Lee Mack turned down Red Dwarf role

[Dax101]

Lee Mack turned down a role in Red Dwarf because of his principles about alcohol advertising he has revealed.
Responding to questions from an audience at the Oxford Union in March, uploaded to youtube by the university debating society yesterday, Mack said: “There was one show I regret not doing that I was offered.

“Red Dwarf was on TV when I wasn’t even a comedian, it’s been on forever … it’s a great show, I used to love watching it.”

The Not Going Out creator and star, who grew up above a pub and had family members with severe alcoholism, became teetotal a decade ago.

He previously threatened to cancel the long-running BBC sitcom because it carried alcohol sponsorship when it was repeated on the U&Dave channel formerly known as Dave.

Realising that he was contractually obliged to make more episodes, Mack, an ambassador for Alcohol Concern, threatened to change the show’s name and maintained that he would have done it. But UKTV ultimately acceded to his demand and removed the sponsorship.

However, he told the Oxford event, that as Red Dwarf also aired on Dave, “because we were in that dispute at the time, I didn’t want to go and do that programme on that channel.

 https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/fyi/1080/lee-mack-rejected-red-dwarf/

Topic

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Oh no….…. Anyway…

[Dax101]

Ah probably Timewave.

[Dave]

My first thought was Timewave too.

[Ben Saunders]

I don’t hate Lee Mack, he’s pretty funny on Would I Lie To You, but Not Going Out is bottom of the barrel shite and he’s shite in it so whatever. He could hardly have made Timewave worse.

[Turk Thrust]

Interesting. I like Lee Mack a lot, but in much of his acting he seems to be playing a version of himself (there were exceptions in The Sketch Show).

Sorry to crowbar in an anecdote, but I remember watching him do his stand up at a village hall in North Wales at the start of his career. “This is the only gig I’ve ever done where people are having a karate lesson downstairs. And there’s more people down there than there are up here!!!” :)

[Warbodog]

He’d have been one of the more distractingly familiar faces that take me out of it, like Vegas, Eldon and how Mark Williams and David Gillespie used to be before I got used to them.

[gerrydelasel]

And nothing of value was lost

[Podey]

His performance in Brassic was utterly woeful so, if that’s an indication, it was for the better.

He does fall under the category of comedians I find funny when they’re being “themselves”, though.

[Ian Symes]

He’d have been one of the more distractingly familiar faces that take me out of it, like Vegas, Eldon and how Mark Williams and David Gillespie used to be before I got used to them.

This post has got me pondering something. Mark Williams and David Gillespie weren’t hugely famous in 1988, they became better known later on. I wonder who could claim to be Red Dwarf’s best known guest star at the time of their appearance? Johnny Vegas is certainly a candidate, and off the top of my head I think you can add in Frances Barber, Jenny Agutter and Timothy Spall. But it might actually be Clare Grogan. She’s so definitively Kochanski for us that her pop career and Gregory’s Girl are secondary, but for anyone watching the initial broadcast, she’d surely be extremely “distractingly familiar”.

[Dave]

This post has got me pondering something. Mark Williams and David Gillespie weren’t hugely famous in 1988, they became better known later on. I wonder who could claim to be Red Dwarf’s best known guest star at the time of their appearance? Johnny Vegas is certainly a candidate, and off the top of my head I think you can add in Frances Barber, Jenny Agutter and Timothy Spall. But it might actually be Clare Grogan. She’s so definitively Kochanski for us that her pop career and Gregory’s Girl are secondary, but for anyone watching the initial broadcast, she’d surely be extremely “distractingly familiar”.

Brian Cox, maybe? As well as his theatre career he was in loads of big movies, Manhunter, Braveheart, Long Kiss Goodnight. He always sticks out as one of those “I can’t believe they actually got him” cameos.

[Ian Symes]

From the same episode, but the opposite end of the legit scale, Reg Holdsworth.

[Warbodog]

Was Ruby Wax well known in 1989? I knew who she was when I saw Timeslides in 1997.

Graham Chapman having that cameo would feel like a crazy meeting of worlds, but we’d be used to it by now. And I didn’t really find it weird when he was in an Iron Maiden music video from around the same time (but slightly earlier, because alive).

I think Agutter, Spall and Don Warrington were the main ones that were highlighted as being well known to me by reference works before I even saw their episodes, let alone other stuff.

[Turk Thrust]

From the same episode, but the opposite end of the legit scale, Reg Holdsworth.

A good call. 

In the U.K., I would guess that almost anyone over the age of 18 would have recognized him.

So, I suppose maybe Simon Gregson is even more well known because he has been in Coronation Street for much longer.

[clem]

She’s so definitively Kochanski for us that her pop career and Gregory’s Girl are secondary, but for anyone watching the initial broadcast, she’d surely be extremely “distractingly familiar”

This got me wondering whether casting Clare Grogan was part of the plan to get big names for the crew, such as Ronnie Barker as Hollister, so that killing them off in the first episode would be even more of a twist, but of course they only got her when original Kochanski Alexandra Pigg wasn’t available after the strike. I suppose the idea might have still been in the back of their heads. 

[Turk Thrust]

I wouldn’t have said that Clare Grogan was that big a name in 1988. Altered Images had split a few years previously and Gregory’s Girl was back in 1980. She’d had a few small acting roles, but was probably grateful for the work when Red Dwarf came about.

[Ian Symes]

Ooh, speaking of soap stars, Anita Dobson. That EastEnders Christmas episode where Den served Angie with divorce papers remains the most watched scripted programme in British TV history.

[Turk Thrust]

I wonder how much attention the casting of Koo Stark got at the time. 

[gerrydelasel]

Apparently they got that guy from Coronation Street and Robot Wars to be in Red Dwarf but the smegger wouldn’t leave.

[International Debris]

I like Lee Mack on WILTY, and I like the early Not Going Outs when it was just a daft one-liner machine programme rather than the mediocre family sitcom that it’s become, but yeah, he really can’t act and would have been very jarring in Red Dwarf. I hated Johnny Vegas’s bit, way too jarring. Also terribly unfunny, but that was Doug’s fault. 

[gerrydelasel]

[Dave]

he really can’t act

The best thing I’ve seen him act in is his role in Inside No. 9, where he essentially had to play himself.

[Captain Bollocks]

Hitler was pretty well known at the time he filmed Backwards, I think? 

[Dave]

Hitler was pretty well known at the time he filmed Backwards, I think? 

I know you meant Timeslides but now I’m thinking that maybe there’s a secret Hitler cameo in every episode that we don’t know about.

[Unrumble]

[Frank Smeghammer]

Apparently they got that guy from Coronation Street and Robot Wars to be in Red Dwarf but the smegger wouldn’t leave.

I think on a technicality, Craig Charles playing himself in Back to Earth makes him one of the most famous people to play a guest part in the show

[Dave]

maybe there’s a secret Hitler cameo in every episode

I think I found the one in Only The Good.

[Nick R]

I wonder who could claim to be Red Dwarf’s best known guest star at the time of their appearance?

If we consider actors’ fame outside the UK:

I don’t know if Back to Earth (or Red Dwarf in general) was ever broadcast/released in Hong Kong. But if it was shown there, a lot of people would probably recognise Richard Ng (Swallow) from his dozens and dozens of movie roles – especially the Lucky Stars movies, two of which are were among Hong Kong’s 10 highest-grossing movies of the ’80s.

2009 was probably long past the peak of his fame there, but presumably he’d still be very recognisable.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

This has sort of unintentionally turned into an article I’ve had swimming around in my head for a while titled “who were they then”, which would chronicle all the guest stars (and potentially contemporary real world references to famous people – maybe as a part two) and cover off who they were at the time of filming Red Dwarf. Because as this thread has established, a lot of people went on to become famous, but a lot of people were already relatively well known, out right famous, or working within the industry quite steadily at the time.

[Turk Thrust]

As I’ve been watching Series VIII with the commentaries, I thought I’d mention how good Geraldine McEwan is as Cassandra. She adds a touch of class that isn’t always present in that series and even Norman only has positive things to say about her!

[Technopeasant]

Hitler was pretty well known at the time he filmed Backwards, I think? 

I know you meant Timeslides but now I’m thinking that maybe there’s a secret Hitler cameo in every episode that we don’t know about.

Nontheless suspect Hitler hadn’t achieved peak fame in 1938.

[Author]

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