Diane Morgan, the comedian behind the anarchic character Mandy, has opened up about the show's unexpected success and her reluctance to see it air. The fourth series of the BBC comedy, which Morgan writes and stars in, sees Mandy vomit ice-cream on a child and get 'rancid lamb fat' injected into her backside. Morgan admitted she was so nervous about the show's debut in 2019 that she almost asked the BBC to pull it. 'It felt really personal, in some ways,' she said.
Morgan, known for her deadpan style as Philomena Cunk and roles in Motherland and After Life, created Mandy as a reaction to 'Fleabaggy dramas'. She wanted to make a grotesque physical comedy inspired by shows like Bottom, but with a female lead. 'I couldn't think of a woman that had done that,' she said. 'I've not got a problem with making myself look disgusting, because that's what I want to see.'
The character first appeared in the 2016 sitcom Rovers, and later in a pilot for the BBC. Morgan never expected the show to be picked up, which gave her the freedom to be as mad as she liked. 'I thought, fantastic, made it, and then thought, oh shit,' she recalled. The episodes, barely 15 minutes long, see Mandy try various jobs and get-rich-quick schemes, navigating fatbergs, psychics, and Russian gangsters.
Morgan, who grew up near Bolton, has drawn on her own experiences for the show. She has worked as a chip shop assistant, Avon lady, dental nurse, and packing worming tablets. 'I've been pretty terrible at all of them,' she said. She also revealed that she and actress Maxine Peake once took elocution lessons, thinking their broad accents were holding them back. 'It's mad, isn't it, that the thing that was separating me out, I wanted to get rid of,' she said.
