EXCLUSIVE: Sue Johnston and Diane Morgan star in new BBC One comedy Ann Droid, a grief comedy set in a future where AI eldercare robots look after the elderly07:39, 07 Jul 2026Diane Morgan and Sue Johnston rushed to get their new comedy Ann Droid made because they feared the show’s concept would become reality before they got it to screens.‌Ann Droid is set just three years in the future. In the series, Diane plays an elder care robot called Linda, while Sue stars as her reluctant owner, also called Sue.‌“I kept panicking when I saw that robots had run in marathons and I was thinking, ‘It’s all advancing so quickly, if you don’t get the show out, somebody else will do it!’ So I’m really glad it’s coming up, because we want to be on top of it,” says The Royle Family star Sue.‌Linda is gifted to Sue by her son Michael (Paul Ready) after she has a fall and ends up in hospital. At first Sue doesn’t want to be cared for by a robot, but Linda slowly wins her over. Diane was inspired to write the series after reading about robot carers in Japan and also by her own mum.“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,” explains writer and star Diane. “I read a story in the paper which said that apparently they were rolling robots out in Japan. 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.”‌Diane was delighted when Sue and Paul both agreed to star in the show. She’d worked with Sue on the 2019 sitcom The Cockfields and collaborated with Paul four times before, most famously in Motherland. “I was a fan of Sue’s from The Royle Family and I’d worked with her on [The] Cockfields, so I knew she was easy to work with and a great comic actress,” says Diane. “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.”Sue was equally delighted by the show’s mix of laughs and warmth. “I wanted to be part of it because Diane wrote it and I’m such a fan and a friend of hers, so when she sent me the script, it was just joyful and I thought ‘Yes, thank you very much, I’ll have that!’” says Sue. “I just love all the characters, they are all well written and they’re all people you know, and find along the way, so it’s just really funny.“There’s also a lot of love in it, there’s such a warmth about it all, and that comes from Diane’s writing, which says a lot about how she is as a human being. It’s a very special script.”‌In real life Sue is 82 and can relate to her character’s woes – especially her frequent falls. “The series starts with her falling and I recognise an awful lot of her in me, which I think is the age thing,” says Sue. “When you get to my age losing your balance and falling over it’s sort of par for the course. She’s defensive about it because she’s very independent and doesn’t want to be looked after.”Sue is also a widow following the death of her husband David. “She thinks she’s fine but she’s in denial about her loneliness, grief, and age,” says Sue. “She’s a very warm and lovely woman, dealing with all these things, which an awful lot of people deal with, so I feel she’s very real.”Learning to walk, talk and sit like a robot was a learning experience for Diane. “I worked with Dan O’Neill, who was movement director on Humans, another show about robots, to help me get the walking right,” says Diane. “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.”‌However, Linda’s awkward gait gave Diane a bit of trouble. “I had to bend my knees and go into a certain posture that was sort of a neutral pose,” she says. “It really hurt my back!”Ann Droid has lots of laughs and lots of heart. For Diane, the sentiment came about naturally. “That sort of accidentally happened,” admits Diane. “The more we wrote the story and realised it was about grief and looking after elderly parents it started to become more poignant. 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’d just be a silly comedy about a slightly rubbish robot.”Thanks to Diane’s excellent comedy credentials, she has attracted a quality supporting cast for Ann Droid, including Death In Paradise actor Danny John-Jules, Corrie’s Margot Leicester and Game Of Thrones star Rupert Vansittart.‌While the show has moments of tenderness, Diane insists Linda does not have a heart. “No, of course she doesn’t, she’s a robot,” says Diane. “But stick a pair of plastic eyes on a computer and you want to believe it’s got emotions.”‌We may not be ready for robot carers yet but Diane predicts they’ll be part of our future. “I definitely think we’ll have robots looking after us in the future,” she says. “Whether they’ll end up killing us or not I can’t say. That’s none of my business.”However, Diane admits robots could feature in her own old age. “I haven’t got kids so I’ll probably end up with one feeding me soup,” she laughs.Ann Droid, Friday 17 July, 9.30pm, BBC OneArticle continues belowLike this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .