It was the 00s show where DIY robots fought to the death. Now MMA for machines is back. We visited the set to watch the sparks fly

A city famous for its shipyards, Glasgow seems like an appropriate place to relaunch a scuttled franchise. Today, on the banks of the river Clyde, a huge rented warehouse echoes with a renewed chorus of heavy industry. The high-pitched whine of power tools, showers of sparks and the percussive donk of metal smashing against metal would be familiar to a retired welder. The same might not be said of the 500-strong crowd jabbing foam fingers in the air and lustily singing along to Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust.

BBC's Robot Wars reboot to bring in more high-tech fighting machines Read more

This is the belated, excitable return of Robot Wars. The scuzzy arena where remote-controlled robo-gladiators attempt to batter seven bells out of each other looks relatively unchanged but the audience are closer than ever to the action, protected from flying shrapnel by a bulletproof transparent polycarbonate enclosure. And with good reason: Robot Wars 2016 is both bigger and louder.

“What you maybe don’t get when watching on-screen is the actual noise of it,” explains Dara O Briain, who has taken on hosting duties along with The One Show’s Angela Scanlon. “It’s the sheer kinetic energy of these things smashing into each other.”

When Robot Wars launched on BBC2 in 1998, it took a while to make a din. Inspired by a US fighting robot craze that had sprouted up around sci-fi conventions in the 1990s, the first season featured Jeremy Clarkson in a dodgy black leather jacket and pit reporter Philippa Forrester interviewing the mild-mannered tinkerers behind robots with names such as Killertron and Recyclopse. In three-way bouts, competitors would try to disable their opponents with brute force while also avoiding overpowered house robots and in-ring hazards such as an enormous flipper and a pit of fire.

Things changed when Craig Charles replaced the half-hearted Clarkson for the second series. The Red Dwarf actor brought a surprising intensity to his role as master of ceremonies, delivering apocalyptic sermons from a balcony in customised motorcycle leathers, like a Colonel Kurtz who had gone native in your local Laser Quest. There were catchphrases (“ACTIVATE!”), a successful toy line and breakout competitors such as Hypno-Disc (armed with a devastating spinning flywheel) and Razer (a pneumatic robo-scorpion).

While attracting 6 million viewers at its peak, Robot Wars was the very definition of a cult hit: you were either enthralled by its carnival mix of blokey bodgers, wrestling razzamatazz and customised Roomba rumbles or simply bewildered by it all. But for a show that only lasted six years (with one final, underwhelming season on Channel 5), it has made a lasting dent in UK pop culture. Even 12 years after it ended, it remains shorthand for a particular strain of British whimsy that happily puts great effort into likely folly, like a 21st-century equivalent of cheese-rolling.

Being dropped from TV didn’t mean the scene shut down. Like that other band of spot-weld specialists, The A-Team, robot fighters went underground, with regular heavy metal battle royales organised by the Fighting Robots Association UK. “Bringing back Robot Wars wasn’t like starting up a quizshow and putting out an appeal for contestants,” says O Briain. “This is the top level of a pre-existing robotic MMA tournament that is ongoing. We are basically televising the heavyweight division.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest New presenter Angela Scanlon. Photograph: Alan Peebles/BBC

The relaunch does seem to align with our current obsession with “makers” messing about with 3D printing and hacking circuit boards, though Robot Wars 2016 feels more resumption than reboot. Charles was not invited to return, despite publicly stating that he wanted to, but there are notable holdovers: Jonathan Pearce is back to provide rhapsodic running commentary, avuncular robotics prof Noel Sharkey is still head judge and four original house robots – Matilda, Shunt, Dead Metal and Sir Killalot – have been reactivated. Previous competitors Razer and The General are also back, though the pit area looks a little more gender-balanced than before.

Robot Wars… reactivate! It’s the perfect time for a new series Read more

“We have lot of father-and-son teams, but there are also father-and-daughter teams,” says Scanlon. “One was a Robot Wars baby; her mum went into labour while watching her husband fight so she’s here with her dad and his old teammate going through it all again.”

Technology may have advanced but the robots are still as idiosyncratic as ever, exhibiting personal flair in the form of Mad Max-style customisation, from decorative spikes to the googly eyes painted on Thermidor 2, a lethal red lobster. One of the more distinctive bots is Gabriel, a towering set of wheels with a giant hammer on its axle that moves with the uncanny wobble of a self-righting Segway. It was designed and built by Team Saint: Oxfordshire engineer Craig Colliass and his three sons Mark, Zack and Toby. “This is the only all-terrain robot here,” says Colliass Sr with pride. “It could drive across a ploughed field. Not that I’m likely to do that.”

Outfitted in goggles and duster jacket, Colliass embodies the cheerful eccentricity associated with Robot Wars. As his teen sons assess Gabriel for damage, he tries to articulate the appeal of pouring hundreds of pounds and hours into building something likely to get smashed to smithereens. “It stretches you from an intellectual and engineering perspective to come up with something that will overcome other people’s designs.”

Also having to be overcome are the house robots. They have their own private dressing room behind the arena, accessible only if you have the right lanyard. It seems befitting of their VIP status: these brutal enforcers were the face of Robot Wars, tasked with enlivening bouts by bopping challengers that strayed into their killzones, but also ready to sweep up defunct droids like dutiful health-and-safety marshals. The man responsible for reimagining them is James Cooper, who was so enthralled by the original Robot Wars as a kid he apprenticed on Team Razer. Now he runs his own robotics company. “To work on the new house robots felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he says. “I knew I had to get involved.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Team Kill-E-Crank-E work on their robot. Photograph: Alan Peebles/BBC

Three teams of engineers spent months redesigning Matilda, Shunt and Dead Metal, and they are all considerably larger, faster and more powerful than before. Matilda now has pneumatic flipping tusks, while Shunt has enough torque to pull a van. The apex predator, though, is Sir Killalot. The original was based on a motorised wheelbarrow; the new improved version, weighing three quarters of a tonne, is entirely custom-built, its torso lined with Kevlar, one arm wielding a rotating drill bit.

“Getting the arms on was a forklift truck job,” says Cooper. “He’s got so much power now. You get used to it and then he punches a hole in the wall or something, and you remember: ‘Woah, gotta be careful.’”

Watching these monsters batter competitors is part of the fun, although in the bouts I witness, some of the civilian robots give as good as they get, which earns them bragging rights in the pits. “Gabriel had a little run-in with Dead Metal,” says Colliass. “We got a few hits in and he still bears the scars.”

The house robots may have been upgraded, but how do you replace Craig Charles? Fans loved his performance-poet energy and the fact that, though the show was essentially ridiculous, he was self-aware but never ironic. O Briain says he isn’t trying to do an impression of his predecessor. “I didn’t go and look at what Craig did because that was 12 years ago,” he says. “My approach is more nerdish enthusiasm for what the roboteers have achieved combined with sporting glee when watching the battles and then joking with them about it afterwards.”

Scanlon, more co-presenter than pit girl, is still adjusting to how teams toggle from amiable hobbyists to stone-cold killers: “You talk to them in the pits and they are literally the most wonderful people, and then they turn evil in the blink of an eye.”

In front of a hyped-up audience, the new wars certainly seem devilish, with robots scooting about with insectile speed and bringing medieval weapons to bear with such force that components ping off the protective screens. The biggest cheers come when the house robots get involved, setting about their work with Terminator relentlessness, but the bloodlust is equalled by a sense of communal celebration.

“These machines are built to destroy or be destroyed but no one gets hurt,” says Colliass. “Even vegetarians can shout ‘DIE!’ with a clear conscience.” In our climate of technological paranoia, perhaps a cathartic blast of guilt-free metal mayhem is just what we need.

Robot Wars starts on Sunday 24 July, 8pm, BBC2