Shouldn't this plug into something?
HOLLY: Oh, yeah. That joins up with the white cable.
-The white cable. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: In the late '80s a new science fiction sitcom exploded onto our screens
and somehow managed to be a mainstream success
and a cult phenomenon at the same time.
Or is it the yellow cable?
Yes, it should have been the yellow one.
We'd get something like 8.9 million viewers.
On BBC Two.
CHARLES: They can't all be anoraks, can they?
I've had to accept there is an element of Red Dwarf fans,
"dwarfies" or "smegheads", who are very, very dedicated to the show,
to levels that I had no idea were possible.
It got more and more fanatical fans
and more and more real, real, high, high fandom
They have conventions all the time. It's huge.
People are desperate to characterise Red Dwarf fans as...
black T-shirt-wearing, science fiction geeks.
The other thing that people don't want to hear
is that the audience is 50-50 split, male/female.
They don't want to hear that half the audience are women.
Who'd have thought, Red Dwarf, you know. "Oh, it's a sitcom in space."
You go, "Oh, Christ, do me a favour!"
NARRATOR: What is it about Red Dwarf that causes such fanatical devotion?
Over eight series and countless book and game spin-offs
since its first appearance in 1988,
the devotion has grown
and interest in the long-promised movie of Red Dwarf is as strong as ever.
To discover how all the combustible comedy elements came together,
we need to travel backwards in time to the first connections
that would lead to the creation of Red Dwarf.
In the late 70s, two university dropouts named Rob Grant and Doug Naylor
were scratching a living writing sketches on BBC Radio
forThe News Huddlines and radio sketch show Son Of Cliché.
That was where they first created the prototype character
of a man alone in space with only his computer to talk to,
Dave Hollins: Space Cadet.
It was the beginning of a very big bang.
It was always mine and Doug's plan to write a sitcom.
That's sort of what we were here to do
and everything else was sort of leading up to that.
NARRATOR: The other prime mover in the Red Dwarf story is Paul Jackson,
the producer who broke the TVcomedy mould in 1982 with The Young Ones.
That came after a spell inside the mould making Cannon And Ball
before he first worked with Grant and Naylor
on the sketch show A Kick Up The 80's in 1981.
I've been eating buffet bar food now for well on 18 months now
and I shall continue to eat buffet bar food until my connection arrives.
NARRATOR: While writing their BBC radio show, Son Of Cliché,
Grant and Naylor became part of Paul Jackson's Three Of A Kind team,
writing material for Tracey Ullman, Lenny Henry,
and David Copperfield, before working for Jackson
and the Brummie comic Jasper Carrott on Carrott's Lib.
Hello, and welcome to Call My Bluff....
JACKSON: That was a core writing team of only about seven people.
We used to work in the office, which was unusual.
Writers normally wrote and sent their stuff in.
I asked them to join that team and, again,
they were a very important part of the team.
And it is "unilateral". Well, Mr Healey?
Unilateral means going through a non-nuclear defence policy....
NARRATOR: On-screen was Chris Barrie,
who managed to be the whole Labour front bench at once.
Mr Foot.
Unilateral means we, uh....
NARRATOR: But Grant and Naylor were shooting for the stars.
They asked Paul Jackson for advice.
We said, "We want to write a science fiction sitcom."
And he said, "Well, can I give you just one word of advice?
"Executives in television hate science fiction."
BYE: There was an urge from some executives at the BBC
that a sitcom is a sofa and two chairs.
It's not a whacking great spaceship
and, you know, miles and miles of empty corridors
and the last man on earth, mutant cats,
hologramic men and deranged robots.
It had been rejected three times,
we didn't rewrite the script, we just kept sending it back
and Paul kept insisting that they read it again
because they hadn't got it all.
He really had a great belief in it.
NARRATOR: Undeterred, Grant and Naylor
took over the controls of the satirical puppet show
Spitting Image, which also featured Chris Barrie,
who was quickly making a name for himself as everybody.
I did various impersonations of various people,
like David Coleman. "Er...extraordinary."
Er...
(IMITATING A RACE CAR)
I did Ronald Reagan, the United States President of the day.
-Bye. -Well, so long, honeybun.
What a fine-looking woman. Pity I'm only screwing her country.
NARRATOR: By now, Chris Barrie had starred in many Paul Jackson productions
including Carrott's Lib,
The Entertainers, and in 1985, Saturday Live,
where he shared the set with his future co-star.
My name's Craig Charles.
I'm here to do a special request on behalf of the Islington posse.
John Cooper Clarke had started it all off
and there was a lot of punk poets about, sort of thing.
No siren screamed blue murder
No people screamed and ran
There was just a smell of burning rubber Then the police jumped out the van....
They asked me on Wogan. I couldn't believe they asked me to do Wogan,
'cause that Friday night I'd done this poem about....
It's funny how niggers don't show bruises
But if you kick me enough, I bleed
It was all this really angry stuff, you know.
And they said, "Do you want to come and do Wogan?"And I went, "You sure?"
At last it's spring, the birds will sing from tree and hedge and thicket
And soon our lawns will be adorned with people playing cricket
NARRATOR: In 1985, Paul Jackson went to BBC Manchester,
Grant and Naylor's home town,
to produce Ben Elton's Happy Families.
Look out!
NARRATOR: And guess who got a scene with Jennifer Saunders?
Such a disgrace! The fellow should be sacked.
-The fellow is dead. -Oh, gross!
There was a project sitting in the budget for Manchester for the next year
called "Paul Jackson-Ben Elton Project",
which they'd always hoped would be Happy Families II,
but Ben had never intended to write a second Happy Families and we knew that,
we just wanted to keep the money safe. So we had this project sitting there.
They were looking for something very weird
because they didn't want to fail in a traditional way.
Because there was a huge rivalry between BBC Manchester and BBC London.
And so if they were going to fail, they wanted the protection of,
"We were doing something weird and original."
And that was going to be their excuse.
They sent me the first script of Red Dwarf and I read it and I loved it.
Because, of course, it's not a space comedy,
it's The Odd Couple, is what it is.
Or Porridge, it's two guys locked in a situation
they can't get out off and who hate each other.
NARRATOR: Red Dwarf had docked in BBC Manchester.
At last, the space juggernaut was ready for liftoff.
GRANT: We sort of sneaked in through the back door.
We first wrote the pilot in 1983.
And it didn't actually get on the air until 1988.
NARRATOR: So, despite BBC executives' mistrust of science fiction,
in 1988 Happy Families II morphed into Red Dwarf.
And Grant and Naylor now had the force of Paul Jackson with them.
So who would play the intergalactic odd couple?
Stellar casting seemed possible with Alfred Molina and Alan Rickman
interested in the parts of Lister and Rimmer.
On The Way of the World this week, Craig Charles.
NARRATOR: But that casting didn't quite come off
and the answer was unexpectedly found on Wogan.
I asked Craig to read the script
because there had been a suggestion
that the Cat might have racial overtones
and there might be some disparagement involved in the casting of the Cat.
And I thought who better to read it than Craig,
who was a fairly politically attuned guy.
He sent me the script saying,
"Tell me if you think the part of the Cat is racist."
I went, "No, the part of Cat is really cool.
"Who's playing Lister?"
I'd only seen him as a poet. I loved his act and I'd used him several times.
He said, "I can do it. I want to audition for it."
I said, "Come and audition for it."
GRANT: We were looking for, you know, a lowlife slob,
that was the idea that the last human survivor
was the lowest, slobbiest human that there was.
CHARLES: Rob and Doug didn't want me to have the part.
It was Paul Jackson that kind of really pushed it.
Rob and Doug are Mancunians.
Mancunians hate Scousers.
They did not want their baby, Dave Lister,
the last remaining human in the universe, to be a Scouser.
They just didn't want it, you know.
NARRATOR: So Craig Charles became a Liverpudlian Lister.
But who would play his other half? The Jack Lemmon to his Walter Matthau?
How nice to see you again.
NARRATOR: Chris Barrie was keen to show
there was more to him than a thousand voices.
He asked us to do an audition,
which we felt a bit embarrassed about because we knew him so well.
We did have him along and he did an audition
and he was sensational. He gave a great audition.
And we thought, "I didn't know he had that in him."
Lister, shut up.
-I'm only humming. -Well, don't.
NARRATOR: With Chris Barrie installed as the anally retentive Rimmer,
the Red Dwarf double act was complete.
Lister, don't hum and don't make any stupid sounds with your cheeks.
The Rimmer-Lister relationship was probably similar to the one
that I might have had with my brother at school.
Always on the threshold of a blazing row about something rather minor.
This is a 14B, Lister.
This is a 14F. Are you blind?
NARRATOR: In the early days, the hostility between Rimmer and Lister
wasn't confined to outer space.
It carried over into life on Earth, too.
I hated him. I hated him for years.
We just didn't get on.
We did not get on.
NARRATOR: The tension between the actors eased over time.
But at first it made the relationship between Dave Lister
and his marginal superior, Arnold Rimmer, all the more believable.
The two men spend their lives in space at the bottom of the food chain,
servicing snack machines aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf.
Lister is put in a state of suspended animation
as a punishment for smuggling his pet cat on board.
During this time there is a radiation leak
and the entire crew of Red Dwarf is wiped out.
Three million years later,
Lister emerges from stasis as the last human alive,
with only the ship's computer Holly to talk to.
So who would be the voice of Holly?
HOLLY: Good morning, Dave. It is now safe for you to emerge from stasis.
Please proceed to the Drive Room for debriefing.
NARRATOR: Landing the part of Holly was Norman Lovett,
who had made occasional TVappearances in shows like The Young Ones,
Saturday Live and Ben Elton's Happy Families.
But had a regular part on Don't Miss Wax.
Holly the computer was originally intended as a voice-only part.
But Norman Lovett had other ideas.
Why is it so dirty around here, Hol? What is this stuff?
That is Catering Officer Olaf Petersen.
In my mind, from the word go, I thought,
"I want to be seen. I want it to be visual."
Purely from an ego point of view, I think.
So everyone's dead? I'm on me own. There's just me?
-Well, technically speaking, yes. -What do you mean, technically speaking?
Hello, Lister.
Long time no see.
Rimmer! You're a hologram?
Yes. That's because I'm dead.
NARRATOR: Rimmer has turned to dust like all the others.
But Holly has resurrected him as a hologram to keep Lister sane.
And thoroughly annoyed.
Listen to me. Just shut up.
NARRATOR: The next crewmember to make an entrance was Danny John-Jules.
Danny was the first person we saw.
He didn't know it, but he was half an hour late.
And came in, was just so cool, so funny and so late.
How am I looking?
NAYLOR: His performance was terrific. He nailed it pretty well there and then.
Looking nice.
NARRATOR: John-Jules spoke his first words on television in Three Of A Kind,
another Paul Jackson production, but he's always been a dancer by trade.
I didn't want him to be this Huggy Bear.
I didn't want him to be pimpy.
And it was very difficult when you're wearing more make-up than Diana Ross.
You know, with a pink suit on.
NARRATOR: The cat, known simply as Cat,
is actually evolved from Lister's pregnant cat.
The one that he smuggled on board 3 million years ago.
Better make myself look big!
JOHN-JULES: I was like, "What is this all about?"
I thought, "This is either going to be the biggest thing in the world
"or we're all going to get shot at dawn."
NARRATOR: The odd couple had become a distinctly odd quartet.
Comprising of a poet, an impressionist,
a stand-up comic and a dancer. What next?
My name is Kryten.
I'm the service mechanoid aboard the Nova V. We've had a terrible accident.
For ages Doug was saying that we should have a robot on board because we could.
It was becoming increasingly difficult with the limitations of a computer
who has no physical form, a hologram who has no physical form,
a cat who doesn't integrate in a normal human way
and a single human.
I felt we need some other new person in here.
We sort of compromised by writing one as a guest star in one show called Kryten.
Well, serving makes me happy, sir.
It was a hit and Doug sort of twisted my arm
and I agreed to have him back as a regular character.
But what about you? Don't you ever want to do anything just for yourself?
Myself?
Well, that's a bit of a barmy notion, if you don't mind my saying so, sir.
GRANT: We wanted to cast the same guy.
He was played by a guy called David Ross.
But David wasn't available for the filming.
NARRATOR: The human that was available to play Kryten was Robert Llewellyn,
whose comedy group The Joeys
were regulars on the alternative comedy circuit.
But he was probably least remembered
for his appearance in Channel 4's The Corner House.
I'd be very grateful if it's never shown again.
It wasn't a huge success, it's safe to say.
All right, Davey, who was she?
Who? There wasn't anyone. Honest. Ask Pete.
-It's got nothing to do with Pete. -Yes, it has. He was at the party.
LLEWELLYN: It was a sitcom with absolutely no com. It was pure sit.
And not very interesting sit.
And as far as I was concerned at that time, completely the end of my career.
-This is an orange. -It's an....
It's an....
It's a banana. It's no good, sir. I just can't do it.
With his exposure to human beings,
he actually admires their ability to lie and cheat
and double-cross people. He thinks it's very clever and wonderful.
And he wants to emulate that.
-What is it? -Please.
Come on, what is it?
It's a small, off-duty, Czechoslovakian traffic warden.
Kryten can walk about.
He can do all the exposition. He can be one of the lads.
But he's a robot so he can still have all the information.
And it was, like, great. It made us a lot more mobile.
KRYTEN: What is this place?
-It's a pub. -Pub?
Ah, yes!
A meeting place were people attempt to achieve
advanced states of mental incompetence
by the repeated consumption of fermented vegetable drinks.
NARRATOR: For their spaceships, walking holograms and talking robots,
the writers were inspired by science fiction.
But the inspiration for the characters and dialogue
came from a little closer to home.
There would just be things that we said.
Usually the more absurd and stupid, petty things we'd say
that would appear in the next script or two scripts later, in some way.
-It's coming straight for us. -There's only three alternatives.
It thinks we're either a threat, food or a mate.
It's gonna either kill us, eat us or hump us.
They'd listen to our conversations over lunch
and the next minute we'd get a script and everything we said was in it,
It was like, "Hey, you cheat. Give me some money."
We have in our midst a complete smegpot.
Brains in the anal region.
Genitalia small and inoffensive.
Of no value or interest.
Binks to Enlightenment. Evidence of primitive humour.
We'd known these characters so well that maybe we'd started to become....
I had become this, sort of,
"anally retentive, for goodness sake, come on,
let's be more professional about this" character.
Good morning, Lister. How's life in hippie heaven,
you pregnant baboon-bellied space....
I like a nice, clean pile of freshly laundered clothes.
And so that was seized upon in a great way.
And Chris Barrie does collect things.
He's got a very big collection of enamelled Victorian advertising signs.
So they made that into telegraph poles.
I offered to talk you through my photo collection
of 20th century telegraph poles.
You've always got some excuse.
None of you like Morris dancing.
Chris is a lot nicer bloke than Rimmer is, you know.
And my personal hygiene is slightly better than Lister's.
But we are kind of, you know, along those lines.
Craig came down into the canteen late one morning and they'd finished serving.
And he stole one of Danny's sausages.
And squirted some mustard on the table.
Rubbed the sausage in it, took a bite and started waving it at Rob and Doug.
And he said, "Listen, Rob, I'm really worried."
And he dipped the sausage in the mustard
and crammed it all in his mouth in one go and he said,
"About being typecast as a slob."
NARRATOR: Grant and Naylor took their science fiction seriously
and used it to give their characters
different versions of themselves from other dimensions,
expanding the storyline possibilities.
-How do you do? -How do you do?
-So you must be Lister. -And you are, too.
NARRATOR: In one episode, the crew met their doubles
in a parallel universe where females were the dominant sex.
Even Holly the computer met his double.
-Hello, I'm Hilly. -Hello, I'm Holly.
Paul Jackson was very fair.
He said to me, "Do you mind if Hattie plays your double?"
Because I think when she started doing stand-up
she was called a female Norman Lovett.
It was kind of my natural style, I think. It wasn't anything put on.
So they did need someone that was deadpan like Norman for that episode.
You'd better boogie on over and we can sort it out.
Right on, sis.
-See you, Hol. -See you, Hil.
I'm in there.
As far as I was concerned, that was the only episode
I was ever going to be in and I was completely thrilled.
And going, "Oh, Red Dwarf!"and things.
And then between series II and III, Norman left.
Norman moved up to Edinburgh
and wasn't too keen on coming down for rehearsals.
He decided he wasn't going to do the series.
They gave me a bit of the script and they said, "Can you read this?"
So I read it and laughed, and they said, "Yeah, can you read it out loud?"
So they must have thought, "Yeah, she's dumb enough to be Holly."
Hang about, I'm picking something up. Some kind of distress beacon.
I've got to put my hand on my heart and say, "No, I wasn't happy."
Because they promised they'd replace the part with someone different.
That's what they promised and they didn't do that.
NARRATOR: Aah. So hereafter Hattie, who was Hilly, becomes Holly.
Meanwhile, Norman gets his own series I, Lovett,
where he plays an inventor with a talking pet.
Hello.
I'm Norman. I live here.
LOVETT: It was about me living with a dog and I was an inventor.
I'll show you what it is.
Bit surreal and stuff, but overall it was pretty different.
I think I've really hit the jackpot this time.
NARRATOR: By now, Red Dwarf really had hit the jackpot
and that called for a celebration.
It's party time!
CHARLES: It was the most-watched show on the channel, by like millions.
We'd get like 8 million viewers or something like that,
and the next most-watched show would have 4 million viewers.
It was that big.
We started hearing that it had been shown in PBS channels in the States.
They started issuing some T-shirts and they were selling by the thousands.
Then we suddenly thought, "Blimey O'Reilly! It's here."
NARRATOR: A sure sign of the show's success
was that the Americans wanted their own Red Dwarf.
With a few changes of course.
I'm the only one alive on the whole ship.
-All 5,000 people wiped out? -Yeah.
This is terrific. I'm in charge.
JOHN-JULES: The lead actor who was playing Lister
looked like he should have been on Baywatch.
I was in a convention in America and they said,
"What did you think of the American pilot?"
I said, "You're Americans. What did you think of it?"
And they all said it was crap.
NARRATOR: And then strangely, at the height of its success,
Red Dwarf's writers, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor,
decided to boldly go their separate ways.
Could that mean game over for Red Dwarf?
We were doing the TV show, we were doing the American version,
and in between we were looking over games
and all kinds of things and I just felt like I'd had enough of that.
I wanted to do something else.
I think it was very sad that two people who were so close and such good friends
just at the moment of their greatest success
suddenly, for some reason, I don't know anybody
who knows the reason, couldn't talk to each other.
Basically, I had to make a decision of did I want to do any more and I did.
And the other guys did, too.
Oh, Arnold, man.
-Dave! -Don't ever leave us again.
-I won't. -Do you promise?
-Oh, Listy. -Oh, Rimsy.
NARRATOR: With Rob Grant leaving,
it was left to Doug Naylor to steer the ship alone.
In classic Red Dwarf tradition, the new series brought new developments.
He was persuaded back for series VIII,
but Rimmer was written out during series VII,
with Chris Barrie busy in another BBC studio
playing Gordon Brittas in The Brittas Empire.
Morning. Morning, everyone.
I thought, "Yeah, I'll give that whirl."
But when I first read the script, I thought, "Well, here are the jokes?".
Something is sending out a signal that I'm not in charge,
that I may well be making a bit of a fool of myself.
Any guesses?
-Mr Brittas? -Exactly.
Tie and hanky not coordinated.
NARRATOR: Hattie, the new Holly, who was the former Hilly,
was replaced after two series by Norman,
the Holly who Hattie had replaced in the first place.
But the glamour didn't disappear with Hattie.
Chloë Annett came aboard to play Lister's ex-girlfriend.
From series VII it wasn't just Kristine Kochanski's outfits that were shining.
The set and special effects were glossier, too.
Did you hear that? Cat says the trimmers are like wrestling in treacle.
No, I said they were down. Then I asked if you like wrestling....
It can wait.
With one eye on the film,
I'd been told that we needed, if we were ever going to raise the money,
we would need an actress, a woman,
a glamorous type, in the mix.
And so that's where the reintroduction of Kochanski came from.
Hi, where's the captain's office?
It's over there, were it says "Captain's Office".
NARRATOR: In the show's early series
Kristine Kochanski had been played by Clare Grogan,
but when Doug Naylor brought Kochanski back,
Chloë Annett had to get to grips with a totally alien environment.
Ta-da.
She was from a nice middle-class background,
been plunged into this abyss of hideousness.
A little present, ma'am.
And was desperately trying to find some sanity, order in this chaos.
I mean I've tried, I really have tried to fit in.
I even tried learning what offside was.
She's a real princess, you know.
Spoilt princess, you know.
And they had been working together for so many years,
they could all do anecdotes and joke around.
And suddenly, "Action," and they'd slip into it.
And meanwhile, I'm still going, "Ha, ha!"
from the joke they'd just told and then, "Cut!"
Do you think I like flying round space in this big skip with thrusters?
Do you think I even enjoy breathing in on this ship?
And to cap it all, I am faced with some neurotic droid
who's completely obsessed with my pants drawer.
You mean I'm not alone?
Oh, I see.
NARRATOR: Red Dwarf went out on a high in 1999 after eight series.
And with its fans shouting for more its place in sitcom firmament was assured.
But what happened to Red Dwarf's crew?
I'd like to try something a little bit different tonight.
Who's going to be kind enough to help me?
HAYRIDGE: I'd done my stand-up for a year
and I carried on doing my stand-up during Red Dwarf.
So I just carried on doing that really. Occasionally get bits in other things.
I think Red Dwarf probably is my main claim to fame.
# There's a mad, bad king and he's called King John
and he sits on a big fat throne.... #
JOHN-JULES: A year after I did Red Dwarf, I got Maid Marian.
# And he won't leave the people alone #
The director told me that, "We was in the office
"and we was thinking of who could we get in to audition for Barrington."
I got cheese and onion, salt and vinegar,
prawn cocktail and this little fellow is new on the market.
Somebody said, "What about the guy from Red Dwarf?"
The rest is history.
Got you, sunshine. You are nicked.
What you mean, man? I haven't done nothing.
NARRATOR: Danny is currently in The Crouches,
and has appeared in the movies Blade II and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Robert Llewellyn has kept in touch with the world of smegheads,
sorry, petrolheads, in Scrapheap Challenge.
Go!
I got rung up and they said,
"Do you want to do this show about engineers that make things?"
I'm a really rubbish mechanic
but I have kind of rebuilt gearboxes and changed axles on cars.
I've kind of got that interest and I'm a bit of a closet petrolhead.
There's some similarities with Red Dwarf in the sense that it's,
you know, what is really a kind of a weird, quirky, culty show
that, you know, you'd think 15 blokes that like welding would watch
and it's grown into this hugely popular programme.
NARRATOR: Chris Barrie, like so many Brits before him,
headed for Hollywood to be a butler.
Lara Croft's butler.
And in his spare time he presents Chris Barrie's Massive Engines.
And in a similar vein,
Craig Charles stayed close to the world of robots, special effects and geeks
when he took over Robot Wars from Jeremy Clarkson.
The rest, as Danny would say, is history.
PEARCE: ...crashing to the deck....
CHARLES: I got offered this show called Robot Wars.
I do remember me sitting in my dressing room, looking in the mirror, thinking,
"What have I done with my career?
"This is just awful."
PEARCE: ...his defeat and ultimately the pit of oblivion.
I was walking around the BBC,
they have monitors on the BBC with viewing figures and things.
Red Dwarf was number one and Robot Wars was number two.
I just thought, "Hey, rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
NARRATOR: For Rob Grant, co-creator of this wacky world,
life after Red Dwarf offered another sci-fi sitcom with The Strangerers,
while Doug Naylor is working hard to launch Red Dwarf, the movie.
I had a meeting with a major American film company
who said, "Why don't you recast with British movie stars?"
I went, "This isn't going to work, but just talk me through it."
They said, "How about Hugh Grant as Lister?
And what is Emma Thompson doing these days?"
I left the building rather quickly.
# Master of the wit and the repartee
# His command of space directives is uncanny
# How come he's such a genius? Don't ask me
# Ask Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer
# He's also a fantastic swimmer #
We must have hit the mark somewhere if we've got people coming up to you
with their own homemade "H" on their head
quoting chunks of a programme that was first aired 12 years ago.
I never wanna see or hear from that scum-sucking, lying,
weasel-minded smegger in my entire life!
Sigmund Freud, eat your heart out!