Dara O’Briain was nearly killed by a robot on Robot Wars

Dara O’Briain was nearly attacked by a stray robot while filming the new series of Robot Wars.

The comedian, who co-hosts the show alongside Angela Scanlon, has told Square Eyes that he was nearly killed during the filming process in Glasgow after a robot came charging for him at 60mph. He was only saved by the presence of bullet-proof glass separating him from the rampaging robot.

He said: “I have never been more appreciative of bullet-proof glass than when I ducked into one of the ring-side areas as I saw a shard of metal smash in front of our faces. Like it’s coming at you at 60mph.

“There was steam coming off this bit that’s been wrenched off a robot right in front of us. The bullet-proof glass saved us.”

BBC Two will begin airing new episodes of the robot battle show on Sunday, after it has been missing from schedules for fifteen years.

The show’s house robots Sir Killalot, Matilda, Shunt and Dead Metal are all set to make an explosive return, all deadlier than ever.

Forty robots will take part in the competition, which airs over six episodes, and Dara also revealed some of the robots taking part cost as much as £25,000 to build.

“There are robots which cost £25,000. They’re engineered to within an inch of their lives, they have computer systems and they’re wrapped in dry ice to cool them.

“There are levels of care that you would not see outside of the Premier League – but there are some proper ding-dong battles. Some are over in seconds, some are three minutes of just smashing each other, sometimes one flips another right out. The contestants generally take it in very good spirit but there were some tears.”