How was Craig Charles cast as Lister?

I seem to recall they asked him to have a look at what they’d written for Lister for his opinion on whether anything was racist or not.  What happened from there I can’t quite remember, it’s been a while since I’ve watched any of the docs.

Was it Craig or Danny that unknowingly turned up to the audition late and, because they were so nonchalant about it, they came across as being perfect for the role? I forget which that story is attached to. 

But yeah, Craig tells the above as checking the Cat’s role and then asking “who is playing Lister…?” 

I thought Danny turned up in-character in some snazzy old-fashioned suit, and impressed them that way?

I remember reading in the extra stuff in the RD novel omnibus that Doug and Rob originally imagined Lister as a Dan Aykroyd type and it does seem like the original vision for him was someone softer and more nerdy than CC eventually made the role

I thought it was Rimmer they’d described as a British Dan Aykroyd. Lister was originally envisaged as a slightly deranged, spaced-out character like Christopher Lloyd in Taxi or the standup comedian Steven Wright. Weren’t they both meant to be quite a bit older too?

One of my favourite bits of the DVD docs is Craig recounting his wife’s reaction to the news that he’d been cast as the lead in a sitcom, “But you can’t act… And you’re not that funny.” 

I don’t think Craig was married in 1988. In fact, I’m pretty sure the woman who played his version of Camille, 3 years later, was his then-girlfriend (and I’m pretty sure if she’d been the one to say it, somebody would’ve said).

Craig married Cathy Tyson in 1984, but divorced in 1989. So she’d have been his wife when he got the part, and was indeed the one giving birth during Thanks For The Memory, but they split soon after, leaving him plenty of time to start dating Suzanne Rhatigan by the time Camille was filmed. Incidentally, Cathy Tyson is now Gran Gran in Jo Jo & Gran Gran.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Jack. Well, that’s me corrected.

There’s also the fact that the Series I doc on the Bodysnatcher DVD revealed Craig thought the script wasn’t that funny or good, but he went for the part anyway because of Paul Jackson’s reputation for knowing a winning series when he sees one.
And iirc Danny’s situation was a) the fact that he didn’t know he was late, so he played off being late completely cool without realising it, and b) a long-time professional stage dancer is exactly who you need for a Cat-like character, if he can pull off the dialogue “ooh-ee-ooh-ahh-wee how am I lookin” as well as Danny can
EDIT: one thing I don’t recall ever being mentioned, apart from the Comedy Connections narrator joking about it, is whether Doug/Rob/Ed/Paul went out of their way to avoid casting “proper actors” like Alfred Molina and Alan Rickman, since it is odd how your main recurring cast in the first series consists of:– punk poet who’s never acted before– impressionist who’s mostly done voice-over for radio and Spitting Image– dancer– stand-up comedian– the guy who does the warm-up– the guy who was going to do the warm-up before the strike happened

I think they were rather amused with the idea of killing off all the “famous” guest stars in the first episode and having all the survivors played by relative unknowns but I don’t know how early (or late) that became the idea

I thought it’d be something else you were on about. Hm, I dunno. The programme itself is nerdy then? Or just a lot more obscure? 

Obviously it’s Funky Bunker.

He wasn’t just in the audience, he appears on the Diotoir team in Series 5 and the first “Extreme” series (although he’s not credited as a team member on the stats board). There’s one occasion where it directly comes up (despite a very obvious family resemblance), right after Diotoir unexpectedly knock out Tornado in round 2 of their heat, he shakes the team’s hands and says “well done, my son!”

I thought Danny turned up in-character in some snazzy old-fashioned suit, and impressed them that way?

I think he turned up wearing the grey zoot suit his father got married in, inspiring the trend for the Cat to wear several such suits in various colours early on.

Jack Charles, tragically born with two first names.

Isn’t that mandatory around these parts? I mean the 4 primary cast members don’t have a surname between them…

And the co-creators only have one surname.

Maybe that’s why Hattie and Norman share a single character name, since they’re busy hogging all the surnames in real life.

I realise now 

I’ll try and sleep 

Go to bed!

Jack Charles, tragically born with two first names.

Isn’t that mandatory around these parts? I mean the 4 primary cast members don’t have a surname between them…

To be fair to Bobby (or should that be Robert…) Llewellyn is much more commonly seen as a surname than it is a first name.

The others I’ll give you though.

Except Chris, because Barrie with that spelling is also far more common as a surname.

But Danny and Craig are bang to rights!

I just encountered the middle of the conversation 

(Only vaguely … not even apropos, just an idea it pinged.)

It’s a 70s sitcom’s opening titles.