Craig Charles

File:RD lister.jpg

Craig Charles as Dave Lister

Craig Charles (born July 11, 1964 in Liverpool, England) is an English actor, stand up comedian, author, poet, and radio and television presenter, best known for playing Dave Lister in the British cult-favourite sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf.

Early life

Craig Charles was born to a multiracial family in Liverpool; his father was black and his mother was white Irish. Before turning to entertainment, Charles played professional football, most notably for Tranmere Rovers. He started out his career as a contemporary and urban performance poet on the British cabaret circuit, and his performances were considered original and Charles was described as having a natural ironic wit which appealed to talent scouts.

Charles then began to slowly foray into the world of television. He appeared on the late-night comedy programme, Saturday Live, and later became a presenter of children's television programmes, including What's That Noise on BBC1. He also appeared, weekly, as a John Cooper Clarke-style 'punk poet' on the BBC1 pop music television programme The Oxford Road Show. In 1990, Charles was heard on London Radio Station Kiss 100 as the Breakfast show presenter.

He later appeared on the Terry Wogan chatshow.

Roles in television

Charles acquired cult status in 1988 as the Liverpudlian slob, Dave Lister, in BBC2's long-running sci-fi comedy television series Red Dwarf. This was a role Charles played in all eight series until 1999. Within Red Dwarf, aside from playing Lister he also played a number of alter-ego characters including Sebastian Doyle (in the series five episode Back to Reality), Lister of Smeg (in the seventh series episode Stoke Me a Clipper) and Brett Riverboat (in the sixth series episode Gunmen of the Apocalypse).

Charles has appeared briefly in a number of television shows such as Eastenders, Holby City, The Bill, Lexx, The 10 Percenters, Doctors and Celebrity Weakest Link.

Charles' other acting work includes briefly playing the title role in the short-lived Channel 4 sitcom Captain Butler (1997).

He has also presented a number of television programmes, most notably at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s. Among his credits as a presenter are the virtual reality gameshow CyberZone (1993) on BBC2; the late-night entertainment show Funky Bunker (1997) on ITV; the reality television show Jailbreak (2000) on Five; the late-night chat show Weapons of Mass Distraction (2004) on ITV1; and most notably Robot Wars on BBC Two from 1998–2003, and on Five from 2003–2004.

He also provided the voice-over for the UK version of the Japanese hit TV show Takeshi's Castle, shown on Challenge, and was a team captain on the sci-fi-based quiz show Space Cadets (1997) on Channel 4.

Present career

In 2005, Charles joined the cast of ITV's long-running soap opera Coronation Street, playing philandering taxi driver Lloyd Mullaney. Later that year, he participated in the Channel 4 reality sports show, The Games, coming fourth overall in the men's competition.

Since 2003 Charles has been a DJ on BBC 6 Music, presenting The Craig Charles Funk Show, a funk and soul radio show. He was briefly suspended from Coronation Street and BBC 6 Music in June 2006 whilst the production companies investigated allegations of crack cocaine usage. Charles has returned to presenting his show from 4 November, but the programme is now renamed The Funk & Soul Show and has been reduced from two shows per week to one, airing on Saturdays from 6-9pm. He also resumed working on Coronation Street in January 2007.

Charles is set to star in two upcoming feature films in 2007, Clubbing to Death and Fated. He would also (assumedly) resume the role of Lister for Red Dwarf: The Movie, if the already scripted film ever enters production.

Charles has been shooting scenes for Gangster movie Clubbing to Death, that also stars Huey Morgan (Fun Lovin' Criminals), Nick Moran (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), Philip Olivier (Brookside) & ex-gangster Dave Courtney. The film is due for worldwide release in 2007.

Personal life

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Craig Charles as seen on the front page of the Daily Mirror, June 20th 2006

In 1984, at the age of 20, Charles married English actress and fellow Liverpudlian Cathy Tyson. Their son Jack Charles was born in 1988. The couple were divorced in 1989. Afterward, Charles dated Irish singer/songwriter Suzanne Rhatigan, co-writing some lyrics for her album To Hell with Love and directing a video for her. Rhatigan also appeared alongside Charles in the fourth series of Red Dwarf for the episode Camille.

The Red Dwarf novels are some of the finest TV to book adaptations in existence. In fact, no, I’ll go as far to say they are the best TV to book adaptations *ever*. Some people even hold the opinion that they’re superior to their TV based cousin… Me? Well, I think it’s impossible to compare, as both versions succeed in ways the other have no chance of succeeding in - they compliment each other beautifully despite the fact they share totally separate continuities. Still, that’s beside the point. The point is that after the second novel, Better Than Life, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor ceased writing under the Grant Naylor entity and went their separate ways, taking two different strands of the Red Dwarf novel universe with them to create their own original continuation.

Last Human cover

The creative split of Rob Grant and Doug Naylor has a whole raft of downsides. Rob has gone on and done his own thing quite admirably, but unfortunately no one’s really been paying much attention. As a fan of Grant I’ve been quite well catered for, but a few TV shows of varying poorness and three post-Dwarf books haven’t really set the world alight, which is a massive shame as they *are* all decent. Doug went on to make two new series of Dwarf which just did not sit right with a number of fans. Even people fond of VII and VIII can’t deny that life would’ve been much sweeter had the Comedy Police stayed side-by-side, instead of this painful division of efforts which ended up producing so much mediocrity.

As it happens, though, the split had one good side effect. We got two new Dwarf books in the space of a year and the first proper opportunity to see the writers’ individual interpretations of the characters they created together. This was the first time in eight years of Dwarf in which the writers were effectively pitted against each other, and the result would go on to form the basis of many’s opinions of the writers as individuals for a long time to come.

The idea of taking off from the same starting point and branching out to two different ‘realities’ is a very interesting one, and more than a little comic book like in nature, taking as it does a quite lax view on a single line of continuity. It’s an utterly fantastic idea, as we know the books are part of a separate continuity from the TV series so this narrative forking seems very natural. This choice is helped along even more by the introduction of parallel universes in both books, filling the reader with understanding of the concept and allowing them to explain the narrative implications of the split for themselves.

As with most things surrounding the Grant and Naylor, there are various stories and rumours surrounding the writing of the two books. Here’s a brief history, taken from TOS:

   Doug Naylor’s Last Human was the first of the two sequels. In 1993 Rob and Doug had begun nibbling around the edges of a novel that went under the title of The Last Human. At that time, they gave an interview to the Red Dwarf Smegazine giving away no details, but explaining that the new book would pick up from Better Than Life literally ‘the next day’. A cover design - featuring a distant Starbug beetling across a starscape with the book’s title written in bones - was developed, and even previewed. But the book itself was never written.

   When the writers parted - with Rob expressing a desire to produce his own solo novel - the Last Human title (losing the ‘The’) went to Doug. However it was Backwards that actually picked up the Dwarfers on backwards world…

It’s unclear quite what the intention was when The Last Human was first conceived, but the fact that the story would continue directly from BTL suggests that it was close in concept to what Rob eventually put out in Backwards. Obviously, the is all one big guess, but the fact that Doug’s novel, the re-titled Last Human, distances itself from Backwards’s chronology does suggest that Doug was in a position where his book was the one that had to deviate the most from the early plans for The Last Human.

The upshot of this distancing is that the two books are almost guaranteed to be two very different creations, and they are indeed that. Where-as Backwards feels like a much more traditional Dwarf novel, with the direct continuation, the heavy use of previous episode ideas and very consistent characterisation, Last Human’s distance from the previous storyline allows it to get that baggage offloaded within a few pages and get on with making a strikingly different book than those that came before it. Sure, it still used left over strands from BTL, most notably as a way to contrive Kochanski into the crew (still a much more acceptable contrivance that what he later did in Ouroboros, though…) and also the black hole they previously navigated to visit the backwards world in the first place. Other than that, though, this is a very self contained story, which owes almost nothing to what came before it. It’s without doubt the bolder of the two books, and it’s something that brings about its best and worst attributes.

Backwards cover

I’ll get it out of the way now, and say that Backwards is my favourite of two books by not an inconsiderable margin. While I really respect the creative decisions made with Last Human, and I thought the ending was about as perfect an end to Dwarf as you could possibly get, the experience of the whole story just didn’t click with me fully. It’s a deeply unpleasant book to read at times, and I find myself really unhappy with the idea of an evil Lister, even though the concept is a good one. I can’t help but feel the whole thing could’ve been pulled off with more skill and subtly. Also, as much as I love the extension to the Rimmer/McGruder storyline and the heartbreaking conclusion, the circumstances which bring Rimmer’s son, Michael McGruder, to him all seem FAR too convenient and contrived. I know what you’re thinking, and I know Red Dwarf is not a stranger to taking such narrative liberties, but it seems at odds with the tone of the book. Still, these are quite insignificant when you view the book as a whole, and I especially love the way it skilfully deals with the integration of Kochanski with the crew, with Rimmer facing a hilarious conflict of interests of both respecting his superior officer and hating her guts. It’s brilliantly played and entertaining. It does make me wonder just how series VII would’ve differed if Chris Barrie stayed on board. Would we have seen a similar tension in the place of the *really* uncomfortable Kryten jealousy we eventually got? I think so.

Where Last Human takes our characters and stuff them in this very different scenario, Backwards very much takes the route of the first two books by taking a group of scenarios from the TV series and expanding them and modifying them into a whole new beast. In this respect, Backwards could be seen as a very unoriginal book and not really a good representation of Grant’s individual vision of Dwarf, but he handles the ideas in such a way that he very much makes them his own. The ‘Backwards’ third of the book is completely changed from the TV series, and is developed in many interesting ways. For a start, the book version makes a million times more sense than the TV, and some very interesting concepts are skillfully explored, not least that of the de-aging of the Cat and Lister. Where as the idea is good, it probably becomes the books biggest flaw, as the 15 year old versions of the characters aren’t explored that much, and when they are it can be distracting frm the main plot. Following that, the expansion of Dimension Jump and the character of Ace Rimmer easily provides the strongest section of the book as both the concept of alternate dimensions and the characters in Ace’s universe are very well realised. In fact throughout the whole book it becomes obvious (and later, reading the character of Grenville in Grant’s 2006 book Fat) that Rimmer is very much Grant’s character. The escalating tempers, the long, ranting inner monologues, the superiority complexes and the crippling and impotent rage is written with such perfection… it’s so Rimmer like that it’s impossible not to see that Grant is the very beating heart of this character. And it’s an absolute joy to read… a joy that I just never found to the same extent in Last Human.

In the end, I’m eternally glad that these books exist on their own and that we had a chance to witness this splitting of minds. It’s fascinating to read both books, with all their flaws and plus points ecoing that of the individual writer’s, and the two books certainly have more worth from an analysis point of view than a single Grant Naylor book would. Having said that, I don’t think there are many fans in this big old wide cosmos that wouldn’t swap Last Human and Backwards for The Last Human, but that’s because, without a shadow of a doubt, the Grant Naylor whole is immeasurably greater than the sum of its parts.

In August 1997, Charles married his second wife, Jackie which they had two daughters Anna-Jo (born in 1998) and Nillie (born in 2003).

It seems odd, given our ludicrous obession with the minuate of obscure production details, that we haven’t really covered the Xtended episodes. Maybe the ghost of Ian turning into a gibbering wreck after dissecting one episode of Remastered hung over the whole idea.

Let’s fix this, shall we? And let’s start at the very beginning - with Tikka To Ride Xtended.

A word about the format of this article - each excised section is transcribed, with Xtended material presented like this. There then follows any technical notes on the sequence, and finally my opinion as to how well the additional material works. Screengrab from Tikka - Starbug spraying sewage over ringsVoyager Parody (00:00 - 00:30)

   Model Shots/CGI.

   Stirring Music. We see three shots: Starbug flying across a landscape with a ringed planet in the background, flying between two planetoids, and finally crossing the rings of a planet. We hear a toilet flush, and sewage sprays out into the rings. Ooooh, pardon.

Notes: The music used over this sequence is library, rather than written by Goodall; it’s called Pride of Place, and you can hear the full thing here. Naughty G&T. There is a mix of FX techniques here - the first looks like a combination of BBC Video FX and a physical model shot of Starbug; the second is a rushed Chris Veale shot, and the third is a really nicely-rendered Chris Veale shot. The visuals for this sequence are completely replaced in the Xtended Remastered version, with some new CGI from Chris Veale.

Opinion: I must admit, I watched Voyager (hell, I probably enjoyed it more than most people here - sure, some of it was bad, but there’s a number of excellent episodes, such as Living Witness) - and I didn’t even get that this was a Voyager parody until I read that it was supposed to be. So I’m not sure how well it actually works as a parody. Nice music, but the first two FX shots let it down (the surface of the planet in the first shot being particularly offensive). The last shot of the sewage ejecting is quite good, though. The Remastered Xtended version replaces all three shots - the first two are a vast improvement, but I actually prefer the original sewage shot to the Remastered one. (The actual sewage is better rendered in the original, and I prefer the depiction of the rings as well.)

It’s a bit of an odd sequence, all told - it’s completely disconnected to the rest of the show. And neither the original or the Remastered version is perfect effects-wise. In the end it’s a nice little opening - an overture, if you like - but if anything they could have gone further down the parody route, to make it more effective. But then, going too far with the parody has its own dangers in Red Dwarf. Screengrab from Tikka - Lister feeling his stomach and looking illYard of Vindaloo Sauce (7:00 - 8:52)

   INT. Starbug cockpit

   CAT, KRYTEN, and RIMMER are present, at stations. CAT and RIMMER are wearing armbands. Enter LISTER.

   LISTER: You know the news? All the curry supplies have been destroyed.
   CAT/RIMMER: (pointing at armbands) We heard.
   RIMMER: As a mark of respect, we thought on Sunday at 12 o’clock we could have a minute’s flatulence.
   LISTER: It’s nothing to you guys, is it? Curries were my life. Some of the nights… I remember once, on planet leave on Orion, I drank a yard of Vindaloo sauce - you know, out of one of those long glass tubes - and then went out on the pull. It was a bet.
   KRYTEN: It’s impossible for mechanoids to vomit sir - I believe it is safe for you to continue.
   LISTER: I went to this club, the Crazy Astro, started dancing with this Space Corps nurse - couldn’t hear her name.
   RIMMER: Fido, was it? Lassie, possibly?
   LISTER: She was very attractive, actually, Rimmer. Very short skirt, little ankle braclet, took out her chewing gum before she ate a chicken in a basket, you know - class. Alright, so she had teeth that looked like six half-open garage doors, but it’s nothing that a cosmetic surgeon couldn’t fix in ten minutes.
   CAT: So what happened?
   LISTER: I went over to her, leant in close, asked her to dance. For a few seconds she didn’t answer.
   CAT: She was probably concussed. A yard of vindaloo sauce? You must have had breath that could shear sheep.
   LISTER: We started to snuggle up.
   KRYTEN: I’m not sure I want to hear any more of this.
   LISTER: Then all of a sudden… a rumbling in my stomach. All I can remember is running - across the dance floor, through the crowd… just made it.
   CAT: So you didn’t get off with her?
   LISTER: The only thing I got off was the loo six hours later. When I got back to the dance floor, everyone was gone. They had to wait for me to lock the club. Nearly put me off curries for life. In fact I didn’t have another one until the following night.
   RIMMER: What an enchanting little tale. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just off to glug a couple of yards of vindi sauce, then if we do happen to chance across Planet of the Snooty Sex Sirens, I can’t miss.
   KRYTEN: Sirs - suggest we carry out a through inspection of the ship. The altercation with our future selves caused dimensional anomalies which have expanded the cargo deck by 212%. We should ascertain that the new [structure is / (structures are)] stable.

   Cat reacts.

Notes: A variation of this scene, set in the mid-section and without Cat, appears in the deleted scenes of the VII DVD. Interestingly, a different take of Kryten’s last line is used in the Xtended to the broadcast version, with “structures are” instead of “structure is” - why this is the case, I don’t know, as the editing means that the same take could have been used for both versions. (In the broadcast version, the “sirs” is said off-camera - meaning you could easily cut the middle section.)

Opinion: Blah. A tedious story about curry, that frankly I could do without. The story goes absolutely nowhere - I mean, come on, Lister eats loads of curry and then ends up on the bog? It’s hardly a fascinating story. The odd line from Kryten or Rimmer raises a smile (Kryten’s “I’m not sure I want to hear any more of this” is particuarly well-delivered by Robert) - but I don’t think this little sequence adds anything at all. In fact, all it does for me is bring back memories of Rimmer’s date story at the start of Parallel Universe… which unfortunately was far, far more amusing. When you hear “Alright, so she had teeth that looked like six half-open garage doors”, all that comes to mind is “Of course, she had an artifical nose.” Which is a far better line. I think this scene was better cut. Screengrab from Tikka - Big empty roomCargo Deck Inspection

Slightly different this - because this is stuff that’s in the broadcast version but not the Xtended! It’s directly after the last scene, and is the start of the cargo deck inspection - stuff like this is in the broadcast but not the Xtended:

   INT. Cargo Deck.

   Crew enter immense room.

   CAT: So, let me get this straight. Time has returned to the point before we discovered the time machine, right? So what’s to stop us going back on board the Gemini 12 and picking it up all over again?

Notes: In total, it’s about eight seconds of footage, including the crew entering the room. Why this isn’t in the Xtended version, I have no idea. It could even just be a mistake that it wasn’t included.

Opinion: Not a huge amount of difference either way, but I prefer the broadcast version. It sets the scene rather more. Screengrab from Tikka - Cat and Rimmer sitting at the scanner tableBeauty Sleep (12:52 - 13:01)

   INT. Starbug Mid-section

   RIMMER enters. CAT and LISTER come down the stairs.

   CAT: Oooooooow! I feel great! Got all the beauty sleep I needed. Stayed awake all night.
   LISTER: Hey, that smells good. What’s for brekkie?
   KRYTEN: Waffles, sir. Dripping in honey and jam, with three fried eggs on the side, coated in cheese!

Notes: This sequence is mainly notable for the fact that it is completely untreated video - it has no film effect or grading applied. This makes it look really odd in contrast to the rest of the show, and it’s very strange that the edit was approved with the footage like this. Still, it does afford us a chance to see the episode without the film effect applied - and it looks pretty good to my eyes, with none of the “distancing” to the audience that the film effect gives. I sometimes wonder, as good as the film effect looks in this series, whether it’s partly that distancing which makes me find the series less funny. (You can’t tell much from a short sequence such as this.) But that’s a discussion for another time.

Opinion: A very short addition, and it’s just a filler joke - and not one that I find funny. The fact it was included without the film effect applied is really sloppy, and makes the addition rather conspicuous - at least to me. (No doubt more sensible people wouldn’t even notice.) Overall, I don’t think it adds anything.

Having said that, I’ve got a horrible feeling that if the very same Cat gag had been featured in VI, then it’d probably get a smile out of me at least. The fact that it doesn’t here is because for me, the tea-stirring scene is the first scene in the episode that I find really funny - and that hasn’t happened yet. When you’re finding scenes funny, you’re more in the mood to smile at filler gags - but when you aren’t, filler gags often just annoy. Screengrab from Tikka - Lister grinning inanelyJohn, Paul, George and Ringway (17:02 - 17:29)

   LISTER: Dallas. Wasn’t that that place where that American King got assasinated?
   RIMMER: JFK.
   LISTER: No, it was John something. Not Jeff Kay.
   RIMMER: J-F-K, not Jeff Kay, you gimboid. Like the airport. I did a paper on him at school.
   LISTER: I wonder why anyone would want to name their kid after an airport? Heathrow Lister. John, Paul, George and Ringway. Well, actually that could work.
   RIMMER: The airport was named after the president.
   LISTER: Alright. We didn’t do 20th Century history at my school. It didn’t seem interesting to me. I mean, apart from nuclear fusion and some really snazzy car adverts, they did nothing.
   RIMMER: The last human being alive, and he’s got less brains than a Macaque Rhesus monkey after the first course of a Vietnamese wedding banquet.

Opinion: I much prefer the broadcast version - this material is just extraneous, and not very funny. I actually quite like the airport gag - and this extra material just dilutes the impact of that. The brains line feels like it should be a lot funnier than it is - a problem I have with a lot of VII jokes. Screengrab from Tikka - Cat smellingGherkins (20:38 - 20:58)

   LISTER: I don’t understand it. All we did is save Kennedy’s life.
   CAT: Is that bad? What kind of a dude was he?
   RIMMER: He was a fine man.
   CAT: Look!

   They’ve come across a body.

   LISTER: Can you get anything for us from his scent?
   CAT: (Sniffs) Male. (Sniffs) Mid-thirties. Last meal (sniffs) a salt beef sandwich with extra mayo and a gherkin. (Sniffs) Smoker. Starched shirt. Probably married.
   LISTER: Eric White. SIngle, vegetarian, and chairman of the Anti-Smoking League.
   CAT: I bet I’m right about the gherkin, though.

Opinion: No, no, no! Again, I like the “Male. Mid-thirties.” joke in the original - but this just pushes it too far, and it’s a really weak tagline as well. This was better off cut. Still, this was setting something up for later on - see the following two scenes. Screengrab from Tikka - Cat smellingGood guy, not a good guy (24:02 - 24:41)

   EXT. Campfire.

   LISTER: How can the same guy be an icon in one reality, and a criminal in the next, for doing exactly the same things?
   RIMMER: In one reality, he wasn’t caught.
   LISTER: Yeah, but was he a good guy, or not a good guy?
   RIMMER: Both.
   KRYTEN: But somewhere along the way, just like me, he disabled his guilt chip and discarded his behaviour protocols. Power corrupts.
   LISTER: Is that true? Can you be two things simultaneously?
   KRYTEN: Take you, sir. In some ways you’re bright, sensitive and caring. In other ways you’re an irresponsible, curry-obsessed moron.
   LISTER: Thanks, Kryten. That’s… wow, yeah.
   RIMMER: It’s hopeless. I can’t fix it. We’re trapped.
   CAT: Chicken’s good.
   LISTER: Yeah, it’s really good.
   KRYTEN: That’s not chicken, sirs.
   CAT: Oh, what is it?
   KRYTEN: It’s that man we found. It’s Eric.
   LISTER: What?
   KRYTEN: Well, it seemed like such a waste to just leave him lying there when he’d barbecue so beautifully.

   (Rimmer sniggers.)

Notes: The broadcast version starts with Lister swigging bottle in wide shot - the Xtended starts with close-up, and then cuts to the wide shot halfway through. I have no idea why you would need to know this. The Eric deletion is obviously because the lines identifying the man as Eric were cut from the previous scene. It’s done seamlessly in the broadcast version, and is a nice little insight into the editing process.

Opinion: I quite like some of the extra dialogue here - the Kennedy bit really is interesting stuff. Unfortunately, it gets a lot less interesting when it’s applied to Lister, which is a shame. Still, the broadcast version is basically just a “show up, do a cannibalism joke, then fuck off” scene - this gives the scene a bit more depth. I’m not quite sure Lister’s questions make much sense from a character point of view though - Lister’s always been pretty together when it comes to things like this. He seems to dish out moral advice on a weekly basis in Red Dwarf IV.

To be honest, I’ve always thought the campfire scene sat awkwardly in both versions of the episode. The Time Drive freezing is purely a plot device so they can do this one scene - and then it magically unfreezes again. It’s very dodgy plotting, which is (until VIII) extremely rare in Dwarf. Screengrab from Tikka - Cat smellingEric White (26:21 - 26:38)

   Oswald walks in on the Dwarfers.

   CAT: Decorators. Try up on the sixth floor.

   Oswald walks into the sixth-floor room, and puts down the package. Cut back to:

   LISTER: Isn’t this sick? I mean, just standing by and allow the president to be killed?
   CAT: Not if you’re Eric White, it ain’t.
   RIMMER: To think - Eric’s out there right now without any idea that one day, he’ll become a between-meals snack that does ruin your appitite.
   KRYTEN: Unless we put things back the way they were.

   Montagey stuff with Oswald and crowd.

   KRYTEN: Stand back, sir. Our original selves are about to beam in. When they realise their mistake they’ll beam out again. I propose we go down to the fourth.

Notes: As with the last scene, with the previous dialogue identifying the body as Eric White having been deleted from the broadcast version, this had to go too.

Opinion: The cumulation of the excised stuff to do with Eric - which was clearly trying to personalise the consequences of the Dwarfer’s actions. It’s a nice idea - but in the end, I don’t think too much is lost with these cuts. They help with the shows pacing, and we already know the consequences of the Dwarfer’s actions from Kryten’s alternate history lesson on his chest monitor. We know how serious it is - in the end, personalising it to one person doesn’t add much. And we already know what they’re trying to do - Kryten’s last line is superfluous. Screengrab from Tikka - Starbug splittingSeparation (31:23 - 36:16)

This entire sequence is not in the transmitted version:

   INT. Starbug Rear Corridor.

   Caption: THREE WEEKS LATER

   RIMMER: Right, Krytie. Same drill. You measure the output voltage, I’ll note the reading. Just give me a second to get in position.

   Kryten fiddles with the panel. Rimmer crosses the room.

   RIMMER: Right. In your own time. (Holds up baseball glove.)

   Kryten sticks his hand in the panel, and is electrocuted. After much jerking (!), his eyes shoot out. Rimmer catches them, and then hands them back to Kryten.

   RIMMER: Well?
   KRYTEN: 350 volts, sir. Same as the others.
   RIMMER: Not that one, then. Still, we’re narrowing it down. Just 17 more to go.
   KRYTEN: Sir, might I suggest that we use an actual voltmeter, as opposed to… well, using me?
   RIMMER: Oh, too good to be voltmeter now, are we? I dunno, one morning poncing around without your guilt chip, and suddenly you think you’re some hoity-toity robo-god, instead of the lashed-together Meccano gimboid that you are.
   KRYTEN: Oh, if you want me to be a voltmeter, I’m only too happy to be of service. Why, if you ask me to remove my head and turn it into a chemical toilet complete with working flush, I’d be equally honoured. It’s just that firing my eyes out of my head at the speed of sound does invalidate my Divadroid service guarantee.

   LISTER enters the room.

   KRYTEN: I would hate to malfunction and you not get a full refund. I mean, wouldn’t that be just so annoying?
   LISTER: I am a total twonk. How could I have been such a saliva-dribbling, moronic, brain-frozen, putzy little smegger?
   RIMMER: It’s good that book on self-enlightenment, isn’t it?
   LISTER: The curry supplies. There was no debris. Don’t you get it? No little bits of floating crate? They weren’t destroyed in the flood.
   KRYTEN: What happened to them, then?
   LISTER: I took ‘em. At some point in the future, I must go back to the past, and bring all the curry supplies to the present. Kapish?
   KRYTEN: Oh course! Oh, it’s so simple, even a half-concussed gym teacher could understand it.
   LISTER: This is the last jaunt. I promise.
   RIMMER: No. Absolutely not. As senior technician on this ship I forbid it, do you hear me, I absolutely forbid it.

   LISTER disappears.

   RIMMER: What is the point of me being his superior officer if he never obeys a single command? You know, he hasn’t even got the good manners to let me court-martial him. Not even when I ask him nicely. We might as well have a melon in command.
   KRYTEN: I thought we had, sir. Oh… I see. (Rimmer looks indignant.) Sorry, sir. The voltage must have corrupted my comprehension unit.

   There is a loud sound.

   RIMMER: Stand back! It sounds like something’s coming in.

   The time thingy chases Rimmer round the room, and then a barrel materialises. Followed by a large amount of curry… and Lister.

   LISTER: Yes! This thing is amazing. If only we could use it to get us back to Earth our time.
   KRYTEN: Sir, you saw the havoc we caused in Dallas in the first two seconds of our arrival. Heaven knows what we would reduce civalisation to if we lived in the past permanently.
   RIMMER: He’s right. We don’t want any more idiotic gaffes until… think we could make it to half-four?

   LISTER acknowledges this. KRYTEN leaves. RIMMER pauses by a big lever next to the door.

   RIMMER: You know, I must have passed this thing a million times. What the hell’s it for?

   LISTER pulls it. Nothing. He shrugs, then tries to leave… but the door shuts in front of him. RIMMER walks away on the other side, smugly.

   KRYTEN: Oh… nice going on the idiotic gaffes front, sir. We almost lasted a full five seconds there.
   RIMMER: Kryten, surely you’re not implying that was accidental? I’ve had that little ace up my sleeve for months.

   Lots of moving machinery… and then the front section of the ship seperates. We see LISTER shouting, and RIMMER salutes at him through the window… and then the front section blasts off.

   LISTER: They’re not coming back. I’m lost in deep space, over three million years from home… no life, no bird, no nothin’. Just me, and three and a half tons of curry. Fan-smeggin’tastic.

   …and he starts eating.

Notes: In the previous scene, there’s a few extra seconds of footage of Lister being beaten in the broadcast version that’s missing from the Xtended. This entire scene was shot long after the rest of the series, especially for the Xtended video - on the same day, and on the same set, that the links for the Xtended video and Red Dwarf Night Smeg Ups were recorded. This means that this scene (excluding the Smeg Ups links) is the last time Chris Barrie performs the original Rimmer. The scene was in early drafts of Tikka, but was missing from the final shooting script. A splitting Starbug model was made however, which ended up being unused - the Starbug split here is achieved through CGI.

Opinion: I really like this sequence. It almost seems to have a fun about it that a lot of the rest of the series lacks - if the whole series had been like this, I would have liked it a lot more. “Oh, too good to be voltmeter now, are we?” And I really like the melon line - yes, it’s hardly original, but it feels like the kind of joke Dwarf used to do really well - and then forgot how to. And the CGI is the best Dwarf has ever had - even better than the Tikka Remastered shots, in my view, and it’s notable that these shots weren’t changed in Remastered Xtended.

Sadly, the very end of the scene nearly undoes all the good work - the tagline is really, really weak. And to add insult to injury, we also stay on Lister for far too long, meaning the ending isn’t even punchy. A terrible way to end an excellent sequence, then - but I’m very glad we’ve got it. Along with the Rimmer Experience in Blue, it represents some of the best comedy VII has to offer. Nowhere near perfect, but fun enough. Screengrab from Tikka - EndcapConclusion

Before we make the final judgement, one thing does have to be addressed in this episode - the lack of laugh track. (The show doesn’t have one because the extra bits never had an audience reaction recorded - and rather than add fake canned laughter, or have the expense of another audience recording, it was decided to put it out without a laugh track at all.) Does it hurt the show? I have to say, I think it does. Parts of the episode just feel empty - there are real one-liners here, and they always feel weird in a sitcom without an audience. Scenes such as the groinal attachment tea-stirring, or indeed the Xtended ending, just feel odd. On the other hand, out of all the three Red Dwarf VII Xtended episodes, I think Tikka suffers least from the removal of the track. Parts of it really do work as pure drama.

The famed awkward pauses that result through the removal of the laugh track are here - they’re most notable for me after the lines “That’s the third camera this week - the machines just can’t take it sir” and “So, you mean now we’ve got no poppadoms at all?” It has to be said that if you’re laughing at the lines yourself, then they aren’t noticable - but if you aren’t, it does sound awkward. What they should have done is gone through and snipped these pauses out for the Xtended version - they were only added to leave room for the laugh track, and if you’re not going to have one, they should have removed the pauses as well.

The question is, of course - was the Xtended worth doing? For me, yes - but only really for the newly-shot ending, which for me is one of the very few Starbug-based scenes that works for me in the series. I find it hard to escape the conclusion that most of the rest of the Xtended material adds little to the episode. At best, it’s just superfluous, and at worst it negatively impacts on the scenes - whether it’s slowing the pacing, or just adding jokes that don’t work for me. My ideal version of Tikka would be the Remastered version, not Xtended, but adding selected Xtended material - the opening Voyager parody (keeping the first two Remastered shots, but replacing the sewage shot with the original Xtended), the additional Kennedy discussion around the campfire (but not the stuff about Lister), and obviously the final scene.

So, what do you think? Give your thoughts below. And join me next time, for that old favourite - Ouroboros Xtended…

In 1994, Charles and a friend were arrested and remanded in custody for several months on a rape charge. Whilst in prison Charles was attacked by a man wielding a knife. At his trial the prosecution suggested that Charles had taken cocaine prior to the alleged rape, which Charles denied. In February 1995, both Charles and his friend were exonerated at the trial; the alleged rape victim, an ex-girlfriend, later withdrew her claim. Charles' imprisonment delayed the production of the seventh season of Red Dwarf.

I left you LITERALLY on tenterhooks last article, promising that there would be more interesting stuff to come. So, what other search terms can we plug into Infax?

The most obvious would be Rob Grant and Doug Naylor themselves; and once you’ve finished having a cheap laugh at the fact that they wrote for The Little and Large Party (it being their first radio show, for all I know, it might have been quite good…), and that they got credited for an episode of The Russ Abbot Show in 1997 (old material, there), some rather interesting stuff comes up:

   * Daytime UK (14th Dec 1990) - “ITEM 1:TV WRITERS:Doug NAYLOR & Rob GRANT chat to Alan(dur7.20/1.50 in)”. That’s Alan Titchmarsh, BTW. What a fucking bizarre interview that must have been. Weirdly, this is exactly at the time of recording Red Dwarf IV - White Hole was recorded the night before - so it’s very possible there might be some interesting insights into that series.
   * Wally Who? (7th Nov 1982 - 12th Dec 1982) - We’ve mentioned this before, but not really dwelt on it, so… bloody hell. A six-part radio sitcom written by Rob and Doug, broadcast on Radio 2, and produced by Mike Craig and featuring Nick Maloney - exactly like Wrinkles. The description for the series: “Sitcom starring Tony BRANDON as Wally Thornton, a man living in a scrapyard and going nowhere in life apart from the local pub, run by landlord John JARDINE.” OK - this needs hunting down. If you know of any copies, get in touch.
   * The Joy of Sketch (24th Jan 1998) - Classic sketches, introduced by the excellent Punt and Dennis. Rob and Doug are listed as authors, so presumably a Son of Cliché clip is featured, which is interesting - SoC has generally been forgotten, so it’s nice that someone remembered the show well enough to include one. Because it really is one of the best radio comedies ever.

It would be interesting to investigate exactly what sketches Rob and Doug wrote for other people in those early days - The Grumbleweeds, or their Three of a Kind stuff - but that stuff is incredibly difficult to research. Maybe one day. I wouldn’t be surprised if their stuff was of markedly higher quality than a lot of other stuff in the same shows.

Moving onto the cast, then. And first up is Robert Llewellyn:

   * Stop the World (8th Mar 1999 - 26th Mar 1999) - “New series: entertainment show w new comedy. DJ Mark TONDERAI & DJ CRUNSKI bring the vitality of pirate radio to the screen. They have unlimited access to a fantasy world’s surveillance cameras, news channels & web sites.” Broadcast on BBC Choice, I’d never heard of this - a comedy show with 41 editions in 1999. Craig appears with Robert on two of the show, and Danny appears on the other two - with Craig and Danny appearing together on the 8th/9th April editions.
   * Aspects of the Fringe (25 Aug 1989 - 26th Aug 1989) - Radio show featuring highlights of the 1989 Edinburgh Fringe, with contributions from Llewellyn. And guess what it includes? “John McKay and Robert Llewellyn perform extract from their play ‘Onan’.” I NEED TO HEAR THIS. Also: I’ve only just realised that this is the same John McKay who wrote Identity Within…
   * Fallen Arches (4th Feb 1989) - 25th Feb 1989 - Second series of this Radio 4 show, with Robert in the regular cast. “The aristocracy of the 19th century contained many strange and colourful charcters - none more so than Lord and Lady Cliffhanger who return with a new tale of cruelty, deceit and rat pie.” Interesting.
   * Uncharted Territory (29th Nov 2006) - Programme on owning property abroad, featuring Robert Llewellyn and… Ann Llewellyn, whatever relation she is. How come I missed this? Mind you, it had been sitting on the shelf at the BBC for a year…
   * Liquid News (12 Oct 2001) - Robert Llewellyn as a guest. I used to love Liquid News, so to see Rob on it would be a joy. God, Christopher Price was fantastic.
   * Grushko (24th Mar 1994) “Drama series set in St Petersburg in 1994.” Presumably a fairly small part, but it’d be interesting to see Robert doing SERIOUS ACTING.
   * Head Over Heels (29th July 1990) - “Magaine progrmme looking at a man’s world from a woman’s perspective. Kind of predictable that Llewellyn would show up on a programme like this! Still, as an early television glimpse of him, it would be really interesting.
   * Newsnight (24th Feb 1984) - Robert Llewellyn in The Joeys. Universe Challenge used a clip from this, of course - but it would be interesting to see the full thing. Wouldn’t it be great if BBC FOUR aired selected episodes of archive editions of Newsnight? I’m sure it would be informative about the cultural attitudes of the time. Or something.
   * To Boldly Go (25th Jan 1996) - A Radio 4 sci-fi quiz? Featuring Robert Llewellyn and Norman Lovett? Yes please. And Danny appeared on the previous week’s edition, along with… Peter Serafinowicz and Elizabeth Sladen!
   * Loose Ends (6th June 1992) - Oh, fucking hell. Ned fucking Sherrin. With his fucking awful opening monologues which everyone sycophantically laughs at. At the start of them, anyway - by the end, not even the most diligent brown-noser can bring themselves to raise a chuckle. Still, I expect whatever Robert had to say was interesting - and this was broadcast under three months after Back To Reality, so there might even be a mention of that.

Onto Danny next. Although: how the fuck did I miss the fact he was on Doctors? Or Kerching, for that matter…

   * Grief (11th Feb 1993 - 18th Feb 1993) - Radio 5 drama, featuring Danny. No more info, but with a small cast, it’s possible he had quite a major part.
   * The Vanessa Show (6th July 1999) - Featuring an interview with Danny about his new musical Soul Train. I BET THAT’S FUCKING EXCRUCIATING.
   * Backstage (21st April 1999) - Hmmmm. Broadcast on BBC Choice, this was a “Live magazine programme that comes from backstage of BBC programmes”. And it features not only Danny, but Norman Lovett, which would seem to indicate something Dwarf-related - but VIII had finished a month or so beforehand. so it’s all a bit odd, really. Also on the show is Alan Hawkshaw, who has written loads of great music - including the library piece used in the assassination sequence of Tikka To Ride…
   * English Time (13th Mar 1995) - School programme, about poetry, with Danny as a contributor… along with Felix Dexter! Excellent.
   * Lenny Henry, In Dreams (23rd Dec 1992) - Lenny Henry comedy special - there’s slightly more here. Excellent - it’d be interesting to see Danny do sketch comedy, even if it’s just a small part. SMALL PART HA HA. It’s directed by James Hendrie - who, of couse, co-wrote Nanarchy.
   * Celebrity Double Dare (29th Aug 1991) - OH. MY. GOD. My childhood! And with Kate Lonergan on it as well! Fantastic. I would absolutely love to see any full episode of this - let alone one featuring those two…
   * Jackanory (4th Jan 1991) - Bloody hell, I never knew Danny did Jackanory! I bet he was great at it, too. And it’s a special edition to celebrate the show’s 25th anniversary - all the stories were written by children. I doubt it’s as good as this, mind you. (A kid sent in an audio tape of a Dexter’s Lab story he’d made up - and the production team loved it so much, they made an episode based around it, with special childlike drawings. Isn’t that just fucking great?)
   * Babylon 2 (30th May 1988) - “Danny JOHN-JULES pres this collection of nostalgic clips from classic children’s progs”. Excellent! 1988 seems pretty early for him to be doing this kind of thing, interestingly - only Series 1 of Dwarf had gone out at that point, and Marian hadn’t started yet either. Incidentally, guess who did the next two programmes in the series? Harry Enfield and Stephen Fry! I’d kill to see those episodes too. 

And there we have to leave it. Some of the above probably aren’t all that interesting when you actually watch or listen to them - but I hope you’ll agree that there are some absolute gems there. Most of the cast-specific stuff hasn’t got a chance in hell of making it onto a DVD - but hopefully, with a bit of a rummage, it might be possible to trace some of them. Let’s have a go, eh?

Tune in next time for more. Or you can just stick in Norman Lovett, Hattie Hayridge, Craig Charles and Chris Barrie yourself. I’m really not that bothered.

In June 2006 a photograph was printed in the Daily Mirror newspaper that purported to show Charles smoking crack cocaine in the back seat of a taxi. According to the story by writer Stephen Moyes, Charles spent four hours in the taxi smoking crack cocaine from an old drinks can, while instructing the driver to buy him pornography.

Infax, or the BBC Programme Catalogue, is a wonderful thing. Originally the BBC’s internal documentation for its programmes, last year it was opened up, shut down, and then opened up again, to us filthy outsiders. And it can bring up all kinds of interesting things - for instance, did you know that the first two series of The Fast Show are labelled “DO NOT WIPE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF CHARLIE HIGSON”?

Searching for Red Dwarf provides lots of intriguing information if you’re a production geek; each entry provides information on repeats, and if you reveal the extra detail, gives a list of all model shots in the programme (presumably listed for easy reference, in case the production wanted to reuse a shot). And hey, I get a kick out of knowing that the official BBC programme number for Backwards is NMRJ901F, even if nobody else does. It’s not perfect; sometimes the descriptions are slightly jumbled, and there’s the occasional repeat date which is suspicious, but overall, it’s very interesting.

But that’s the information you’ll get just from searching for Red Dwarf as a programme title - all it’ll do is bring up a list of Dwarf episodes. Searching the descriptions field brings up a whole different list entirely - a list of shows which merely featured Red Dwarf in some way. And what a lovely list it brings up.

Let’s have a glance at some of the more interesting entries, shall we?

   * Open Air (23rd Feb 1988) - “ITEM 02: RED DWARF: Pattie intros item incl intvs with Paul JACKSON, Exec Prd Red Dwarf & actors Chris BARRIE & Craig CHARLES. Incls VT ins: Red Dwarf; The Young Ones; Happy Families & Filthy Rich & Catflap (20m10s)”. A 20 MINUTE INTERVIEW WITH PAUL JACKSON, CHRIS BARRIE, AND CRAIG CHARLES YES I NEED TO SEE THIS NOW. Bonus points for the clip of FR&C, too. In fact, this was actually mentioned on here a while back - although oddly, the Open Air entries for the 15th Feb 1988 don’t actually mention Red Dwarf. That’s not to say that Dwarf wasn’t featured in the programme on that date as well, though - Infax can be rather unreliable.
   * Take Two (1st Jun 1988) - Children’s show about telly programmes. This would be the famed bit with Rob and Doug talking about Red Dwarf, then. We’ve actually got a copy of this - no doubt we’ll upload it at some point.
   * Daytime Live (6th Jan 1989) - “ITEM 03:Judi SPIERS then talked to Craig CHARLES about his very diverse career - poet, presenter, actor & musician (incs clip of Red Dwarf, episode 5, Queeg tx’d 4/10/88)” Judi Spiers! This gives me a chance to link to The Gus Honeybun Song, as she’s in it. Composed by Ed Welch, don’t you know. In fact, can we stick Gus on the Remastered DVDs?
   * Parallel 9 (18th July 1992 and 18th Sep 1993) - Very weird SF Saturday morning kids show, which I chiefly remember for them building at the start of one series a long complex assault course in the studio for the planned weekly game… which they promptly never used again, as it was boring shit. Anyway, Craig Charles and Robert LLewellyn are on the first edition mentioned, and Danny John-Jules was on the second - along with Wayne Morris and Kate Lonergan, Marian fans.
   * Points of View (13th Oct 1993) - Show where viewers send in their letters about BBC programmes, all you non-UK people out there. From the broadcast date, it’ll be about Psirens, broadcast the previous week. A rousing welcome for the return of a much-loved series, or a load of old biddies slagging it off? There’s a later one on 18th Feb 1998, which is presumably about Red Dwarf Night.
   * Pebble Mill (29th Oct 1993) - ITEM 02:CRAIG CHARLES:Intv re his new song, & video,playing the part of Lister in “Red Dwarf” and about his new book “Craig Charles Almanac of Total Knowledge” (dur 09m10s)” Forget the whoring of his book - what’s all this about Craig’s song? And was it better than Max Bygraves performing a medley later on in the programme?
   * Live & Kicking (19th Feb 1994) - Chris Barrie guests. The main reason I mention this is that I really hope it was Chris who was forced into doing Trev and Simon’s Star Driving Test. Which, if you don’t remember it, went something like this…
   * Two’s Comedy (24th Feb 1995) - No idea about this one - is that our Red Dwarf featured there, or not? It’s rather ambiguous, with the talk about sketches, and the added “the”.
   * The National Lottery Live (5th Nov 1997) - No historical relevance really; I just want to see Craig Charles start the draw. Also, I’m intrigued as to what clip from Red Dwarf they showed - it’s really difficult to take individual scenes from Dwarf, as unlike a lot of sitcoms, it generally stops being funny when taken out-of-context. There’s probably an article in that discussion, but I’ll spare you for now.
   * Computers Don’t Bite (8th June 1998) - “The stars of Red Dwarf book a holiday on line and a look at ballroom dancing on the World Wide Web.” Oh dear. And yet… I need to see this.
   * The Vanessa Show (18th Feb 1999) - Vanessa Feltz, there. “ITEM 02:RED DWARF:Vaness intvs Robert LLEWELLYN & Norman LOVETT abt return of Red Dwarf (dur 7.56)” The phrase “I bet that’s fucking excruciating” springs to mind.
   * Look North (13th Apr 1999) - Regional news programme, for those of you who aren’t obsessed with regional telly, like me. “traffic drives to cam, HILL ptc driving ms poster “Don’t Drive Like a Twonk, Kill Your Speed” 3 vox pops re what does it mean? - (1) pillock, (2) no idea, (3) idiot intv John STANLEY (Hull City Council) - a twonk is an idiot, derived from Only Fools and Horses, and from Red Dwarf, an in word, an insult ex Red Dwarf - crew in VR mode “drive like twonks” [but not saying the word: wrong half of programme was played up line - 2nd, not 1st!]” So, in short, people didn’t know what twonk meant… and to clear things up, they showed part of Back To Reality that didn’t have the word in. Great.
   * Culture Fix - Special Effects (29th July 1999) - A programme looking at the “evolution of the art of special effects”, featuring a clip from Red Dwarf. No other info beyond that, and possibly no more than a short mention, but it sounds interesting.
   * Whatever You Want (13th May 2000 - Ah yes, the show where they gave away a prize to appear as an extra on the movie. I believe this was considered for inclusion on one of the previous DVDs, but it was too expensive to clear. A potential extra for the Movie-if-it-happens DVD, perhaps?
   * The Last Laugh (19th Mar 2005) - Programme about sitcoms, featuring an interview with Danny John-Jules. No more details than that, although seeing as it’s specifically about sitcoms, it could be rather interesting.

So… the inevitable question is - will any of this make it onto the Remastered DVDs? Well, we can only hope - and rest assured that I have alerted the relevant authorities. But whilst I hope some of the juicy stuff will make it on there (I’m personally really hoping for Open Air), let’s face it, most of it won’t - whether it’s down to rights, disc space, or simply the fact that certain things would only interest five people. (I’m under no illusions that Craig on the National Lottery is worth spending any money at all on.) I think once the Remastered release has been, erm, released, perhaps we should take a look at what hasn’t been included, and try and find it ourselves. Someone out there must have recorded a lot of this stuff.

But, of course, Red Dwarf isn’t the only interesting search term to stick into Infax. In the next part of this article, we’ll be looking at some other “intriguing” “gems”…

These allegations resulted in Charles being suspended from Coronation Street until February 2007, and from BBC 6 Music while an investigation is held. To date no statement has been made by Charles himself.

Look, everyone! Rob Grant’s Fat! Alright, that’s the last time we’ll use that joke, we promise. But you have to admit, he’s almost complicit in it with a title like that. Anyway, after a lengthy wait (although, to be honest, not as lengthy as some have made out - we’re not exactly talking Duke Nukem Forever or Chinese Democracy, here), Rob’s latest novel, Fat, is finally in shops. And after an almost as lengthy wait (fortuitous circumstances meant we were in a position to get a review of this book out for its release date; dire technical circumstances meant we failed to do so), the G&T verdict is here as well. So, what do we reckon?

FAT, by Rob Grant

Well, first of all, we owe Rob something of an apology. You see, if you do a Google search for “rob grant” fat, one of the top results is an article from this very site (albeit one from a former incarnation that hasn’t been imported over to this one), with the emblazoned headline ROB GRANT IS A LAZY FUCKING CUNT. The reason for this story was that a release date for the book of May 1st 2005 had originally appeared on Amazon a long time ago, but had continually slipped back ever since then, and so we were all getting annoyed at how it seemed to be getting delayed so badly.

Only, none of that was really Rob’s fault. In recent interviews, he’s said that as soon as he mentioned to his publisher the idea of a book about food/weight politics, they slapped it straight up on Amazon, with a release date to boot. Ever since then, he’s been working hard to meet unrealistic expectations of when the book would arrive - not helped in the slightest by cunts like us calling him a fat lazy bastard every time the release date “slipped”. In fact, when you consider the timeframe of his first starting work on the book, then perhaps the late December release date is a slight slip, but we could certainly have never realistically expected it before this Autumn. G&T would therefore like to take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly to Rob (not that he’s likely to ever read this - but hey, his lawyers might) and state categorically, once and for all, that Rob Grant is not a lazy fucking cunt.

I mean, he’s a bit tubby, but that’s sort of the point of the book, isn’t it?

Or, perhaps I should say, the point of the three books. Because, well… that’s what it feels like. Not in terms of length - quite the contrary, in fact, as it’s a disappointingly slender tome - but with regards to the way in which Rob has crafted three very different stories from the perspectives of three very different characters, and told them in three very different (or, at least, two quite similar and one very different) narrative styles.

Grenville Roberts is a corpulent television chef battling against an anger management problem and a world designed by and for men half his size; Hayleigh Griffin is a teenager of unspecified age who avoids mirrors and food in an attempt to stave off the hideous fatso she believes herself to be; and bridging the two extremes, Jeremy Slank is a PR “conceptuologist” managing a new government initiative for the overweight. Rather than weaving in and out of each other, however, the three stories only ever really mingle in a narrative sense, as alternating chapters pick up the threads of each. Certainly, there seems to be little that links the three characters and their worlds save for the obvious thematic connections, and this actually creates something of a disjointed, disorientating effect on the reader during the first half of the book - at times it really does feel like holding three separate books in front of you and switching between them (much in the manner of having a book each on your bedside table, in the toilet and in your bag to read on the train), particularly when it’s difficult to see how the three stories might in any way actually tie together.

That’s not to say they aren’t compelling in their own right - albeit to varying degrees - but it does mean that when the characters do find themselves connecting in the book’s closing act, it feels like it’s in somewhat arbitrary and rushed fashion. And, indeed, “rushed” is a word that could be used to describe how a lot of the book feels, particularly later on (irony, I know, for those of us who originally thought he was taking his sweet time over the damned thing). One would hope this isn’t a result of Rob being pushed to finish the book too quickly, since the overall effect is one of a novel that should be allowed to breathe, but never really gets the chance to. The first two thirds of the book feel like an opening act, meaning that the final third is left to squash in the meat of the story; for example, both Grenville and Jeremy’s stories build towards the grand opening of the Well Farms project, and one would fully expect a significant chunk of the book’s length to be given over to events once this happened. However, we’re that close to the book’s end by the time it does so that the comic potential of the idea - of which there appears to be plenty - is barely explored.

In fact, readers looking for out and out comedy in the manner of Incompetence (and, of course, Red Dwarf) may find themselves disappointed by the amount of it on offer here. That’s not to say it’s not ever funny - as a matter of fact, when it is funny, it’s very funny. But the humour is by no means the driving thrust of the book. It’s largely concentrated in Grenville’s chapters (you may already have read it in the preview chapter, but it’s hard not to laugh out loud at lines like “Fuck Me If That’s Not Butter”), which are also perhaps closest in feel to anything Rob’s written before. His established trope of the comedy of escalation comes into full force, with a succession of scenes in which a combination of Grenville’s bulk and anger lead to more and more ludicrously unfortunate scenarios. Interestingly, though, despite the fact that Grenville is possibly the character that shares the most in common with Rob, he never lets him have the reader’s full sympathy - his own failure to control his anger is as much the cause of his unravelling as the attitudes of those around him towards his weight.

It’s Jeremy’s sections, meanwhile, that could be said to be the least successful. In the early stages of the story, he simply doesn’t come across as a particularly likeable character. His story doesn’t have the resonance or the pathos (or indeed the humour) that Grenville and Hayleigh’s do, and following the introduction of scientist Jemma, further problems arise. Each appearance of the latter character seems to serve little purpose other than a mouthpiece for various facts and challenges to established assumption that Grant has discovered in researching the book. Indeed, I’m not sure if she utters a single meaningful line of dialogue that isn’t a simple infodump of some kind - to the extent, in fact, that a blog post of hers is almost gratuitously inserted into the text in order to provide us with a rant about cholesterol. Furthermore, the character is so unattainably (and unrealistically) perfect in the way she’s presented - she’s another archetypal “perfect Rob Grant female” - that the reader feels they’re being nudged towards agreeing with her, rather than being allowed to draw their own conclusions. And this despite the fact that, in some cases, there’s some highly contentious ground being covered (I have no problem with Grant setting out to challenge many of our preconceptions about food and weight - but when he starts questioning the link between smoking and lung cancer, it feels slightly less than comfortable). In addition, the half-hearted romantic subplot that immediately arises upon Jeremy and Jemma’s first meeting is deeply unsatisfying - you never feel that Jeremy ever deserves to get anywhere with her, nor do you ever get a sense of their relationship developing. And the less said about the fumbled comedy sex-slash-scientific-exposition scene the better, frankly. Yet strangely, it is Jeremy’s story that feels the most like a full novel waiting to be fleshed out (albeit a novel that reads, curiously, like a Ben Elton book more than anything else), but it’s also the story that’s most in dire need of it.

Thankfully, all this is made up for somewhat by the chapters focusing on Hayleigh. Chronicling the paranoid girl’s attempts to avoid meals, mirrors and parental suspicion, they’re in turns hilarious and moving, building towards a potentially tragic conclusion. They’re written in an intriguing style, taking a third person form but with a distinctly first-person viewpoint - reminiscent, in fact, of many of the half-narration, half-internal monologue sections of the Red Dwarf novels (think Rimmer and the stasis booth, or Lister’s “How many people could say that?”). Grenville’s sections make use of this style to some extent as well, but the voice is more pronounced (and more amusing) in Hayleigh’s :

   She slipped into the loo and, mercifully, found an empty cubicle right away. Working quickly, she dealt with her lunch first. She squeezed the banana (a hundred and forty-three calories) out of its skin and into the plastic bag, and emptied the carton of semi-skimmed milk (200ml, ninety-six calories) down the loo. She unwrapped the tuna and mayonnaise baguette (a whopping five hundred and thirty-five calories, not to mention twenty-three grams of fat) and crumbled it over its wrapping, which she then smeared with some of the filling. Incredibly, there was another sandwich in the lunchbox. Was mum trying to kill her? This time, it was ham and cheese (five hundred and fifty-seven calories and a heart-stopping twenty-seven grams of fat). Again, she removed the wrapping and, rather cunningly, she thought, crumbled half of the sandwich over the wrapping, and left the other half intact. She didn’t have to pretend to eat everything, did she? Leaving half a sandwich would be even more convincing. Ha ha. Detect that, queen of detectives. She disposed of the cheese and onion crisps (a hundred and eighty four calories), again down the loo. Crisps got soggy and went down when you flushed, unlike bananas which were, quite literally, unsinkable. They should have made the Titanic out of bananas. She gingerly removed the Mars Bar (two hundred and ninety-four calories, I don’t think so) from its wrapping and laid it beside the banana.

   And there, at the bottom of the lunchbox, was Hayleigh’s Lunchtime Nightmare. An apple. A big, red, juicy apple. Fifty-three calories of fruity hell.

These chapters are the genuine emotional heart of the story, highlighting an issue that is all too frequently overlooked - our obsession with slimness and “size 0” figures is oft-mentioned, but rarely condemned, by the media that perpetuate it; and ordinary girls like Hayleigh are generally left to suffer in silence. In addition, Hayleigh herself is a great character - and despite one clear glitch in the way her mind works (believing she’s overweight when she’s in fact terrifyingly thin), she actually operates from a position of clearly thought-out logic; her plots are actually quite ingenious at times, and all in all she’s impossible to dislike. It’s also worth pointing out just how convincingly Grant gets her voice - even though he does, at times, slip in the odd instance of what almost sound like Rimmerisms (I don’t think there’s a “miladdo” in there, but it’s not far off). In fact, the only fault it’s really possible to find with these bits - other than that they, like much of the book, don’t last anywhere near long enough - is Rob’s (repeated more than once) error in saying that it was Owen Wilson and not Ben Stiller that said “Do it!” in Starsky & Hutch (did no-one, editor or otherwise, manage to catch that one? Was I really the only person that saw that film?)

Fat certainly provides an entertaining read, with flashes of the Rob Grant we all know so well; but as all three stories race towards a disappointingly predictable conclusion, it’s hard to shake that vaguely unsatisfied feeling - the slightly hollow feeling, if you like, of a stomach that’s been fed something undeniably tasty, but lacking in real substance. It’s a brave step, of course, into the unknown and out of the comfort zone of comedic sci-fi and spec-fic, but despite its highest points it’s difficult to say that it entirely succeeds. Much as you can applaud Rob for wanting to bring many of these issues to our attention, it’s unclear as to whether a book like this - particularly one that struggles so badly to make a significant impression thanks to its brevity - is the place to do so. And, while his portrayal of Hayleigh in particular is one that deserves applause - and a wider audience - you can’t help but wish he’d just held off on the soapboxing a little bit. Next time (and I do hope there’s a next time - for all the flaws of this book, I’d rather see him carry on down this unchartered path than churn out the same old books for the rest of his career), if he lets us make our own minds up just a little bit more, we might be more inclined to listen.

Charles was arrested in August 2006 on suspicion of possession of a Class A drug, and later released on bail pending further enquiries. On 22 September 2006 he accepted a caution for possession of a Class A drug.

Having looked forward to viewing the pilot for some time, well more so since producer Jonathan Brown appeared on G&T, I obtained an early entry ticket for Memorabilia solely to enable me to catch the show and Q&A session with a 10:15 kick off. I have to say the time slot didn’t help much as the vast majority of attendees didn’t arrive until 11.00 am and those with early entry were more concerned with obtaining autographs before the rush started. Around 30 people were seated when I arrived and I chose the front row along with my daughter and just one other person.

Starhyke

To my surprise, there was no introduction on stage and the screens burst into life with no warning which meant any opening credits passed unnoticed. The opening voice over sounded a bit blurred to me but the general gist was that Earth was at war in the year 3034 and we were now on the bridge of the ‘Dreadnought Nemesis’ with its commander ‘Captain Blowhard’.

For those not aware of the plot/storyline, the ‘Dreadnought Nemesis’ is sent back to the Earth of today to hunt down a group of aliens (The Reptids!) who are hell bent on releasing a biological weapon that will destroy mankind and obviously everyone in 3034. The main joke appears to evolve around the fact that all emotion is suppressed in 3034 but on route back to our time, emotion is returned to the Nemesis crew only far stronger than it should be. This leads to a number of on-board outbursts of emotion mostly of a sexual nature. Meanwhile two members of the crew are ‘beamed’ down to earth where they follow a signal to a café and decide to sample 2006 food, oddly sprinkling what appears to be pepper onto a ‘spotted dick’ pudding induces an orgasmic frenzy onto the female member of earth bound pair. Meanwhile back on Nemesis, an alien that has stowed aboard is being interrogated by the captain and a female sidekick who seems to be getting excited by beating up the alien, the poor alien is then jettisoned into space and explodes, splattering over the crafts window.

Along the way, several characters are introduced, Captain Blowhard is played by Claudia Christian (Babylon 5), Jeremy Bulloch plays a mad ships Doctor, basically a bit of a pervert with a hair problem and a number of established actors play other oddball roles. We have a hologram who seems to be 2nd in command and a really bizarre maintenance couple that seemed to be experiencing some kind of sexual awakening. Danny John Jules’ role as an Admiral is limited to a short appearance on the ship’s communication screen, giving them the order to go back and save Earth. The half hour show went past quite quickly, but at the end only half of the attendees were left seated, a point that seemed to ruffle Claudia Christian’s feathers a little.

As the cast came on stage, introduced by Danny, Claudia was heard to say “wow, gee, ten people”, which was wrong as my daughter counted 15, but still. All in all, I think there were 5 or 6 questions like “how did everyone get on, making it”, “how did it compare to other stuff they had done” and “how were the cast chosen” etc, with each crew and cast member offering their accounts. I left my gem of a question until last which at least seemed to spur Jonathan Brown into action. So, “what was the current state of play regarding a television channel taking up the show”, I asked.

Starhyke

Apparently, they have had to make 6 further complete episodes with several parties interested in buying them and they expect something to happen next year, they also emphasised that everyone involved was very keen and confidence was very high. As the session ended, not soon enough for Claudia Christian it appeared as she stood up several times asking if that was all, everyone trundled off back stage apart from Jeremy Bulloch. Announcing that it was a ‘great’ question he jumped off the stage and walked up to me clutching what I assume was his breakfast, and continued telling me how the episodes had been made in a huge rush but were very good and how the sets were almost destroyed but rescued and now housed in a different place. It was at this point I realised there was only my daughter and me left in the stage zone and a few moments later I was wishing him good luck with it all and walked out of the zone with him. What a nice bloke.

I guess at this point I should say what I thought of the actual show and to be fair, I think it is the kind of show that could get a large cult following. I have to say though, I cant really see this as a mainstream success. The production is big, the effects on the whole are excellent and some of the shots would not look out of place in big American sci-fi show. The cast is very good and a lot of the acting is far better than in say, Hyperdrive, it also looks better, but sadly, what let it down for me, was the simple fact that I didn’t find it funny. I think my 14 year old daughter summed it up after ten minutes by asking if it was meant to be a comedy.

I think there was enough there for me to give it another chance and I hope it does make it and I guess others may find it hilarious, but I have to be honest and give it the thumbs down, overall, I found it disappointing.

On 11 January 2007 Charles has reportedly returned to Coronation Street and he is currently filming his return scene which will been shown in February.

Remember when me and Ian wrote articles together? Ah, those were the days. One of the more interesting ones was The Debate: Series VIII’s Setting; and it’s been preying on my mind recently. And the bit that especially intrigues me is the following.

   However, I do agree with you about one thing - the old setting was marvellous, and magical. Seeing the crew locked up, and not free to do what they want, in a lot of ways isn’t going to be as much fun. But I think that the interaction with new characters could have overcome this - indeed, Hollister is fantastic, and I’m really looking forward to him in the movie. It’s just a pity that the potential wasn’t realised.

The question is: how important is the whole ‘free agent’ thing to the success of a series? And by a ‘free agent’, I mean: the characters being free to do whatever they like - not having to follow orders, or being constrained at every turn.

The End starts off with a rigid military command structure - indeed, the first person we see apart from Rimmer and Lister is their superior, Todhunter - and next person we see after that is Captain Hollister. Doug has gone on record as saying that he sometimes wishes they’d done a series or two before the crew got wiped out. Now, I’m not saying it couldn’t work - indeed, I agree it would have been very interesting - but it would obviously have made the show a markedly different series at that point. And a series, I would argue, in which it would be difficult to tackle the kind of science fiction concepts that the show explored even in the first series. Indeed, in the very next episode, Future Echoes, they have an adventure that would never happen if they were under the thumb of Hollister. It’s the same with Me2. Already, the two best episodes of the first series have disappeared!

So, for the first seven series, the Dwarfers are indeed free agents - free to do whatever they like. Of course, come VI they have an overriding mission - to find Red Dwarf - but they still answer to nobody but themselves. But come VIII, the gang get locked in prison. This is a fine setting for character stuff - see Porridge - but the problem was letting the Dwarfers continue to have the kind of SF adventures that we were used to. To do this, a reason has to be found in order to let them out. In TJ’s VIII reviews, he informs us that CANARIES stands for Contrived And Needlessly Asinine Reason for Inmates to Explore Space - and whilst I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, it’s hard to disagree with his essential point. The device is purely a way of getting the crew out there again so they can do certain types of stories. The fact that the gang are put on parole for no particularly good reason in Only The Good… only confirms the suspicion that the setting for Series VIII was not exactly perfect.

Now, I really don’t wish to turn this into a huge general VIII debate - we’ve done that to death. You know I don’t like a lot of VIII. I know a lot of people do. That’s fine. To be clear, though - my major problems with the series are with other factors, not the setting. I’m certainly not arguing that the setting caused what I see as the really big problems with the series. But I would argue that you can see the concept of the series creaking slightly here and there, in a way that you couldn’t for the previous seven series. And more importantly, I would also argue that the series lost something - something that it wasn’t able to regain in other areas.

It’s interesting the reaction that the original ending to VIII on the DVD - everyone else has left the ship, and the series returns to the status quo - the Dwarfers, on Red Dwarf, answering to nobody. This point is emphasised by Rimmer’s salute to Hollister - our characters are in charge again. A lot of people I’ve talked to love that ending - and so do I. And the reason I love it is because it’s the Dwarfers having fun again - and the Dwarfers taking control. Ironically, it’s reminicent of the end of Rob Grant’s Backwards - after the struggle the Dwarfers have been through, we’re safe - back on board the Dwarf. And the characters are free to have fun again - even if that fun happens to be running away from another genetic mutant.

Looking at the concept in terms of other programmes gives us further insight. It’s interesting that the new series of Doctor Who trades hugely on the fact that The Doctor and his companion are free agents. The whole emphasis of RTD’s incarnation is “travelling in time and space and doing what you like is fun!” This was emphasised to the point of annoyance to some people in the second series (although I never really minded it, and it was a plot point leading up to the finale anyway). But the idea that they are free to do whatever they like is key to the whole feeling Russell is trying to evoke - a fun series for Saturday night.

In the original concept of Futurama, Planet Express was originally going to be a subsidiary of Momcorp. You can see why this was changed - a lot of the joy in Futurama is that the characters can fuck about and do what they want. Having Mom breathing down your neck every episode is not conducive to fun. Sure, technically, the gang all work under the Professor - and him giving them a parcel to deliver is an easy way to kick off a story - but it’s not a device which is limiting, and he isn’t a scary authority figure that the gang have to obey if they don’t want to.

Of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation manages to have it both ways. They can go off an explore where they like - but if an Admiral gives them an order, then by crikey they have to go and do it. This is pretty much the perfect setup - the characters can go off and do what they like - “explore space” being their main woolly mission - but if its in the interests of the story, the characters can be forced to do Starfleet’s - or rather, the creator’s - bidding. .The best of both worlds, if you’ll pardon the expression.

Or, for a non-science fiction example, let’s look as a couple of programmes we cover here on G&T. In Brittas, sure, the other characters have to answer to Gordon - but the main premise of the show revolves around Brittas himself. And outside interference of any major kind from the council is pretty rare in the series; indeed, it’s mainly used for series finales, where Councillor Drugget finally manages to get rid of him at the end of Series 4. For the rest of the time, Brittas is usually left alone to carry out his usual madcap schemes. Or take Maid Marian - the whole point of the series is that they’re freedom fighters. With the emphasis in free. They haven’t got anyone telling them what to do, as Marian herself keeps banging on about. Neither series would have been as much fun if they’d had authority figures bearing down on them at every turn, telling them what to do.

I’m certainly not arguing that all series should let their characters be free to do what they want; often the whole point of a series - even a comedy series - is the restrictions characters are put under. But what I am saying is that how free to let your characters be is a very important consideration when setting up a series - and the more restricted your characters are, the less likely you would want to be in their shoes - and the less fun the series can sometimes be as a result. Part of the reason people love Futurama, or more conventionally Trek, is because people want to be in the series - to be part of that world. Red Dwarf is similar - it manages to make being lost in the far reaches of space with no way to get home an attractive proposition. And the feeling that a series can go anywhere and do anything is more exciting and fun than your characters being under the thumb.

If fun is what you’re aiming for in a show - and Red Dwarf is certainly aiming for that - then often, the freer your characters are, the better.

Charles' younger brother Emile Charles is also an actor. He played a younger version of Lister in "Timeslides" during the third series of Red Dwarf.

Beat The Geek was, to say the least, hyped. Not perhaps in that smelly outside world we all loathe and detest - but within the Red Dwarf fan community, it was widely anticipated, for a variety of reasons. The fact that the last eight series set new standards for sitcom DVD releases? Check. The fact that this release was something different? Check. The fact that this was new Red Dwarf? I WANT TO HAVE SOME FUN!

Ahem. So, does Beat The Geek stand up to the ridiculous weight of expectation foisted upon it? Packaging

Oooh, an O-ring. Or, indeed, a slipcase, to you. I don’t like them, for reasons I’ve banged on about in my Maid Marian reviews - they’re easily damaged, and they just get in the way. It’s an extra thing you have to take off before watching the DVD. Still, it doesn’t hugely matter - it’s a normal plastic case underneath, not a digipack. You can throw the piece of cardboard away, if you want. I dunno - you make an effort, you pull out all the stops, you try to do something with a little bit of extra class, and where does it get you?

The cover is beautiful. Really beautiful. It’s been said before that the cover resembles classic 80s/90s computer game artwork - and it’s true, it does. But what’s interesting that until I saw the cover, I didn’t realise how much I missed such artwork - artwork that used to be almost routine. These days, it really is usually a case of slapping a publicity photo and logo on the front of a release, rather than creating something that is a proper work of art. I am really, really hoping that it will inspire some distributors to be a bit more adventurous with their packaging. After all, it isn’t just to please the packaging geeks - it makes your release stand out on the shelves too. And isn’t that the entire point of cover art?

I do find the slogan at the bottom of the cover amusing: “Pit your general knowledge against the Red Dwarf fan in your family!” In other words: fandom is already going to buy this. So target the waverers, and the people buying the release as gifts. It’s canny marketing, and no mistake. And entirely the correct thing to do.

Open it up, and you’ll see on the right the beautiful picture disc, with the same artwork as the cover - things have come a long way since the Series 1 and 2 releases. There’s also the Geek Chase leaflet; we’re reviewing that when the competition has closed, as if you think I’m helping you on it you’re sadly mistaken. Then there’s the booklet, which is… I can’t believe I almost wrote “the standard affair”. Standard compared to the quality of the previous eight Dwarf releases, perhaps, but sadly not TV DVD releases in general. The booklet is in a similar style to the previous eight, though, and quite amusing in places. There’s places to write your game scores and Games Arcade unlock codes at the back, which is a nice touch. First impressions

Beat The Geek - main menuLook they used a widescreen version of the 2 | entertain logo instead of the 4:3 version as used on the later Fry and Laurie releases why did they do that mummy they completely wrecked the game.

The opening menu is marvellous. You’ve got your four options - One Player Quiz, Two Player Quiz, How To Play, and the Games Arcade. And you’ve also got the two Hollys sitting there waiting for you. And it’s hilarious. Remember Robert Llewellyn’s story about Norman Lovett in The Man In The Rubber Mask, where he tells how Norm entertained an entire audience for seven minutes, without saying ANYTHING, using a variety of facial expressions? It’s exactly like that. You also get the obligatory insults if you leave it too long, of course.

The How To Play section is ostensiably the two Hollys telling you, erm, how to play. And it does that very well - clearly, and to the point. But it’s the jokes that make this a joy (“Or, you know, just get the answer right by knowing stuff” - with “Knowing stuff” hilariously appearing on-screen). The best example of this is the joke about winning a trip to Jupiter - after which, Norm pops up with the disclaimer “price does not include flights or accomodation” - said in an extremely offhand manner. It’s hilarious, very Holly-ish - and yet not how you would expect him to deliver the line at all. Brilliant. It’s perhaps at this point that it really hits you that this is new Red Dwarf… and it also hits you just how much you want to see that Movie of theirs.

Shall we have a game, then? Brilliant. Let’s play! Two Player Game

I’m starting with this first, as it’s going to be by far the most-used mode of play. There has been complaints about the game only allowing two players, rather than three or four, but I honestly don’t mind. It means there’s more space on the disc for questions, but more importantly - the whole structure of the game is built around the two Hollys. The game wouldn’t work if you had Norm asking two different teams questions, and Hattie doing the same. (Of course, what would be great would be if Queeg and Gordon could also ask you stuff - but you’d be swapping discs halfway through and paying £25 for the privilege.) It doesn’t even really matter hugely a practical point of view, as you can always split into teams - and then the winning team can battle between themselves. Sure, there are problems if you’ve got an odd amount of players - but I see little else the release could do. The odd person out can always go and make the tea. And hurry up, bitch.

So, start her up, and select the player type for both players - out of Viewer, Geek, and General Knowledge, as I’m sure you don’t need telling. A quick random introduction from one of the Hollys… but actually, I can’t leave it there. That’s a random introduction - not a bog-standard “Welcome, here’s the quiz, smeg”. The amount of thought and effort put into this release is nothing short of superb. The lines are quite amusing, too: “Welcome to the Red Dwarf interactive quiz. Don’t forget to hand the remote control over when your turn is finished - otherwise, it’s just cheating.” It might not sound funny written down, but Norm just delivers it perfectly.

Beat The Geek - level graphicThen you’re greeted with the (nicely-designed) level graphic… and what have we got here? Why, it’s the original design of the Red Dwarf ship!

It’s perhaps worth taking some time out to appreciate this for a second. When Ganymede & Titan first started, Ian (and later me) bemoaned a lot of things. That the Re-mastered version of the ship was used on all merchandise. That the VIII style of graphic design was used for everything. That Hattie had been pretty much forgotten about since Norm was back. Now, in many ways this was natural - VII, the Re-mastered series, and VIII were the most recent Dwarf products. As me and Ian weren’t keen on all three however, it was equally natural that we wouldn’t approve of this development.

What the release of the last eight series has done is see Dwarf return back towards its heritage. I think there’s no doubt that if Beat The Geek had been released in 2001, the design of the ship used in the graphic would be the Re-mastered version. Hey, it’s obviously going to make me happy that the original ship was used, given my opinion of VIII and the Re-mastered series. But I just think it’s nice that all of Dwarf is now represented in the merchandise produced for the show.

But onward. Another random introduction to the level from Holly (“Starbug is your home for Round One. Try not to crash it”), and we’re into the questions. They’re all multiple-choice, of course, as befits a DVD game - but they take various forms, to keep things entertaining:

   * Beat The Geek - questionStandard multiple choice - Often fairly easy for me, even on Geek mode, but occasionally a real stinker will come up. Those of you who have been playing The TOS quizzes will know the kind of thing I mean. The questions are also interesting - “Which was the only Low crew member to be shown dying on-screen?” raises the point that we don’t see most of them die! If all it takes is hiding in a shuttle, they could have escaped…
   * Scene order - Put the four pictures in order in which they appear in an episode. This is made harder by the fact that the four pictures are actually quite small - fine if you’re on a big screen at DJ, but more difficult on your living room telly. Them being made a bit bigger wouldn’t exactly have gone amiss. Selecting them is also fairly clumsy - what with the fact that you can’t see what you’ve selected, and the fact that the menu has to continually reload - but both are problems you can’t actually do much about on a DVD game. You soon get used to it.
   * Picture rounds - Sometimes something as simple as a picture, and asking you to name the episode - but… well, see the screengrab. EVIL.
   * “WATCH the following….” - I’m sorry. I’m just going to have to say one thing before we carry on: AAAARRRGGGHHH AN ELLIPSIS HAS THREE DOTS NOT FOUR AAAARRRGGGHHHHH. I’m really sorry, but the caption that begins each question annoys me every time I see it. Moving on from that, these are great - a clip, followed by a question relating to it. (And a second clip afterward, if it’s a “What happened next” question.) Whilst they’re short - literally only few seconds, most of the time - the enforced duration actually helps give the quiz a bit more pace. They’re well-chosen, amusing clips as well - and brilliantly, include some Smeg Ups!
   * “LISTEN to the following…” - My favourite. A piece of music from Dwarf is played, whilst one of the Hollys sits listening to it. And reacting. I’m usually too busy laughing to listen to the music properly. It’s hilarious. This round does have the worst authoring error on the disc by miles, though - on one question, the music plays for about half a second, and then you immediately go to the selection screen. It’s not something to get hugely upset about - it’s the only bad authoring error I’ve come across - but for what it’s worth, if it happens to you, the answer if Demons & Angels.

Beat The Geek - Holly berating you in a hatGet a question right or wrong, and you’re greeted with your Holly either congratulating you or insulting you. These are generally very amusing, and one of the highlights of the game. (“According to my databanks… you SUCK.” Again though, it works better on-screen than on the page.) There’s such a sheer variety to the responses here - 248, to be precise. But if you ever do get bored, just imagine that the Hollys are commenting on how well you’ve just had sex.

(I also can’t stop shouting “RIIIIIGGHHHHHHHTTTT!” like Roy Walker when I get a question right. But that says rather more about me than it does about the game.)

When you’re playing, there does seem to be a slight problem with pace. It’s not really the speed; the transition between questions is relatively fast. No, it’s (and I know I sound like a stuck record) the limitations of the DVD format. With a game like Buzz! on the PS2, you can have music tying all the sections of the game together, and the loading is a lot smoother. You can’t do that with a DVD game, and so by its very nature it feels ever so slightly clunky.

Once you’ve finished the questions, the Hollys give you your scores, and then we leave Starbug and travel to the next level - of which there are eight, all set around the various sections of the ship, as I’m sure you all know. Now, we’ve all been going on about how great the wireframe whizzing down corridors looks - but it’s not until you see it in action in the context of the rest of the quiz that you realise just how great it actually looks. It’s the perfect example of turning a budget problem into something absolutely fantastic. Wonderful stuff.

It has to be said that this is not an easy game to do really well at. Remember what Millionaire says - that there’s no trick questions? Well, you can forget that here - some of the questions are clearly designed to trip you up, and quite right too. On the other hand, it’s not so difficult that you feel disheartened. I think the difficulty balance is spot on, actually.

If you’re playing as General Knowledge, then the questions are adapted to suit - spotting visual things on the clips, and so on. The questions are very amusingly chosen - I laughed my head off when a question about the Wailing Wall came up. It’s an excellent move by GNP to include this mode - and it’s paid off very well.

Beat The Geek - Wireframe level transitionSo far, my review of this release could safely be classed as “gushing”. But there are a couple of what I think are major problems with this release. Firstly, there is a large problem with repeated questions. And with over 1200 available, you wouldn’t think there would be. Now, I don’t know how these are split up, but for the sake of argument, let’s say they’re split equally between General Knowledge, Geek, and Viewer. That’s 400 each. Now, there’s eight levels, so that’s a pool of 50 questions in each level. Bearing in mind that six questions of each type are asked in each level - twelve if both teams are playing the same mode of play - and you can see why repeated questions happen. The DVD is stuffed to the limit, so clearly putting more questions on the disc was not an option - but this does actually lead us into what I think is the main problem with the game.

Which is: the Two Player game is simply too long. It takes about an hour to play through the game - and I don’t think a game should be much longer than an episode of Red Dwarf. You’ve got 96-98 questions in a game - and that just takes too long to play, especially with the aforementioned slight pacing problems. Ironically, I think there’s too much content - in terms of level design, at least. Which is obviously a better problem to have than a rush-release with five questions and Norman Lovett shot on a camcorder, but it doesn’t stop it being a problem. Instead of eight levels of six questions each, I think five levels of five questions each would have been more than enough - that’s 50 questions.

Not only would this make the game more enjoyable - but it would have the added bonus of addressing the previous problem with duplicate questions. You’d be getting through less questions at a time - but also, there would be a larger pool of questions available at each level. As it stands, if you’re both playing the same player type, you’re getting through a quarter of that player type’s questions in one sitting - which just isn’t good for replayability. Five rounds would more or less double the lifespan of the game.

The problem with this approach is that it would create some balance problems with the bonus games, as getting them would be much, much easier - and would also create problems with the One Player game being too short. Of course, you could just decide to play, say, four rounds - which indeed I’ve done. But the problem here is that the problem with repeated questions just gets worse - you get to know the questions for the first four rounds too well. There’s also the simple issue of closure - switching a game off halfway through is less than satisfying.

Finally - I do wonder whether the Viewer type was strictly necessary. I can certainly see the logic behind it - but in the end, is the average viewer of Red Dwarf going to know episode titles, let alone know Kochanski’s middle initial? Or, indeed, know which day of the week Cat did “double nothing”? I know I’d call myself a viewer of Open All Hours, but I couldn’t answer any questions on specific episodes to save my life. In fact, a lot of the time there doesn’t seem much difference between Geek questions and Viewer questions. Sure, some of the ultra-hard questions aren’t there, and it is a bit easier - but in general, the modes of play are pretty similar. Of course, this has the advantage that you can play the Viewer questions if you’re a fan and give the game extra life - but I do wonder whether it might have been an idea simply to combine the Viewer and Geek categories, and have a larger pool of questions to choose from. One Player Game

Beat The Geek - One Player selection“Also known as the Billy No Mates edition.” Fucking fantastic.

Pick your Holly and your player type, and off you go. Play is exactly the same as the Two Player version. The good news with this mode of play is that the length of play suddenly seems a lot more reasonable - 48/49 questions is a lot faster to get through. Indeed, it’s almost as though the eight level play was designed for the One Player game. It’s a pity that the Two Player game couldn’t have been five levels, and the One Player couldn’t have stayed at eight - but yedda yadda disc space issues blah bang.

However - I won’t actually be playing the game in this mode. I just don’t want to spoil the questions for the Two Player game - and it’s the very nature of a release like this that the Two Player games are a lot more fun, as half the joy comes in the interaction with other people. (I never thought I’d ever hear me say that.) I was originally going to write that this almost feels like a tickbox feature - it’s nice to say that you can have a One Player game on the box, even if you’ll never actually do it. That’s probably unfair, as it is enjoyable - and has its advantages over the Two Player with the speed of play. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be playing it, and I suspect that a lot of people who want to play the game with a group won’t either. Games Arcade

Not really that great.

To be honest though, I expected it. The DVD medium was not designed for arcade-style games - they’re pretty much impossible to implement. (About the only thing that I think would work would be a Dragon’s Lair style of game - clearly not within the budget of this release.) It turns out that GNP realise this too, and most of the games are memory-based… but they’re just a bit boring, really.

Beat The Geek - bonus game, 'Black Holes'I’m going to list the first four games below - so avoid if you don’t want spoilers. I’m not giving you the passcodes, though:

   * Black Holes - “Use the arrow keys to pilot Starbug through the invisible space maze and dock with Red Dwarf. You only have three lives - so watch out for black holes. (Which are impossible to see, ‘cos they’re black.)” It’s a funny idea, but in practice it’s just frustrating and dull.
   * Whack-a-Flibble - “Just like the classic game, but with Mr Flibble. Hit the penguin with a mallet as he pops up through one of nine holes. How many can you hit?” The one actual arcade-style game in the first four… and it just doesn’t work in the DVD medium. This is entertainment to these people? It’s pathetic.
   * Vending Machine - “A three-round memory test. After being shown a menu and the codes for various food items, you’ll be taken to the vending machine and asked to order two starters, entering the codes from memory. This then repeats for two main courses and two desserts, getting harder each time.” More entertaining than the last two… but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that it’s too little fun for too much effort.
   * Memory Morph - “Kinda like Simple Simon. The Polymorph will turn into five things in quick succession. You have to memorise the sequence and then enter it, in order, into the computer. Then again with 8 items, then 12.” By far the most entertaining of the first four games, I quite like this one - but it’s not exactly like I’m going to keep going back and playing it. And the jump in difficulty is too large - it’s a pity it couldn’t simply be made to add one item per round, rather than jumps of four.

As far as I’m concerned, these could have been left off altogether. The theory behind it is excellent - giving people rewards along the way should make playing the game a far more pleasurable experience - but in practice, it doesn’t really work. Not only is the disc space and limitations of the DVD format a problem, but the development time and budget isn’t there to make something truly worth playing. About the only really positive thing I can say about them is that I like the graphic design of the menu and instruction screens - very retro.

To be absolutely fair to the bonus games, I haven’t unlocked the last one yet - and presumably, it’s better than the other four, it being the hardest to unlock. I could cheat and have a look, of course - and if I was a cold-hearted reviewer, I would do. But dammit I’m a fan, and I want to feel the achivement of getting there fairly - I’ll just be honest and say that I just haven’t managed to get all 50 points in a game yet. This is, of course, a recommendation for the release - dammit, this game is challenging, even on Viewer mode. Conclusion

So, does Beat The Geek manage to transcend the medium of DVD games? In a word: no. The technical limitations are just too large - and the game mechanics are slightly dodgy. It’s clear that a huge amount of effort has gone into this - but, in an odd way, it’s almost like too much effort has gone into it. The Two Player game is long - too long. The games arcade is a lovely idea - but impractical to implement effectively.

The major problems are the length of the Two Player game, and its replayability. 1200 questions sounds like a lot, but when you’re playing 100 questions at a time, it isn’t - you start getting repeat questions very quickly. Sometimes you don’t remember the answer, and so it’s not a problem - but sometimes you do, and so… well, it is. 50 questions in a Two Player game (25 each) would have doubled the life of the game, and made it more enjoyable to play into the bargain. I tend to get tired around the 6th round.

It would have made the game less challenging, and buggered up some of the carefully worked-out game mechanics with the bonus games - but I think it would have been worth it. It’s a pity, because I think it’s this that stops the release being an absolute classic. And if Viewer mode had been got rid of, the lifespan of the game would have been stretched still further. As it is, there’s something wrong when you’ve got 1200 questions available - and you start getting repeated ones on your second game.

For all of that, it’s still fun to play. It is an extremely good DVD game. And whilst there are playability issues, they aren’t of the same league as the QI DVD game, which made the questions far, far too hard, and the gameplay even harder; you can get the right answer, but still go down the wrong path, meaning you have to do loads of boring and tedious replaying.

I couldn’t be happier with the live-action stuff with the Hollys. I made no secret of the fact that I think A Life In Lamé on the Series IV DVD is, well, rubbish. The script (what’s left of it) is poor, Hattie doesn’t give a great performance, and it just looks cheap - the whole thing is pointless. This is a complete turnaround - the jokes are funny, the performances are spot-on, the production values are excellent - this is very far indeed from being pointless.

So, is it worth the purchase? Yes, without question - it’s funny and entertaining, and all-round good fun. It’s easy to play and do fairly well, but hard to get top marks - which is exactly as it should be. The problems with the game mechanics should bump this down from a five star release to a three star one - but the Holly stuff bumps it back up to a respectable:

Charles drives a Rolls-Royce.

Credits

1. Fated (2006/I) - Pedro
2. Coronation Street (2005-) - Lloyd Mullaney (suspended)
3. Ten Minutes (2003) - Mark
4. Sushi TV (2003) TV Series - Narrator (UK version, after replacing Julian Clary)
5. Takeshi's Castle (2002-04) TV Series - Narrator (UK version)
6. EastEnders: Ricky And Bianca (2002, EastEnders spin-off drama) - Vince
7. Don't Walk (2001) (voice) - Narrator
8. Can't Smeg, Won't Smeg (1998, one-off special edition of BBC2's Can't Cook, Won't Cook) - Dave Lister
9. Captain Butler (1997) TV Series - Captain Butler
10. Cyberspace (1996) TV Series
11. The Governor (1995) TV Series - Eugene Buffy
12. The Bill (1995) TV Series
13. Red Dwarf: Smeg Outs (1995, Video Release) - Dave Lister (new and archive footage)
14. Asterix Conquers America (1994) (voice) - Asterix
15. Red Dwarf: Smeg Ups (1994, Video Release) - Dave Lister (archive footage)
16. CyberZone (1993) TV Series - presenter
17. Prince Cinders (1993) (voice) - Cat
18. Comic Relief (1991) (TV) - Dave Lister
19. Super Nintendo promotional video - Commentator
20. Red Dwarf (1988-99) TV Series - Dave Lister

Filmography

1. The Games (2005) TV Series .... Himself (Series 3)
2. Fated (2006) .... Pedro
3. Forty Years Of Fuck (2005) (TV) .... Himself
4. Britain's Best Sitcom (2004) TV Series .... Himself
5. The Sitcom Story (2003) (TV) .... Himself
6. Takeshi's Castle (2002) TV Series .... Himself - Narrator
7. Top Ten TV Sci-Fi (2001) (TV) .... Himself
8. Jailbreak (2000) TV Series .... Himself - Host
9. The Colour Of Funny (1999) .... Keith Dennis
10. Ripley's Believe It or Not (1999/I) TV Series .... Himself - UK Presenter
11. Robot Wars (1998-2004) TV Series .... Himself - Host (after replacing Jeremy Clarkson)
12. Universe Challenge (1998, one-off special edition of BBC2's University Challenge) .... Himself
13. Space Cadets (1997) TV Series .... Himself - Space Captain
14. Funky Bunker (1997) TV Series .... Himself
15. CyberZone (1993) TV Series .... Himself - Host
16. Cyberpunks And Technophobes (1993) TV Series .... Himself
17. Ghostwatch (1992) (TV) .... Himself
18. Them And Us (1992) TV Series .... Himself
19. What's That Noise (1989) TV Series .... Himself
20. Craig Goes Mad In Melbourne (1988) TV Series .... Himself
21. Night Network (1987) TV Series .... Himself
22. The Marksman (1987) TV Series .... McFadden
23. Business As Usual (1987)

External links

• Craig Charles at IMDb
• The Craig Charles Funk Show (BBC 6Music)