Charlie Brooker - Inside Black Mirror

Annabel Jones:There was never a question of that murder ever being seen, and we were thinking it was slightly more Fargo -esque, despite being very dark and cruel.

John Hillcoat:The twists of the blind child and the guinea pig couldn’t be anything other than pitch-black comedy. The logic that Mia’s actions would set up and unleash, just had to finally involve blindness and pet rodents!

Charlie Brooker:I don’t think people see the guinea pig coming. It’s a comic image, the idea that the cops are going to get that thing and pop it into the memory machine. Presumably they’re going to waft some cheese under its nose to help bring about the memories.

Sanne Wohlenberg: Crocodile is relentlessly dark and that’s probably not for everyone. It’s one of those pieces that people either love particularly or feel it’s too bleak. Which is a compliment in itself, rather than somebody saying, “That was nice.”

Charlie Brooker:I suppose I can understand some people feeling we’d gone too far, because of the tonal shift, but I do still get surprised when people don’t see the dark humour going on there. I thought if people were going to say anything, they’d say it was a sick joke, but they seem to instead say it’s too much.

John Hillcoat:I was both a little surprised and proud to have further cracked that Mirror and pushed the envelope. Perversely, one of the great joys and reasons for the show’s success is unquestionably all about pushing that envelope – pushing that mirror up in front of us to gaze into that blackness. Perhaps more than ever, we need to embrace all that we are. The show is a rare treat in allowing for that space to unapologetically explore a side that is normally blocked out, to our peril.

In the final scene, a haunted Mia and her husband watch their son perform among others in a school production of the 1976 musical film Bugsy Malone , which starred a young Jodie Foster. As the police close in, the children sing the film’s song You Give A Little Love .

Jodie Foster ( Arkangel director):That was such a crazy surprise when I watched Crocodile ! I don’t think Charlie and Annabel told me about that in advance, but it was so perfect. Only people in England understand that, because in the United States Bugsy Malone just came and went, but I loved the homage.

Charlie Brooker:That song is a weirdly haunting feel-good number. I first chose it as a darkly ironic counterpoint, because the kids would be singing something so upbeat. I didn’t think about all the lyrics, but then realised they were singing, “You’re going to be remembered for the things that you say and do,” and it just felt like fate.

I’ve never told anyone what the title Crocodile means. John Hillcoat kept asking, and I kept saying, “Oh it’s a bit complicated. I’ll explain it at some point.”

John Hillcoat:Here’s my interpretation: the story’s cruel logic has a deadly vice-like grip, akin to a crocodile’s jaw.

Sanne Wohlenberg:There is a theory that, when crocodiles kill their prey, they have tears in their eyes. I don’t think that’s what Charlie intended, but it’s fun to speculate.

Charlie Brooker:The genesis of the title actually relates to that previous incarnation of the script, about the person who’d witnessed their mother’s murder at the age of two. She’d grown into this very anxious person, who saw the world as incredibly threatening.

Here’s the analogy: imagine that your life is a simulated boat ride down a river. If you started playing that, as a VR experience, it could be sunny and beautiful and you love it. But if it’s scripted that occasional random events will happen, such as a crocodile attacking you, well now that’s slightly different. And if you are really unlucky, and a crocodile attacks you in the first minute of you playing that game, then you think you’re in a horror game. You think, “From that point on, I could get attacked at any moment,” and you can never relax and enjoy the rest of that boat ride, because you think it’s a crocodile attack simulator.

So that’s what Crocodile is: an analogy for somebody who’d been traumatized at an early age, and might be troubled by life forever and never be able to relax. The title stuck even though the story completely changed, and then the title didn’t actually make sense. But it’s also weirdly fitting.

In Conversation

Charlie Brooker – writer and executive producer

Annabel Jones – executive producer

Nick Pitt – producer

Georgina Campbell – actor

Joel Collins – series production designer

People in a walled-off society have signed up to a system which decides with whom they form romantic relationships and for how long. Amy and Frank develop a clear bond on their first date, but the system chooses to part them the next morning. As the pair head off to experience other relationships, will they ever be given another chance to realise their potential as a couple?

Charlie Brooker:We had a wrap party for Season Four, with a lot of actors from different episodes mingling in a room. They’d say to each other, “Oh you’re in the space one? I’m in Hang the DJ ”, and someone else would go, “Is that the one with all the sex in?” There was a lot of sex in it, but no nudity. I think there’s just a man’s bum at one point.

Annabel Jones:Charlie’s first cameo.

Charlie Brooker:See how stony and mirthless my face is right now? The good news is I’m laughing on the inside. Somewhere. Maybe.

Anyway, you don’t want to write graphic descriptions of sex because, apart from anything else, that’s probably quite off-putting to an actor.

Also, I do really like Game of Thrones , but in Season One of that show there was quite a lot of arched backs, tossed-back manes of hair and heaving buttocks. When that happens, it all goes a bit like a cross between a screen saver and a butcher’s shop window. I’m like, “You’re just showing me people’s bodies for the sake of showing me people’s bodies, and I feel cheapened by your expectations of what I want to see!”

Nick Pitt (producer): Hang the DJ is that hen’s tooth of Black Mirror s – a happy one.

Charlie Brooker:In a way, Hang the DJ is a companion piece to San Junipero . While I was writing it I was nervous about the light and playful comic tone, and thought some people might hate it. Yet it’s turned out to be a lot of people’s favourite episode.

Having done San Junipero I was confident people would like Frank and Amy as a couple. I didn’t think we needed to see them for very long, to want them to get together. It does seem that, as soon as you put a couple on screen, people are pretty much clapping their hands and going, “Fuck! Fuck! Come on, hurry up – fuck like dogs!”