The Red Dwarf guest star phenomenom

It’s often mentioned in the cast commentaries (albeit with pseudo-bitterness) that many of the guest stars on the show went on to make it big after their appearance on Dwarf, and looking at the impressive list of guest cast that’s definitely the case. But most of them, of course, were pretty well established before they did the show. It makes you wonder though how in the name of heck some of these actors ended up on Dwarf in the first place. I can’t think of any other sitcom with this sort of record. Can anyone shed any light on this? You’ve got to admit that if someone told you Jenny Agutter and Geraldine McEwan had guested, unless you knew the series, you wouldn’t believe it.

What got me thinking about this was seeing that Jake Wood is now a regular on Eastenders. I know he’s been in loads of other things but I’ll always think of him as Kill Crazy. The legacy of Dwarf seems to be scattered across TV and film, seriously everywhere you turn there’s a Dwarf connection. I bet there isn’t one day on British TV where there isn’t a Dwarf cast member (guest or otherwise) on the five main channels. OK, that might be an exaggeration. Anyway, the point of this thread…? To discuss Dwarf guest stars perhaps?