Why doesn't Chris Barrie read Last Human and Backwards

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Is there an explanation, its a shame the audiobooks for IWCD and BTL are so good than you come around and you hear why Craig Charles’s impressionist career never took off in Last Human and Rob Grant boring me to tears for Backwards.

I say we start a petition.

[MANI506]

I’m torn because I feel both novels are improved by being abridged. However, on balance of course unabridged Barrie recordings would be essential and maybe he could bring the flabbier parts to life a bit.

[Warbodog]

Being released between VI & VII when Chris Barrie was unenthusiastic about Red Dwarf might have played a part.

I like Rob’s reading. Never listened to Last Human because I had the paperback and never felt like a re-read.

[Pete Part Three]

I might be remembering this wrong, but I recall reading an interview (probably in BTL) where Craig said that Doug visited him in jail with a copy/manuscript of Last Human. There might have been a gentleman’s agreement that Craig do it (should he get out) as it was one of the first things he did when he was released, I think. And, yes, Chris had recently given an interview where he’d said that “wild horses couldn’t drag me back to Red Dwarf”.

(This is complete conjecture based on an interview I may or may not have read over 20 years ago)

[MANI506]

That fits in with the chronology I remember. I was devastated reading the ‘Craig’s in jail’ headlines and pretty much mourned the end of Red Dwarf that summer. I never heard about Chris’s ‘wild horses’ comment until the VIII script book.

Doug: I bought you a book.

Craig: Thanks, that’ll really help the centuries fly past.

[bloodteller]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my grandmother a while ago. The topic of Craig Charles came up, and she was convinced he was still in prison. No matter what you told her, she insisted that he went to prison in the 90s and just never left

[Dave]

It’s like the Mandela effect all over again. You’ll be telling me that Kryten has always had one silver leg next.

[bloodteller]

Turns out Lister’s cat was actually called Frankenstain.

[Warbodog]

It’s probably me being daft, and they probably actually say it on the DVD documentary or something, but I never considered before that it’s a bit weird how Red Dwarf VIII put Lister in prison just a few years after Craig Charles’ high-profile wrongful incarceration.

Where does Doug get his crazy ideas from? What next, Lister gets into crack and Cat assaults some bin men?

[GlenTokyo]

He ought to do an episode where Kryten invents an chatshow format but it gets stolen by better known androids.

[GlenTokyo]

*a

[Pete Part Three]

U=CRACKHEAD. He understood now. He knew what it meant.

Hmm. Anyway. I think someone posted the screencap of Chris’s controversial interview with Starburst on here about a year ago*.

* may have been a lot longer.

[Warbodog]

“Someone”

Starburst – Chris Barrie/Red Dwarf VI Interview (1994)

[Bargain Bin Holly]

U=CACKHEAD

Always had a blind-spot for Rs

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Can’t wait for the episode where Rimmer goes bald.

[bloodteller]

When you consider Chris’s complaints about VI, it makes sense that he enjoyed working on VII so much, as more or less all the issues he brought up were addressed

[Dave]

Apart from the Ace Rimmer wig.

[Pete Part Three]

And then the fans complained about VII, so all of the issues brought up were addressed for them in VIII.

[Dax101]

Well laughing stock did Infinity and BTE, didn’t Penguin do Backwards and Last Human. Laughing stock were probably the better ones to go with.

Craig probably needed a job for when he got out of jail. he probably wasn’t being offered many jobs after he got out of jail.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I’m not so much asking why didn’t Chris do it back then, more so why doesn’t he do it now.

[Lily]

Because there’s such a minuscule market for a new copy of an audiobook written 20 years ago that the profits wouldn’t even cover the cost of his taxi to the recording studio?

[GlenTokyo]

Chris Barrie in a taxi?! He’d be driving himself there in a 1936 MG Drophead Coupé.

[Hamish]

> Because there’s such a minuscule market for a new copy of an audiobook written 20 years ago that the profits wouldn’t even cover the cost of his taxi to the recording studio?

I am not so sure about this. The biggest hurdles to such things have always been the pressures of retail distribution, and since it is now a given that such a thing would be digitally distributed, I think you could make the numbers work. Red Dwarf has a much larger captive audience than most things from twenty years ago do.

[Warbodog]

Backwards might be worth the effort for Ace Rimmer and the return of Chris’ Holly impression, but I wouldn’t sit through a good narrator/impressionist reading Last Human even if it was on Soundcloud for free. It made sense for Craig to read that Lister-heavy one, even if he wasn’t considered very good (haven’t listened; it’s Last Human).

[Hamish]

Honestly Craig is alright, it is just that he is no Chris Barrie.

Rob Grant is surprisingly good once you get past his accent.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I just want to hear Chris deliver Rimmer’s speech to McGruder, one of my favourite parts of the novels there.

[Plastic Percy]

Would there be any issue with crowdfunding it?

[Hamish]

The biggest hurdle would be negotiating with the publisher I would suspect.

[Plastic Percy]

I managed to pick up new copies of the books earlier this year, so they’re still in print.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I think they’d at least try it for one of the novels just to test the water, like all companies they like money I assume.

[si]

The biggest hurdle would be negotiating with the publisher I would suspect

Though I suspect the question of Chris’s willingness to do it may also be a factor.

[Shoes Have Soles]

I nearly misread this and thought the question was if Chris Barrie could read Last Human backwards.

He would need to do it in the red room though.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

That would’ve been my second request.

[cwickham]

Are the novels still in print? I’m surprised they’re not available as ebooks.

[tombow]

I know the omnibus of the first 2 was re-released sometime in the last few years. The other 2 are always “in print” in my local charity shops.

[Plastic Percy]

I was able to buy newly printed editions of the Omnibus, Backwards and Last Human from Amazon earlier this year.

[Author]

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