MEET THE CAST: Lisa Hammond as Anna

Can you tell us about this new animated comedy series?

It’s about what I would call a very normal working-class family growing up in a council estate. It could be seen as unconventional but I can actually relate to it hugely. They are a heavy mixture of personalities all in one house and all of different generations and there are little kids and pets as well, everyone has their role in the family.

Tell us about Anna?

I think Anna and Dave have a very specific relationship, so you know when siblings are really close in age, they love to hate each other. They go on these adventures and they pretend to hate each other but they only have each other for company, which I think is really relatable as well. Anna’s a stubborn, down to earth, adventurous, get on with it girl who loves joining in with Dave even though she finds him really annoying.  

Anna plays the ‘triangle’ in the school music talent show – did you play any musical instruments at school?

My Primary school didn’t do that much music but I gave the recorder a good go, but to be honest I don’t have many musical talents. Because my fingers are so small my fingers couldn’t reach the holes on the recorder so I was just blowing it like a whistle. I used to play the drums in my teenage years which I enjoyed at the youth club, it was just around the corner from where I grow up but I can only do one sort of beat on the drums.

Gran is the anarchist of the family, she just does whatever she wants, says whatever she wants and doesn’t mind about upsetting people. She is the fun character that doesn’t care.  

Anna pulls her teammates to victory in the sports day episode – what was your favourite sports day event?

Because I wasn’t very good at sport because of my disability I kind of just ignored sports day a bit. I wasn’t a wheelchair user then so running or jumping would be a bit impossible for me, but I was very good at balancing the egg as that was more skill than having to run. Everybody would try and run really fast but I would go at my own pace, I can’t remember if I won but I used to enjoy that one because I used to feel like I was on an even playing field at least.   

Were you a school dinner’s or a lunchbox girl?

In my Primary School I was lunchbox girl and then in my secondary school I was school dinners, I don’t think we had an option at my secondary to bring a lunchbox. Everybody liked to get their own style of lunchbox and their little thermos, I think I had a My Little Pony at one point. With school diners I always remember the chocolate cake and chocolate custard, it was my favourite thing.

Anna, with her family, go on lots of ‘rubbish’ trips. What’s the most rubbish/funniest holiday you have been on?

There have been quite a few but the funniest one I remember as a child is when me and my family and my cousin’s family and my Auntie and Uncle went to Tenerife. On one of the days we got back to our apartment and there was this cockatoo in the room. My mum has a bad phobia of birds and she was going crazy. We were all hysterical, every single one of us as we couldn’t get this cockatoo out of the apartment. I just remembering laughing so much my face was hurting, it was flying everywhere. We spent hours and hours trying to get it out and all the kids were laughing their heads off.

What is her relationship like with the rest of the family?

Really good, they are not an overly lovey dovey family but they all work really well and they all have their specific role to play and Anna is one of those roles, which is really good because I think it’s really important for kids to have representation of normality with kids with disabilities. There is nothing special about Anna at all, she is just one part of the bigger wider family which is the brilliant part that Ed (Creator) has created. It’s very normal, everyday mundane stuff, so just the way everybody else operates in the family, whether it’s the babies, the dog, the Gran or the sister.

As a child growing up with a disability there isn’t representation of that on TV in general. I just think it’s really important not only are there representations but also normal representations that are just members of the family all getting on, which I think is absolutely brilliant. The Rubbish World of Dave Spud is really ahead of its time. I struggle even as adults just to get normal representation of our lives on screen and for Ed to do it with such a light touch and to represent such normality I think is really way ahead of its time. Normalisation of disability on screen is really important and the fact they cast me as a disabled actor in that role is actually really brilliant.

What children’s shows did you enjoy when growing up?

I used to watch a lot of Danger Mouse, I loved that and I really enjoyed T-Bag. There was also a programme called Knightmare and they wore a metal helmet that went over their face so they couldn’t see and their team mates had to shout out ‘walk forward, walk sideways’ as they couldn’t see and I used to love that one too, the voice of the man behind them was quite scary too.  Also, things like Button Moon and Care Bears was great and of course Grange Hill which I was in.