No sex please, we're British robots! Cyborgs in Channel 4's new Humans series get naked far less than those in Sweden
Channel 4’s latest hit drama imagines a universe in which realistic robots live alongside their flesh-and-blood masters.
But even the futuristic world of Humans is not immune to national stereotypes – as the British cyborgs are far more reluctant to get naked than their Swedish counterparts.
The show is based on a Scandinavian series called Akta Manniskor or Real Humans. But while the characters and the plot are almost identical, the UK version is markedly less explicit.
Risque: In the Swedish version Akta Manniskor, a human character and a cyborg actually make love
Close encounter: There are numerous sexual scenes in the Swedish version which don't appear in Channel 4's Humans
Big hit: It's the channel's highest rating show since 1992 but, uncharacteristically, it tones down the sexual content compared to it's Swedish counterpart
Just a kiss: This is another raunchy scene from the Swedish version of the show in which a man and a female robot kiss passionately
The Swedish version features several sexual encounters between humans and machines which will not feature in the remake, while scenes featuring nudity have been toned down.
‘There is no nudity in the British version,’ co-writer Sam Vincent told The Mail on Sunday. ‘We do not want to be perceived as being exploitative.’
6 million Channel 4 viewers saw lustful human teenager Toby try to touch the breasts of robot ‘synth’ Anita, played by Gemma Chan
Last week, 6 million Channel 4 viewers saw lustful human teenager Toby try to touch the breasts of robot ‘synth’ Anita, played by Gemma Chan. But she stopped him, declaring it inappropriate. However, in the Swedish version, Anita allows him to rub her intimately. In another scene from the original, a male cyborg touches his female owner’s breasts over the breakfast table before the couple are shown making love. This too is absent from the British version. And in another moment cut from the UK remake, the Swedish Anita removes her top and examines her breasts in a mirror.
Vincent added: ‘Because we go deeper into the examination of sexual exploitation in our show we had to be very careful we were not going to be exploitative ourselves. That is why we didn’t want to have a lot of nudity.’
The new sensitivity marks a change of tone for Channel 4, which once revelled in shocking audiences with risque content, leading its former chief executive Michael Grade to be dubbed ‘Britain’s pornographer in chief’.
But Humans is not entirely chaste. The Mail on Sunday can reveal that an upcoming episode will feature a sexual encounter between a human and a synth.
Producer Chris Fry said: ‘It’s beautifully handled and at no point is it gratuitous. We wanted to explore the question of whether doing something like that with a synthetic is the same as doing it with a human being.’
Humans, which is Channel 4’s biggest ratings drama success since The Camomile Lawn in 1992, continues tonight at 9pm.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3141734/Cyborgs-Channel-4-s-Humans-prudish-robots-Swedish-version-Akta-Manniskor.html#ixzz3eOKuZWq9
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook