Charlie Brooker - Inside Black Mirror

Hang the DJ is also similar to San Junipero in that it’s not really happening. We literally have a scene in which Frank and Amy say, “I think this is all a simulation!” That was me trying to pull off a double-bluff. Hopefully that worked. On some level, you might go, “Well, that’s not the twist, because they’ve said it, so it won’t be.”

The story started with this idea of a Spotify for relationships. Here’s what we couldn’t work out: when everything’s dictated in advance, how does that work as a story? Also, we didn’t have the ‘It’s Not Really Happening’ twist. You’d think with Black Mirror that’d be the first thing we’d think of, but it didn’t occur to us for a very long time.

Annabel Jones:Oh my god, we spent months working through this idea. We wanted to do something about dating in the modern world. When Charlie had the Spotify idea, we knew it had great potential to support lots of funny contemporary observations. In the beginning, the ‘Playlist’ was going to be predetermined: a series of formative relationships that you should have before you settle down – scratch the itch before you commit. Have I just created a dating catchphrase?

Then we discussed changing it so the algorithm is so sophisticated it can learn from each relationship. But narratively, how can we drive Amy and Frank apart and then bring them back together at the end? So Charlie’s new twist ending allowed us to have our wedding cake and eat it. The digital Coach device merely claims the algorithm is learning from the relationships, when actually it is testing Frank and Amy to see if they’ll rebel and run off together. It’s a digital version of Romeo and Juliet but with a happy ending.

Georgina Campbell (actor):I loved the script, which felt so close to the dating experience so many of us are subject to. Endless dating seems normal these days, with all these apps and virtual ways of meeting people. It’s more normal to meet someone on a dating app than in a bar! In a way it’s fantastic, because you meet so many people and don’t perhaps feel a need to settle, but at the same time option paralysis is definitely real. There’s just too much on the menu!

To be honest, having a timer would in some ways be great. I love when Amy says how strange it is that people would have to decide and go through break-ups. I could definitely do without that drama in my life, but on the other hand it might cut your experience too short. You need time to truly get to know someone, but it can sometimes only take a second to feel that spark.

Annabel Jones:Georgina Campbell and Joe Cole, two of the most exciting actors of their generation, playing opposite each other – how lucky we were!

Given that the film tracks Amy and Frank’s relationship over a number of years, and in between various other dalliances, we had to set up the romantic connection between them very quickly. They needed an immediate rapport and Georgina and Joe delivered this with such natural and honest performances – you’re immediately rooting for them. Georgina as Amy effortlessly exuded warmth and likeability and Joe brought such vulnerability to Frank. The combination was heart-breaking.

Georgina Campbell:Joe Cole and I did a chemistry test together and it just really clicked. We spoke a bit before, had drinks and got to know each other a little, so it was great that we already had that rapport. I was really lucky to work with Joe: he’s a fantastic actor and I think he could probably have chemistry with a plank of wood!

There was a funny moment at the pairing day celebration, when I see Frank again and kick him. After a few takes, our director Tim Van Patten came over and whispered in my ear, “Look, we’re not buying the kick, just kick him properly this time, he can handle it.” I kicked Joe so hard he bled… and that was the shot they used. Hopefully he can forgive me: it was a great reaction!

I really enjoyed stepping into Amy’s shoes. She’s just full to the brim with hope. I wanted her to be light, the embodiment of that feeling you get when you go dating, that nervous excitement. I created a little bounce in her step, to help convey her warm and almost childish energy. Even when she eventually becomes tired of the system, she still has this glint in her eye, this feeling of hope. She never gives up! I really love that about her as a character, she’s so strong.

Joel Collins (series production designer):In Charlie’s first draft, the people were in tower blocks. But I’d been to a birthday party in this Oxfordshire place called Soho Farmhouse. It’s full of extraordinarily rich people on holiday, looking very smug. An electric milk float takes you round to your cabin, which is like a wood-shack with a bath in the middle. Then you go to clubs and bars, but all in the countryside as if in its own world. When I showed Charlie this place, he recreated the script to be set in more of a Center Parcs for dating.

I took apart a mobile phone. Inside, there’s a green plate, and on that plate there’s a chip, with lots of copper and brass lines leading to other nubbins. So I decided to design a park based on this mobile phone chip. There’s a central hub, and all the green grass is the green plate of the chip, and all the huts are the little nubbins. Basically, I thought, “If we can’t tell the audience we’re inside a mobile phone, what happens if I design it like we really are?” I never told anybody that, because it’s absurd, so I kind of kept it quiet! But if you look at the design, it’s completely geometric. Everywhere is the same.

Charlie Brooker:There’s algorithmic stuff going on in all the designs. Hexagonal grid patterns and repeated motifs that you don’t really notice, woven into everything. They’re there when they climb up the wall at the end.

Frank and Amy enter a second relationship of an unspecified length, having agreed not to look at their expiry date. When Frank can’t resist taking a secret look, his action pulls their expiry date forward and seems to have ruined everything.

Charlie Brooker:I always thought that was a neat little analogy for leaving things well alone, versus the human need to know everything and the insecurity that comes from worrying about how long a relationship will last. Frank ends up punishing both of them. He sours the whole thing by getting insecure.

Nick Pitt:At one point during script development, that moment gave us a structural problem and we discussed getting rid of it. But we sensed its power and Charlie found the dramatic shoehorn that eased whatever the structural problem was. Looking back, its loss would have robbed the final act of so much emotional power. I just can’t imagine the show without that now, but we nearly mislaid it.