ironically as she’s playing a robot, it’s Diane Morgan’s warmest and most compassionate show yet. She’s quite clever, isn’t she?
Diane Morgan voices one of the cats in Ricky Gervais’s new cartoon series Alley Cats. The series has been royally slagged off in every review I’ve seen, with critics complaining that it’s basically just cats swearing in every sentence (mostly “f…” and “c…”), as though that’s funny. I’ve only watched the first episode and I must admit I found the cats swearing every sentence pretty funny. Perhaps cos my expectations were pretty low due to the reviews or perhaps simply because I’m puerile, but some lines in the first episode had me chuckling. Exchanges like:
Cat 1: How would you like to die?
Cat 2: Handjob.
Cat 1: How would you die of that?
Cat 2: Dunno. I panicked when you asked me.
As somebody who has never found Ricky Gervais remotely funny, even by accident, it’s good to know that at last I’m no longer alone in not appreciating his sense of humour.
I never watched The Office (when it first appeared, a colleague said, “It makes me cringe so hard, I have to watch it through my fingers”, and I thought, “That’s not how I want my comedy, thanks”), but I did try giving a couple of his other series and stand-up shows a chance. I’m sorry to his many, many fans, but I just don’t see the appeal.
Obviously RG couldn’t care less what one non-fan thinks as he sits in his house(s) made of money and awards, but I do wonder how much of the success of The Office was down to Stephen Merchant, who is very funny indeed and a good actor too.
I thought The Office was absolutely brilliant. I liked Extras a lot too, especially Merchant’s character. And I actually think Gervais is a very, very good actor. I never really bothered with his other shows though.
Diane Morgan was also in Gervais’ Afterlife which I thought was very good. Merchant wasn’t involved in that show so he can produce something of worth on his own. There is also a program on iPlayer where Gervais looks back on his favourite David Brent scenes, I thought it was pretty good and does indicate he has some acting talent. He failed on the big screen though
Afterlife was massively bingeable. Comedy, sarcasm, frustration, and pathos rolled into a sitcom.
RGs best after The Office.
Initially put off Ann Droid (not massively impressed by the clips I’ve seen) but recommendations here make me think I should give it a go
I watched the start of it and gave up before I managed 1 full episode, but like you will give it another chance based on the rave reviews here.
I thought Afterlife was excellent. Funny and also very sad.
I’m with you Captain, I can’t stand Gervais at all. Irritating beyond words, of meagre talent yet profoundly sure of his own genius, a man who has perfected the sickly art of the toothy rictus grin, and someone far too fond of the cheapest routes to a laugh, I have him mentally categorised as a f*cking boring c*nt, to match his vocabulary.
Couldn’t get on with The Office (far too close to real life) but thought Afterlife was splendid (unlike his very unfunny stand-up shows).
I think The Office is in the top 10 UK comedy shows ever made. Magnificent. However I didn’t like Extras anywhere near as much. It was ok. Agree with those who think his standup is poor. There was also Derek …
I’d agree with you on the Office @dai
Think the cringiness of it all was the point.
My name is David. When I got my first job in Canada, my boss was called Brent and his boss was R. Gervais. Spooky! Little known fact that Ricky G is half Canadian.
And I’m with both of you. ‘Profoundly sure of his own genius’ absolutely sums him up. Sadly for this thread I don’t find Diane Morgan remotely funny either. When it comes to laughs I’m very hard to please.
I’ll get me coat.
“Chubby little loser…”
That scene is the only tolerable bit involving Ricky Gervais for me, and that’s entirely because of the Dame, who was clearly enjoying himself. I wish we could have seen more of Bowie’s comic side.
He’s quite funny on the DVD outtakes interview:
Absolutely agree on DB comic side. The interview from 1999 on TFI Friday and his story of being lost in the Indonesian jungle is brilliant…..
I love his anecdote about filming the video for Ashes To Ashes on the beach.
He re-used a bit of that melody for Where Are We Now
Is it me, but I find Diane Morgan very much a one trick pony. Funny on first exposure, as a co-star, increasingly and immensely annoying as she takes more of the centre stage. Loathe Philomena Cunk.
I’m with you here. I really want to like her more but… don’t. Motherland was her best role IMO
Ann Droid is in my view, far, far superior to the Cunk stuff. No comparison. Better acted, much better scripted, and Morgan can’t take complete centre stage if Sue Johnston is present.
This is what makes it – the combination of the two is greater than their sum.
The Cunk stuff is frequently very funny, but I do feel it’s Ali G territory from 20 years ago.
I remember Ali G asking Sir Melvyn Bragg about “the arts” and asking him… “so what’s best one?”.
Instead of the expected splutter of pompous indignation, what followed was a serious, long and thoughtful answer from Bragg, as he weighed up the relative merits. At the end of it, he concluded that “music is the best one”.
We’ve watched 4 so far and I don’t want it to end. I much prefer this to the other big hit of the year, Small Prophets, which I wanted to like, and it certainly had its moments, but ultimately I found a bit weird. Diane Morgan is fast becoming a national treasure.
We binged Ann Droid last week – and despite finding Michael so drippy I wanted to wring his neck, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Now we just hope it doesn’t tank with a too hastily written second series.
My other half and I started it, she is sometimes sceptical of British comedy other times she loves it. We didn’t get very far into the first ep as Michael was doing her head in, despite Sue Johnstone being as wonderful as ever
It does seem that Michael and partner are deliberately written to be as annoying as possible – yes we get the point that there are man-children. And woo-woo would-be influencers. But the 5 mins each episode with them, and without Sue and Linda onscreen, are excruciating. Something to address in series 2.
I can report a fantastic related synchronicity (something my dead dad was a huge collector of). Surely most watching would have gone ‘there’s no thing as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, they’ve made up a ridiculous sounding martial art for comic effect’…I did anyway. The day after watching I came into work to see on our building a huge poster for one of our hire classes…come and learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Totally agree, I double screen when they appear. Also having the same actor doing a very similar part in a different show is odd. It was trying enough in Motherland without repeating it.
I love Diane Morgan especially in The Afterlife – haven’t watched this yet but intend to do so shortly.
Never mind that, where’s your Wordle scores?
It’s a no from me I’m afraid. Loved Motherland but this just doesn’t work (for me) and yet it has a great cast. Quite charming I guess but after 3 episodes I’m still waiting for the first laugh.
As this has partially changed into a Ricky Gervais (and his shows) thread, some very sad news
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk51vk37d6o
I remember chuckling at her reply to a journalist who asked her why she changed her name to Davis. “At what point did you decide that Carrott was my real name?”.
Again on the subject of Gervais, Bob Odenkirk has declared in an interview that he considers Ricky Gervais’s performance in The Office “might be the greatest acting performance ever … It’s crazy how real he feels and how much there’s layers in what he’s doing. How much pain is inside this absolute clown of a human”.
Oh crikey, she’s younger than me. She always makes me think of Málaga.
When I was 17 and my mum and I had just left my dad, a friend of a friend of my mum’s gave us free use of a villa in southern Spain for a couple of weeks. Turns out it was next door to the Carrott family home. Lucy was 14.
I was bored, she was bored, they had a swimming pool, we had a table tennis table. I’d forgotten to pack the pile of tapes and only had the one in my Walkman (The The’s Infected with Prince’s Parade on the other side). So we listened to Prince, played ping-pong and jumped in the pool.
Somewhere I still have the Trilby hat I bought at the market on the golf club car park.
We didn’t keep in touch.
Wow lovely story Fents.
My wife & I watched the first episode of this but it didn’t click so we’re not bothering with the rest. I thought it was OK but just seemed a bit like a light entertainment spin on the robot as companion idea. There’s darker versions like Companion, M3GAN, Subservience and the new Soulm8te (which I watched last night) all of which I preferred, probably because I like my androids to be bad to the wires (as opposed to bones lol). I do like Diane Morgan though – Mandy was great but this new one didn’t hit the spot at least on first episode, maybe I should watch the rest on my own as the missus just said, “meh” after it, at least that’s the sound I though she made.
We have a rule that when starting a new binge-fest at Series 1 Episode 1 (which it always is, even if no further Series ever materialises), we won’t draw any yes/no conclusions until at least the half way point of episode 2.
That rule has meant that pretty much every serial yarn we’ve watched – usually one or two each night for several nights – has been an enjoyable experience.
The ones we’ve binned have never tempted us back, but crucially there have been a few where the first hour or two only just kept us watching, yet once things got going, the rest was excellent.
Any new sitcom =- eg the BBC1’s this year – has to do some plot set-up stuff in episode one that means the actual situations and gags don’t fully flow until this has been done. So in Can You Keen a Secret? they had to introduce why Mark Heap had been in hiding in his own house for 3 years, Dawn French’s coverup and get the son’s reaction to this. Small Prophets – a comedy/drama rather than sitcom – had a lot of characters to introduce: the dad, the brother in law, the co-workers, the absent girlfriend etc. as well as the Michael/Clea backstory. Drama can drop you in it more without explaining anything, and drip-feed the background. I remember watching Ep 1, Series 1 of The Wire and it is utterly baffling what is going on, but it’s clearly brilliant TV.
“I remember watching Ep 1, Series 1 of The Wire and it is utterly baffling what is going on, but it’s clearly brilliant TV.”
Ha! yes, I did exactly the same thing and then thought nah, can’t be bothered with this, 24 years later and still not seen it.
The Word lot never shut up about it so I watched it. Some series are better than others but I rewatched it last year and it holds up.
I should rewatch. Generally agreed that series five is a letdown and that the serial killer plotline is a mess. The trials and tribulations of reporters just aren’t as visceral as the police (1), dockworkers (2), politicians (3) and teachers (4). But 1-4 as good as television gets.
Last para – spot on!!!
Versatran Series F?
We’ve watched all of Ann Droid and really enjoyed it. Three or four laugh out louds every episode.
And we’ve done two of Cats, which has also had us laughing. I’d say that, with the exception of Derek, Ricky Gervais has been one of the best at creating comedy dramas. But don’t like his stand-up at all; too much being offensive for its own sake.