Review of the new comedy with Diane Morgan as a care robot

Diane Morgan’s Ann Droid seems very timely, given it seems increasingly likely that robot companions will soon be playing a crucial role in elderly care, whether we like it or not.

On the flip side, the comedy is also rooted in some now-familiar sci-fi tropes of artificial intelligence struggling to understand or mimic human feelings. Yet the series is packed with more than enough heart and honesty to be both funny and genuinely affecting.

A massive part of that is down to a wonderfully layered, performance from Sue Johnston as the recently widowed Sue. As well as losing her husband, her son Michael is leaving home, causing her to lament poignantly: ‘Everything in my life has been taken away…’ And, later, with even more melancholy: ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this last bit alone…’

Yet she also has a dignified defiance to beat ageing, bristling and the suggestion she ‘had a fall’ when she winds up in hospital. It is this accident that prompts Michael to get the robotic assistant, to assuage his guilt at going back to live with his awful, cheating partner and leaving mum alone. But human help is way too expensive.

The humour in the first part of Ann Droid’s opening episode is so understated you might almost mistake it for laying the groundwork for a moving drama. But when co-writer Sarah Kendall turns up as a delivery driver, clumsily wheeling in Sue’s mechanical carer, the comedy ratchets up. 

It’s not wanted at first. Sue’s heard horror stories – and knackered second-hand models like this, the best useless Michael can afford from doing clinical trials, suffered ‘pretty catastrophic teething problems’.

The script actually follows a classic rom-com formula – first Sue and the robot she christens Linda are chalk-and-cheese and don’t get on at all… but Sue soon comes to appreciate her new companion.

Morgan’s always been great at deadpan stupidity, and here that’s writ large as she serves up lines in absolute monotone, such as: ‘I will lighten the mood with humour’ and ‘Where to you want me to piss off to?’ She has a child-like naivety, mesmerised by a Newton’s Cradle, and no filter. While Johnston's is a performance dripping in subtle emotion, glassy-eyed Morgan shows none.

There’s a fun cast of supporting characters too – including David Hargreaves as the bonkers Tom, not giving a shit in his later years, and Kathryn Hunter as the refreshingly blunt Eileen (‘Of course I’ve got time – I’m 81 and all my friends are dead’). Meanwhile, it’s lucky Michael’s played by Morgan’s affable Motherland co-star Paul Ready, else this rather pathetic man-child might be too unlikeable for his immaturity and lack of spine.

But with rich characters, heartfelt writing, and a deft comic touch to extract maximum absurdity out of the situation, Ann Droid is a charming and funny look at what could otherwise be a dystopian near future.

• All episodes of Ann Droid are on iPlayer now.

Review date: 17 Jul 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett