BBC Ann Droid’s Diane Morgan was given a chance by fellow Boltonian Peter Kay and the rest is history
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Bolton-born comic and actress Diane Morgan(Image: PA)
Diane Morgan is back in the headlines as she earns praise for her latest comedy offering, and it all started here in Greater Manchester, or Bolton to be exact.
The actress’ new BBC One madcap comedy Ann Droid, sees the 50-year-old portray an outdated robot, Linda, who is assigned to a grieving widow called Sue, played by The Royle Family legend Sue Johnston, 82.
In the six-part series, penned by Diane and Sarah Kendall, Sue’s husband Dave died two years ago, and now her only son, Michael, is moving out again, to try to fix his marriage – again.
In a bid to support his mother’s wishes to live independently, Michael surprises her with an Ann Droid Z58/100 humanoid care robot, but Sue really does not want a robot in her home, especially one that causes chaos straightaway.
Despite its release only last week on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, Ann Droid has been storming up the broadcaster’s streaming chart and fans are also making a demand for a second run.
Speaking about how the idea for the series came about, Diane said: “The idea has been batting around for a couple of years, not that long. But there are some ideas we have had for 15 years, and they don’t get made.
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Diane’s new comedy, Ann Droid, is rising in popularity(Image: BBC/Boffola Pictures/Gary Moyes)
“I read an article in the newspaper about how, in the future, not that far in the future, people who don’t have kids can end up having robots looking after them, and I thought this was hilarious, because I don’t have kids, and that’ll be me being fed soup by a robot. So I told my friend Pippa (Brown, a producer) about it, and she said we should write it up and see if the BBC will go for it. I agreed, thinking they won’t go for it, and then they did.”
And according to Diane, comedy was a huge part of her upbringing. Born in Farnworth, the comedian grew up in a household where she and her older brother Stephen were encouraged to be humorous.
She previously shared: “I watched all comedy. Stuff that my dad would introduce me to: Hancock’s Half Hour, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore [Not Only… But Also]. I think it was just all going in and I was absorbing it. It was prized in our house to be as funny as possible.”You could fail all your exams as long as you were funny. I think they wanted us to be happy, basically. And it’s a good job because I’m just not academic.”
When looking for her big break, having taken up stand-up comedy, Diane had to undertake a string of everyday jobs to get by, including a dental assistant, telemarketer and a potato peeler at a fish and chip shop.
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Diane playing Liz in another popular BBC series, Motherland(Image: BBC/Delightful Industries/Merman/Colin Hutton)
Back in July 2023, the Bafta-nominated actor and Emmy Award nominee was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in her home town.
At the time, she discussed some of the jobs she’d had, including ‘packing worming tablets’, as she tried to break into comedy and acting. And she revealed she’d been sacked from the tea rooms at the Last Drop Village hotel in Bolton ‘for not knowing what a cream tea is’.
She said at the time: “I should not be here today – I shouldn’t. There’s been a dreadful mistake. Thirty years ago, just outside this building, I bumped into Maxine Peake, who’s also a Boltonian. We’d met two weeks earlier when we were both auditioning to get into Manchester Polytechnic, for the acting course.
“Neither of us got in. It took us three long years to get into drama school and during that time I had various jobs – packing worming tablets, selling fish and chips. I was also an Avon lady. Most of these jobs I was sacked from. I got fired from the Last Drop Village tea rooms in Bolton for not knowing what a cream tea is. I thought it was tea with cream in it. But now I have an honorary doctorate. Unbelievable.”
She also shared with The Guardian last year that she and her friend, actress Maxine Peake, decided to have elocution lessons. “We thought the reason we weren’t getting into drama school was because we were so broad,” she said.
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The Bafta-nominated actor and Emmy Award nominee was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in her home town in 2023(Image: University of Bolton)
But it was while working those various jobs that, one day, and after a suggestion from Maxine, that Diane decided to call on comedian, and fellow Bolton native, Peter Kay, for help. “I wrote to Peter Kay and said I’m from Bolton and I want to be an actress if you’re ever doing anything, let me know,” she once recalled. “And God love him, he got me in Phoenix Nights. That was my first TV job.”
The rest, as they say, is now history. She has since gon on to appear in a number of popular shows, including Life, Mandy and Motherland, but she is probably best recognised for portraying the deadpan, ill-informed reporter Philomena Cunk, which has also seen her feature in various spin-off series, including Cunk on Earth, Cunk on Life and Cunk on Britain.
As for Diane’s life away from the small screen, she keep much of that private. However, it is known that she is in a long-term relationship with BBC comedy producer and writer Ben Caudell. They have collaborated on various projects together in the past, including Mandy and the Cunk series.
Last year, she appeared on the BBC genealogy series, Who Do You Think You Are? and after following the tragic love story of her great great aunt who lost her fiancé in the First World War, Diane returned a poignant family heirloom, discovered a 19th century ancestor who fearlessly went to court to fight for her illegitimate children’s rights, and went in search of her mysterious three-times great grandfather ‘German Charlie’.
