Bad Robots

Hidden-camera prank shows: forever searching for that nonexistent sweet spot between lame and cruel. This one, in which automated gizmos plague humans, also suffers from a surfeit of implausibly gullible victims. Tonight, there's fun at the expense of immigrants trying to prove their Britishness (when they say "beach" the show's fake voice recognition software hears "bitch"), while a woman who hasn't questioned the replacement of a vet with an android looks as if she might cry when it says her pet is dead.

A successful, only slightly low-rent comedy format returns. What happens is this: we, the public, attempt to have a passport photo taken, or use an interactive map at a zoo, or use an automated bureau de change. But the joke is on us! In a place where Isaac Asimov meets Candid Camera, the Bad Robots team have devised satirical machines that issue absurd or rude instructions, and then film our reactions. It can be funny, but also shows how guilelessly we fall in line with automated commands, however absurd.

Adam Buxton and Ross Kemp become Bad Robots

The comedian and the formers EastEnders hardman join Felicity Montagu, Matt Le Tisser and Sir Michael Gambon as the voices of the pesky automatons.

Part one of six of a hidden-camera show about robot rebellion narrated by Sir Michael Gambon. The android antagonisers of fictional TezCorp Industries don't quite hit the evil heights of, say, Terminator's Skynet, however: they include a parking ticket machine with dispensing issues, an inappropriate driving theory test computer and, erm, a disobedient photobooth. Rather than scaring the bejesus out of the public, the aim seems to be more to mildly annoy them. An anodyne take on Fonejacker/Facejacker et al.

Michael Gambon to voice new E4 prank show Bad Robots

Sir Michael Gambon has been confirmed as the voice of the eponymous vengeful robot in E4's brand-new hidden camera show from Objective Productions, Bad Robots.

Shows involving pranks and hidden cameras (Candid Camera, Beadle's About, Trigger Happy TV, Fool Britannia) frequently become fixtures in the schedules. This latest version adapts the concept to the increasingly interactive technology employed in supermarket checkouts, "intelligent" road signs and websites. Users discover that devices are suddenly answering back or misbehaving before the revelation that a jokey ghost has been placed in the machine.