Why Norman Lovett left Red Dwarf

[Jawscvmcdia]

Here’s a transcription of the comments made about the departure on Norman Lovett, taken from the Red Dwarf Bodysnatcher documentary in 2007.

Rob Grant: Nobody wanted Norman to go, including Norman I think.

Norman Lovett: I’d gone to Edinburgh, I’d met my wife and I decided to live in Edinburgh with her. I was also doing a series in Glasgow, I Lovett. I’d done two series of Don’t Miss Wax, two series of Red Dwarf, and I don’t know whether I saw it as a progression of saying “right I’ll do my own series now – two series of that perhaps”.

Paul Jackson: So he asked to be allowed to not come to rehearsal in London. He said “look. I’m in Edinburgh. I’ve got to come all the way down to London, then I go up to Manchester, then I go home. Quite frankly, I only sit on a stool (and) you don’t need me for camera rehearsals.” And I just felt that that was, I suppose there’s no other word than bad attitude. I mean maybe I was too picky at the time.

Doug Naylor: And the reason we wanted Norman at rehearsals is you need him around to test things on. You can’t show up and do ‘Queeg’ the day before, because it doesn’t give the writers a chance to see if the lines are working, or give you more. When you have someone like Norman who is funny, really funny, we’re kind of like comedy vampires, we’re able to suck humour out of just being around someone and seeing the way they drink a cup of tea, or his intonation the way he says the word yellow. If he’s not there you can’t do that.

Paul Jackson: And it’s just not fair to expect the actors to go into what is a technical environment in the studio. When you get into a studio you’re not rehearsing for the actors anymore. You spend a day or a day and a half sometimes literally blocking for sound and cameras and VT and costumes and so on. So if Norman had just been joining us at that point, the first time they’d have all performed the piece together would have been in front of the audience and I thought that wasn’t fair on anybody. So I said to Norman, “look, I don’t need you here all week but I do need you here for a day, two days” I can’t remember.

Norman Lovett: And they said “yeah, okay we can knock a day off, but we’re also going to knock quite a lot of the fee off”. And I said well I’m not doing it!”. I said I want the same as what they said they we’re going to pay me in the first place.

Paul Jackson: I think he thought that we would have no option, because he was Holly.

Norman Lovett: I think Paul Jackson was your typical producer. You know “I’m not putting up with this, get out of the show!”, you know. I think he made a big mistake by acting like that and not really thinking about it. It could have been resolved.

Craig Charles: I think Norman regrets his decision tremendously. And I regret his decision as well; because he was a much valued member of the crew and a lovely bloke and personal friend, and you kind of wish he’d done the whole journey with you.

Chris Barrie: But then maybe if you look at the two main players in that little scenario, then it was two fairly immovable beasts, really.

Doug Naylor: If it was me involved now, there’s no way he would have left. I would have put an arm round Paul and an arm round him and we would have gone into a room and we would have sorted it out.

Norman Lovett: And also they promised me that they would replace my part with a complete different character. So you never believe what they tell you, because Hattie played the part. So, they just lied to me basically.

Doug Naylor: Why would you go “Norman, you’re making this crazy decision to go off, but in deference to you, we are going to leave a special hallow piece of ground around the character so we’ll never come near that, because thank you for leaving and making this idiotic decision, but rest assured we will have someone completely different”. We would never do that, of course you wouldn’t. What you would say is “Norman, you’re mad, please come back”. And then he goes “no I’m not”, you go “okay, fine. That’s really sad. Thanks, bye.” And then you go, who you gonna get?

Hattie Hayridge: I kind of felt that was my normal type of thing. I didn’t feel I did it too much like Norman. I didn’t go out of my way to do it like Norman. It was just how Holly was.

Craig Charles: And Norman Lovett on the phone to me going “she’s robbing my act! She’s robbing my act, Craig! She’s robbing my act!”. “Why couldn’t she be someone else!? Why couldn’t she do it a different way!? She’s just being me!” Oh, Norman. It’s not my fault.

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[Jo]

Don’t start this again.
You already posted this once in another thread, once was more than enough.

[Seb Patrick]

This is all such brand new information, especially since nobody who visits G&T bought the Bodysnatcher Collection.

[Seb Patrick]

Also, stop posting exactly the same threads on TOS as you do on G&T. Thanks.

[Author]

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