Moffat is keen to point out that across its four 45-minute episodes, Douglas is Cancelled moves on from the subject of Douglas’ actual cancellation inside an hour. Instead, it becomes a simmering workplace war between Douglas and his junior colleague, Madeline, one that is encapsulated in a scene in which Madeline “offers” to brief Douglas for a Matt Doran-style self-flagellatory interview.
Karen Gillan (right) in Doctor Who with Arthur Darvill and Matt Smith.
Moffat: “I just heard in the vaguest possible terms that someone, a prominent individual, let’s say, was being rehearsed for an interview by a junior colleague. And I thought, ‘Whoa, what goes on in that room?’ Because any junior colleague wants to get rid of their senior colleague, right? I thought that would be one hell of a confrontation, and that’s what you get in episode four.”
It’s the culmination of a narrative where the greatest feat is setting up two warring factions without taking sides.
“Steven constantly surprises you with the twists and turns that it takes,” says Bonneville, “and the way that the pendulum of your sympathy swings from one direction to another and back again. And then, where does it settle?”
Whether you end up on team Douglas or team Madeline, or perhaps rooting for or blaming one of the other exemplary cast – Ben Miles (Coupling, The Crown) as Douglas’ producer, Alex Kingston (ER, Doctor Who) as his newspaper editor wife, Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso, Intelligence) as a misogynistic joke writer brought in to save the network and Madeleine Power (Six Wives, The Last Kingdom) as Douglas’ wonderfully woke teenage daughter, Claudia – says more about you than them, Bonneville thinks.
“As with all great satire, it draws you in with laughter and then punches you in the stomach. The knife gradually turns, and you start asking questions about yourself.”
Douglas, Bonneville points out, is no sneering bully or rampant egotist like some of the onscreen “talent” you read about.
“Douglas is a likeable character. He does have that sort of smugness, which is the comfort zone that he feels he’s in as someone relatively near the top of the media tree. But he thinks he’s still down with the kids. You know, he’s got his Filofax … The question is does he know that in his slipstream his protege is far smarter and on the case than he is?”
Because it’s Madeline, played by Moffat’s former Doctor Who alumni, Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy), who seems to be the pulling the strings.
“This is my favourite character I’ve ever played,” Gillan says, which is quite something coming from Doctor Who fan favourite Amy Pond. “I mean, it’s truly been the hardest thing I’ve ever done because she’s quite removed from me as a person, so it required a fair amount of acting. I could never wrap someone round my finger in the way that she’s capable of doing.”
“Certainly while I was making this it was more at the forefront of my mind, thinking, ‘Oh, right. Like, I could just accidentally say the wrong thing, and maybe that’s it forever.’”
Karen Gillan
Has making a show that begins with a social media pile-on changed her own attitude to what she posts and reposts on her phone?
“Certainly while I was making this it was more at the forefront of my mind, thinking, ‘Oh, right. Like, I could just accidentally say the wrong thing, and maybe that’s it forever.’ But you know what? You can’t live your life like that.”
Bonneville says that Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X) takeover drove him off the platform altogether.
“I got so depressed by Twitter just before we started filming this. Actually, I think it was Elon Musk’s new angle. I just deleted it. And then of course someone pops up pretending to be me, so I came back on it. Now I’ve got four followers or something and it’s very exciting.”
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In some ways Bonneville’s story sums up the paradoxes of social media that are inherent in Douglas is Cancelled – it’s something that most of us in 2024 can neither live with nor without.
“It’s nuanced. It’s complicated,” Moffat says. “I mean there have been plenty of cancellations that have been entirely justified. We really don’t want Gary Glitter on a podcast – there are people that should be cancelled, but there are people who shouldn’t. The people who are against cancel culture, in an absolutist way, will always cite freedom of speech. But to cancel someone is also you expressing your freedom of speech. What is interesting for me is the spectacle, the hilarity, the tragedy of people navigating all of this.”
People like Douglas and Madeline, a dinosaur and a butterfly doing a very new kind of dance.
“What’s different,” Moffat concludes, going back to how shaming has always been a part of public life, “is the speed at which this can happen. It’s been accelerated. Everyone is surrounded by iPhones and what you say can be recorded instantly. It can be all over social media before you get home. You can be cancelled before your taxi gets you to the house, right? That’s the truth. And that’s brand new.”
Douglas is Cancelled screens at 8pm, Sunday, December 1, on ABC
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