Gemma Chan

Wunmi Mosaku, best known for her work in the award-winning The End of the F***ing World, comes in to audition for a role, but is turned away for being black.

“Look, it’s not that kind of film darling”, the panel says as she enters the audition suite. “They’re auditioning for that other film… Black Panther Returns… That’s in the next suite.”

“It was so awkward and so painful,” recalls writer and director Jessica Swale. “It does make you feel dirty setting that scene up, knowing that it is not that far away from what [Mosaku may] have faced in real life.”

It seems that every successful television show needs a degree of serendipity. As we discovered during the latest RTS “Anatomy of a hit” session, Channel 4’s surprise summer hit, Humans, was no exception. 

The British producer, Kudos, famous for Spooks, Life on Mars and Broadchurch, got lucky when it got into bed with AMC, the US cable channel equally famous for Mad Men and Breaking Bad. 

The team behind Humans, Channel 4’s most successful drama series for 20 years, has explained why audiences were so captivated by the show.

In the latest of the RTS’s Anatomy of a Hit strand, an eight-strong panel, chaired by journalist Stephen Armstrong, agreed that it was Human’s domestic dimension which set it apart from other fantasy drama.

“The domestic element is probably the key to the show’s popularity,” said Humans co-writer Jonathan Brackley.

In Humans, the Channel 4 hit drama, the latest must-have gadget is a synth, a life-like humanoid who undertakes a range of tasks around the home.

From companionship to carrying out domestic duties, we asked members of the public what they would like their synth to do.

The dystopian Channel 4 drama Humans has been recommissioned for a second series.

The show is set in an alternative present where Synths – robotic servants who eerily resemble humans – are a must-have household gadget. Over eight episodes, the science fiction drama has explored the consequences of artificial intelligence.

Humans has been the highest rated Channel 4 original drama in over 20 years with its debut launch in June garnering an audience total of 6.1 million.