Being Human: Annies Messages From The Other Side

SFX blogger extraordinaire Narin Bahar secures us a Being Human exclusive, in the form of a harrowing video message from Annie

Being Human series three is preparing for an early 2011 launch, but it’s fair to say there’s a lot of loose ends to be tidied up. The gang have had to decamp from Windsor Terrace to the wilds of Wales while Annie, having been dragged over to the other side, is still in the land of men with sticks and ropes.

While the beginning of the season will show the gang’s attempts at getting the awesome foursome reunited (after all, who’ll make the tea otherwise?), the Being Human production team have upped the ante of their – already frankly fab – web offerings to give us a series of daily despatches from Annie on the other side in the run up to the launch of the new series. And as you’d expect – they’re written by show creator Toby Whithouse and set in purgatory after all - they are at times seriously bleak.

The show’s digital guru Barry Pilling (he does all the writing for the BBC blog and appears in lots of the behind the scenes videos) explained: “Because, as we saw at the end of series two, Annie can send messages back to screens she can send broadcasts to your screen in our world. As Being Human is very much an internet show – we have 7,500 followers on Twitter and 140,000 on Facebook – we thought it was an interesting way whet the appetite of fans in the run up to the beginning of the new series.

“This is a project that came from Toby Whithouse and was written by him. The show production staff came to the web team, it was completely their idea, and everyone’s very passionate about it. It deals with being alone and having no sense of love or friends and feeling completely disconnected from the world to the point of losing herself. It’s very dark, we’re very proud of it. Lenora Critchlow (Annie) shot in one day and she was absolutely exhausted by the end. She said it was some of the most difficult acting work she’d ever done on anything ever.”

There are eight videos – including this one here, which is an SFX exclusive. To view the rest go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/beinghuman – and keep checking back, they’re uploading one a day.

• What do you think about these videos? And what are your hopes for the new series? Have your say in the comments below.
• Being Human series three launches in the UK in January 2011. Watch for lots of exciting features in the magazine and online in the run up to transmission date.