The humble robot has served as a faithful companion in films since the early days of cinema. But very few are 7 feet tall, look like an emotionless old man who has swallowed a washing machine whole, talk like a toddler on a Speak & Spell and enjoy eating cabbages.
Introducing Charles Petrescu, the star of Sundance-bowing Brit comedy Brian and Charles and undoubtedly the most ridiculous — not to mention low-budget — automaton ever to grace the big screen.
Co-written by David Earl and Chris Hayward, who also play the leads, and directed by Jim Archer, the exceptionally (and intentionally) lo-fi film — backed by Film4 and the BFI and being shopped by Bankside — could become the feel-good oddball buddy film the world needs right now, a supremely surreal and silly antithesis to today’s reality.
Comedian Earl, whose onscreen credits include Ricky Gervais projects such as Derek, Extras and After Life, stars as Brian Gittins, an eccentric and tragic recluse who has hidden away from society in a remote farm in northern Wales, where he tinkers with scrap machinery and discarded objects to build mostly useless contraptions (trawler nets for shoes?). One day, to combat his loneliness, he makes his most successful invention yet: a badly walking, weirdly talking robot with a (somewhat immature) personality of his own and a penchant for scarfing cabbages. The decidedly un-dynamic duo quickly develop an offbeat, if strangely charming and uplifting father-son bond (put to the test during the robot’s angry teenage phase).
But this is no high-tech, super realistic humanoid creation. Brian’s lanky android — who almost immediately settles on the name Charles Petrescu (because of course) — is built from a washing machine (and visibly so), has the head of a bespectacled, Gray-haired mannequin missing an eye, and speaks in a comically crude robotic voice.
Charles, it should be noted, is literally just Hayward, barely hidden inside a giant square cardboard box with clothes stretched over the top, moving the mannequin’s mouth when he speaks. The puppet’s height, plus the absence of any eyeholes, meant he had little idea what was going on around him during the shoot.
“People had to lead me round by the hand like a child,” says Hayward, who admits he became quite frustrated at not being able to see the scenes being shot. “I’d have loved to have watched what was going on, but I couldn’t see anything, I was just in this big cardboard box.”
Like so many comedy characters, Brian and Charles began their grand rise to cinema onstage.
Earl had been playing his blundering creation Brian Gittins as part of his stand-up routine for over a decade, which progressed to an internet radio show where people would call in (Earl says he would play a “madder version” of his character).
One of those callers was his producer Rupert Majendie (now head of development at Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow production company), but, too nervous to talk himself, he would use a robotic voice simulator software to type in what he wanted to say. The best of the various voices used was a somewhat serious, stern British accent that at the time they introduced as “the professor.”
“It just had a really, funny weird intonation,” says Hayward. “And it took Rupert a little while to type the answers, so when he’s talking to David there’s always a little weird, awkward pause.”
Hayward wanted to bring the professor to life, so began dreaming up what he might look like for a stage show. Charles Petrescu was born.
The somewhat unusual name was given by Majendie — Charles being the actual name of the voice on the software program and, according to Earl, Petruscu after his (then) favorite Chelsea soccer player, Dan Petrescu.
As a live act — Earl and Hayward (in full ludicrous outfit) on stage with Majendie at the back using his laptop wired to the speaker system to play what he was writing for Charles — Brian Gittins and Charles Petrescu managed to hit a few unexpected cultural highs.
“We did a show with Paddy Considine, reenacting a scene from [his gritty 2004 psychological thriller] Dead Man’s Shoes with Charles,” recalls Hayward. “But because Rupert could improvise at the back, it looked to anyone watching as if Charles was the one talking and they couldn’t work out how it was happening.” (In the YouTube video, it seems the audience is too busy crying with laughter).
After several years on the circuit, the next obvious leap for the pair was a short film, with Archer — who they’d known for a while and had already made several comedy sketches — recruited to direct.
On stage, Earl says that Charles’ character was “quite rowdy and boisterous,” and often dependent on how much Majendie had to drink when he was typing his dialog. “It was quite an adult act,” he admits. For the 2017 short, this was softened, Charles becoming more innocent and immature, and Brian treating him more like a young child or eager-to-please pet.
“It took a bit of working out, and he has gone through various stages of temperament,” says Hayward. “It wasn’t till quite later on when we figured out his progression from almost being a child through to adolescence.”
The 12-minute film — which scooped several accolades — laid the essential groundwork for the feature, which came backed by Film4 and the British Film Institute. The extra funding brought with it some — exceptionally minor — improvements for Charles, Hayward’s costume upgraded from a cardboard box to a “slightly updated corrugated cardboard box,” making it a little sturdier to wear (although Hayward recalls it still “shaking intensely” when they shot a scene in a gale-force wind).
“We actually tried to change as little as possible,” says Archer. “I was worried about changing too much and losing the charm of what we had in the short.”
One element of Charles’ appearance that did prove troublesome was his head, which Hayward had originally found randomly one day on eBay, before sticking on a pair of glasses and some hair. For the feature, they needed duplicates (six were used in the end).
“I couldn’t really remember where I got the head, so had to scour the internet, and the ones that turned up were slightly more handsome,” says Hayward. “But he’s a movie star now, so that’s fine!”
Brian and Charles was shot over four weeks in various parts of rural north Wales, mostly in and around Snowdonia National Park. Pushed back from the intended April 2020 date due to COVID-19, production took place that December — during the second lockdown — which actually ended up adding to the bleak and cold aesthetic of Brian’s lonely surroundings.
“There were about three days where the weather was so horrendous,” says Earl. “Brian’s cottage looked amazing, but was not the nicest of places – there was no heating.”
Now complete and ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world, Brian and Charles is getting its first bow on Jan. 21. Sundance’s shift to virtual sadly means Charles won’t be able to enjoy an awkward robotic shimmy down a red carpet just yet, although Hayward says he might “make a special appearance” in a live Q&A.
But even before the film gets its first real audience test, Brian and Charles feels like perfect — if somewhat peculiar — franchise material. Could there be sequels, prequels or maybe even children’s cartoons featuring the oddball inventor and his even odder creation?
While Archer says it all depends on whether the “world likes the film,” he admits he has been playing with another text-to-speech voice that could lend some inspiration: a female robot.
“When we did it live, we always had this idea of having a girlfriend onstage, but at the time I said I couldn’t face building another puppet monster,” says Hayward. “So Charles could come home with his new love … I’d like to see him make love to another robot.”
But whatever X-rated plans they do have could all rest on whether the filmmakers find a new face for their ridiculous robot. Says Hayward: “By the end of the shoot, Charles’ mouth had gotten a bit ripped.”
Source: Hollywood
