Draft To Reality Features Posted by Ian Symes on 23rd May 2025, 12:52 It's the best episode of Red Dwarf of all time. Undefeated in all four of our anniversary polls so far, more often than not the winner of other wide-ranging surveys by the Smegazine and Better Than Life, and even given a special BBC2 repeat screening under the title The Best Ever Red Dwarf. It happened to be the first episode I ever saw, probably the one I've rewatched the most, and quite possibly the single piece of media in the entire history of human civilisation that I'm most familiar with. I could quote every line of dialogue word for word, perfectly duplicating the intonation. I can picture each and every visual effect in my mind's eye. It taught me the words "seppuku", "twonk" and "calamari". After 33 years, what more could we possibly learn about this episode? Well... I recently came into possession of a rather special script. Dated 1991. Series V. Show One. Draft One. Back To Reality. The very first draft of the very best episode of our favourite show. Only a small handful of deleted scenes are included on the DVD. A version of the script was released as part of the Primordial Soup book, but that was a much later draft, and doesn't contain anything that wasn't either in the episode or on the DVD. We know a lot about this episode, but we don't know how it started out, before it was honed to perfection. Let's do this. Read more →
G&TV Special: Swirly Thing Alert Features Posted by Ian Symes on 23rd April 2025, 12:15 Previously on G&TV, we looked at Smegheads in Seattle, a 1998 production by KCTS 9, Seattle's local PBS station. They'd arranged a visit from Craig Charles and Danny John-Jules, who came over to be interviewed, take part in pledge drives and meet the show's many fans in the north-west corner of the US / the south-west corner of Canada. But Smegheads in Seattle was actually the second such programme produced by the station, a sequel of sorts to 1997's Swirly Thing Alert, which featured much the same content but with Craig joined by Robert Llewellyn instead. Taking place over the 26th and 27th May to coincide with a Series VII marathon, highlights from the weekend's events were packaged together into a whopping two hour compilation. Both specials were originally posted to YouTube by a user named Harlz, but they seem to have deleted them both within the last year or so. So we're now hosting them on our own channel, as well as on the Internet Archive. And if you've not seen Swirly Thing Alert before, there is much to unpack. Join us below the embed for analysis and a watch-along guide to some of the highlights (and lowlights). Read more →
DwarfCast 176 – The Smegazine Rack – Issue #14 DwarfCasts Posted by Ian Symes on 3rd April 2025, 14:49 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes "Jane Killed Flick" It's the end of a relatively minor era, as we conclude our coverage of Volume 1 of the Red Dwarf Smegazine. Get ready for the cross-over event of the century, as one character from Back to Reality meets another character from Back to Reality, along with about fifty other comic strips of varying quality. We also uncover some scandalous censorship on the news pages, discuss Robert Llewellyn being sodomised by a rabbit, covet tiny cardboard models, deride one of the worst April Fools jokes of all time, and stalk a baby. It's quite the ride. We recommend reading along as you listen; you can find scans of the mag at archive.org or Stasis Leak. Read more →
Sin, sin, sin, sin, sin… oh, I’ve not sin that! News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 22nd March 2025, 22:07 Well, here’s one for all the fans who wanted Doug to write a new novel. Please, ignore that monkey’s paw curling its finger… Thank you to clem over on the forum for spotting that Doug Naylor will be releasing a new children’s book this September, entitled Sin Bin Island. At the end of each year, four pupils from Cyril Sniggs’s Correctional Orphanage for Wayward Boys and Girls are banished to Sin Bin Island, an eerie place surrounded by eel-infested waters. Legend has it, the island has a secret tunnel, used to smuggle magic into mainland England. But in over 300 years the tunnel has never been found. Nor has any of the magic. This year, all that’s going to change. How intriguing! We’ll have to wait until September to see if Cyril Sniggs’s controversial ‘abandon children on the secret magic eel island’ will pay off for the lad. The book is aimed at children 9 to 11, and as someone with a child who will be approaching that age range when this is released I’m really looking forward to seeing what Doug can bring to not quite young adults’ fiction. This definitely seems to be one of those books that will be on the darker side of things, possibly more in line with things like Lemmony Snicket that anything else, and I really do hope he’s able to bring some of the Naylor magic that a lot of us experienced as kids reading the Red Dwarf novels, but this time to the next (next) generation.
G&TV: Comic Relief Utterly Utterly Live Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 21st March 2025, 12:46 2025 marks the fortieth anniversary of Comic Relief, the charity founded by Richard Curtis and Lenny Henry in the aftermath of Band Aid and Live Aid, to raise further funds for the victims of famine in Ethiopia. And today is Red Nose Day, the charity's now annual fundraising event in aid of various good causes throughout Africa and the UK. There was a time when this was unmissable television, with the greatest names in alternative comedy taking over BBC One for an evening of innovative, subversive and hilarious sketches and stand-up. Nowadays there's barely a comedian to be seen, with regular big name presenters introducing skits featuring reality stars and VTs about TV personalities taking on endurance events. And yet they seem to be raising more money than ever, with over £1.6 billion donated over the years, so it's hard to argue really. But it took a few years for the telethon format to be established, with the charity's early revenue streams coming from one-off live shows, books, singles, albums and videos. The very first Comic Relief event was held at the Shaftesbury Theatre in April 1986 - a star-studded stage show over three nights, recorded for later broadcast and home release. And the video of said event is what we're looking at today. I came across it recently and was shocked at just how many Dwarfy names were involved. The unmistakable voice of Chris Barrie is heard in a couple of Spitting Image skits, Howard Goodall is involved as part of Rowan Atkinson's live troupe, Mike Agnew was the production manager, the editor was Ed Wooden, the producer was Ed Bye, and Paul Jackson is credited as both a director and for co-ordinating the VHS release. Add in Lenny Henry, French & Saunders, Billy Connolly, Stephen Fry, the aforementioned Rowan Atkinson and the entire Young Ones cast to the mix, and this is truly a gathering of all the biggest legends of 1980s comedy, on both sides of the camera. Read more →
Comedy, Chaos – And Cowboys! The Red Dwarf Companion Review Reviews Posted by Dave on 5th March 2025, 09:35 As a community, Red Dwarf fandom has always been pretty good at knowing when anything Dwarf-related is about to drop. We’re there for new episodes, whether they’re premiering on TV or showing up a week early on an app; we know when to expect new DVDs and Blu-Rays to drop (even if Play.com doesn’t exist any longer to get them to us days ahead of release); and we have a pretty good idea of any Red Dwarf books, badges, T-shirts, mugs, magazines, posters, models and figurines that are coming our way. (Ahhh, so you’re a keyring man!) It was a surprise, then, to learn from thomasaevans in the G&T forums at the start of this year that BearManor Media was publishing a new Red Dwarf book, Comedy, Chaos - and Cowboys! The Red Dwarf Companion by Joe Nazzaro. And not only that, but that this book would be a detailed account of the making of Red Dwarf Series VI, based on notes taken for the contemporary (well, 1994) book release The Making Of Red Dwarf. And not only that, but that this new book was also already available to order and read immediately. For whatever reason, this book had gone completely under the radar of most of us, with even the most enthusiastic Red Dwarf fans unaware that it was even on the horizon. But is it worth your time and money? Let’s find out. Read more →
G&TV: Book ‘Em and Risk It (11/08/1983) Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 13th February 2025, 09:53 From the Robert Llewellyn interview in Smegazine Vol. 1 Issue #13, as recently revisited by the DwarfCast Smegazine Rack: RL: But I've known Mac for years and years, in fact I did my first ever television work with him. It was in about 1980, I think, in some weird programme for Channel 4 - it was recorded before the channel started. TS: What was that? RL: Bookem and Riskit. It was a pretty appalling experience. It was the first time I'd done any telly and it was a bit of a shock - very different to Red Dwarf and very different to anything else I've done since. But it did get broadcast - once - I think it was on the third day Channel 4 went out, and it was watched by about 7 or 8 people over the whole country, including me. This sounds like a job for the potty-mouthed archivists! We immediately set out to track down any known recordings of this obscure and elusive pilot, utilising all our detective skills, industry contacts and technical wizardry... only to discover that our good friend Jonsmad had already sent us a link to it months ago. So... good. The upload comes via comedy writer Bill Matthews (creator of Never Mind The Buzzcocks and They Think It's All Over, fact fans), who was a very early adopter of VHS. The sound is horribly distorted at the start, but it sorts itself out around twenty minutes in. Read more →
DwarfCast 175 – Re-Disc-overy: Series VII DwarfCasts Posted by Ian Symes on 22nd January 2025, 08:43 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes "A side-swipe at oven chips" As we enter the twentieth anniversary year of one of the most seminal short films of all time, it's an opportunity for us to reflect on our own pasts as we explore the The Movie: Yeah No Yeah No DVD, which features among its bonus material the entirety of Red Dwarf VII. It's the most personal trip down memory lane in our Re-Disc-overy series so far, as we not only commentate on the fan films, but also reveal all the behind the scenes details of the haphazard production processes, cringe at our past selves' incompetence, and consider how one simple film-making competition ultimately changed all three of our lives. But that's not all, as there's an awful lot to discuss in the rest of this three disc package too. Join us as we attempt to make amends for our past criticism of someone who really didn't deserve it, reminisce about the time Grant Naylor Productions threatened us with legal action, piece together Chris Barrie's whereabouts during the bits of Series VII he wasn't in, reveal the link between this DVD and the world of gardening, and begin to assemble our complete history of Red Dwarf via the medium of cancelling every single person involved. Read more →
Something’s (maybe) *not* coming (possibly) News Posted by Ian Symes on 18th January 2025, 13:50 BUT BRITISH COMEDY GUIDE TOLD US THEY WERE FILMING IT LAST OCTOBER. Things have been suspiciously quiet on the new Red Dwarf front for some time, following last year's unconfirmed rumblings. While we were always cautious, we did expect there to be some confirmation from official sources by the end of 2024, following the well established pattern of such things usually coming several months after the cast start blabbing. But while there's still no actual confirmation either way, Craig Charles has spoken to the Radio Times about it, and the outlook is suddenly much more pessimistic. "I’m not sure that it will come back, to be honest," he exclusively told RadioTimes.com. "I know that the deal that we had to make it this year looks like that might not be happening now. "I can't really say any more on that because I don't know much more, but I just know that there have been lots of conversations about cost, and I think [the episodes] might be too expensive." He clarified: "It's not that we don't want to do it, it's a case of we're trying to get it done... [it's] happening in television all the time at the moment, there doesn't seem to be that much money around." Read more →
Tony Slattery RIP News Posted by Ian Symes on 14th January 2025, 14:12 We have some very sad news to report. As announced by his team on his Patreon, Tony Slattery has passed away following a heart attack, aged just 65. Tony was at one stage one of the most ubiquitous figures on British television, having risen to fame as the breakout star of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Panel show infamy soon followed, including multiple guest slots in the early days of Have I Got News For You, a stint as a team captain on the TV version of Just A Minute and hosting Channel 4’s The Music Game. His acting roles included the movies The Crying Game and Peter’s Friends, his own sitcom Just A Gigolo and of course Red Dwarf. One of the rare performers to have played two different characters on the show, he started off as the voice of the android actor in Kryten, before returning as Rimmer’s nemesis dispensing machine in Only The Good… He’ll be remembered as one of the most talented improvisers the world of comedy has ever seen. Sadly, he’ll also be remembered for his well-documented fall from these huge heights. He suffered terribly with depression and substance addiction, eventually being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Those who attended Dimension Jump in 2018 can’t have failed to spot that these issues were still evident at that point. There was a very clear sense that he wasn’t being supported in the way he both needed and deserved, and that those who were supposed to be looking after him were doing nothing of the sort. Things seemed to be improving in recent years, with Tony’s public appearances becoming both more common and more coherent. It’s an absolute tragedy – if not a total surprise – that this brilliant genius has left us so soon, and that he’s done so without ever getting the opportunity to bounce all the way back. It’s abundantly clear from the tributes being left online in the last hour or so that Tony was incredibly well loved, with fans and fellow comedians alike sharing their stories. If nothing else, the incongruity of his current Twitter banner would have amused him, I think. Rest in peace, Tony.
