Something’s (maybe) *not* coming (possibly) News Posted by Ian Symes on 18th January 2025, 13:50 BUT BRITISH COMEDY GUIDE TOLD US THEY WERE FILMING IT LAST OCTOBER. Things have been suspiciously quiet on the new Red Dwarf front for some time, following last year's unconfirmed rumblings. While we were always cautious, we did expect there to be some confirmation from official sources by the end of 2024, following the well established pattern of such things usually coming several months after the cast start blabbing. But while there's still no actual confirmation either way, Craig Charles has spoken to the Radio Times about it, and the outlook is suddenly much more pessimistic. "I’m not sure that it will come back, to be honest," he exclusively told RadioTimes.com. "I know that the deal that we had to make it this year looks like that might not be happening now. "I can't really say any more on that because I don't know much more, but I just know that there have been lots of conversations about cost, and I think [the episodes] might be too expensive." He clarified: "It's not that we don't want to do it, it's a case of we're trying to get it done... [it's] happening in television all the time at the moment, there doesn't seem to be that much money around." Read more →
Something’s (maybe) coming (possibly) News Posted by Ian Symes on 17th April 2024, 13:15 It's funny to think that just over a year ago, we were convinced that Red Dwarf was dead and buried, a victim of an ongoing legal battle with no end in sight. That was until it ended. And since then we've been teased with the prospect of a new spin-off series, whilst also regaining a modicum of hope that the OG Dwarf would return at least once more. While there is still no official news - and as usual we'd like to clarify that nothing is confirmed until it's announced by the production company and/or the broadcaster - we've now entered what we've come to recognise as the preliminary phase that usually indicates that such an announcement may be forthcoming. Yes, the cast have been blabbing again. Read more →
G&TV: Funky Bunker Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 12th July 2023, 09:11 As discussed in our recent Channel Hopping article, there was a brief period in early 1997 when Craig Charles had three different programmes on air, across three different channels, every Friday night. I'd assume we're all familiar with BBC2's Red Dwarf VII, while Channel 4's Captain Butler is still inexplicably available in full on demand. But what of the other, much more obscure offering, late night ITV's Funky Bunker? Usually starting so late at night it would conclude in the early hours of the following morning, it was a chat show/variety show hybrid in the short-lived genre of post-pub television, ie disposal entertainment, designed to be consumed exclusively whilst drunkenly picking through a kebab, to fill the silence and distract from the growing sense of existential dread. But was it any good? Well, here's a random full episode on YouTube (no way of knowing the date, for some reason I can't find any comprehensive episode guides online), so let's see what the show's got to offer. Brace yourself. Read more →
G&TV: Big Break In Wonderland (27/12/1994) Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 24th December 2021, 14:58 It's that special time of year again, and what could be more Christmassy than a snooker themed game show hosted by a racist? Yes, it's Big Break, a cracking Saturday night format with a banger of a theme tune (written by Mike Batt and performed by Captain Sensible), memorable catchphrases and engaging gameplay, but unfortunately difficult to enjoy these days if you're not a young 1990s child, blissfully ignorant of the many, many flaws of its presenter. Luckily, the 1994 celebrity special has a little something extra to hold the modern day Red Dwarf fan's interest - Craig "Cinzano Bianco" Charles. Annoyingly, the YouTube video has embedding disabled, but you can click on this attractive picture of Tweedledee, Tweedledum and Tweedletwat: Read more →
G&TV: Craig Charles on All Star Squares (1999) Features Posted by Ian Symes on 8th January 2021, 17:22 Welcome to Season 2 of G&TV, our monthly trawl through the world's television archives for any interesting Red Dwarf-related nuggets. Following our accidental break, we return with an exciting adventure in internet archaeology. Thanks to his ubiquity on our screens at certain points during the 90s, a large number of the videos we come across involve Craig Charles popping up in unexpected places, either as the host of a one-off programme, or a guest on an established show. This month, we bring you the latter, but in an unexpected twist, it's the short-lived Australian version of a much-travelled format. Read more →
G&TV Halloween Special Features Posted by Ian Symes on 31st October 2020, 08:45 This month's G&TV contains scenes which are unsuitable for younger viewers and people of a nervous disposition. You have been warned. Well, it doesn't really, but then neither does Polymorph, so it's fair game. Anyway, when we noticed that the latest edition of this feature would coincide roughly with a notable date in the calendar, we decided to run with the theme. The Red Dwarf cast and crew haven't had a great deal of crossover with the horror genre over the years, other than a couple of notable and obvious exceptions, which we'll come to. We couldn't find much in terms of full-length programmes that are not commercially available (and so therefore we feel comfortable linking to off-air recordings of them on YouTube), which is the usual remit for G&TV. So instead, we present a thrilling compendium of terror, with four short clips relating to each of our main cast members, which fit the theme with varying degrees of contrivance. Read more →
Old, Gifted and Black News Posted by Ian Symes on 10th October 2020, 12:48 This has completely flown under the radar, so thanks to Si Bromley for spotting it in his TV guide and tweeting about it. Danny John-Jules and Craig Charles are hosting Craig & Danny: Funny, Black and On TV on Tuesday 13th October at 8pm on ITV. Part of a season of programmes marking Black History Month, the pair present a celebration of iconic Black British comedy stars spanning fifty years, featuring a combination of archive and interviews. Here’s the press release. It’s an intriguing and welcome move for Craig and Danny to be working together as a twosome, and especially on a mainstream channel like ITV. It’s all the more pleasing given that Red Dwarf is often overlooked in discussions such as these, despite being a prime example of diverse representation and colour blind casting, even though it originated at a time before such terms were coined. Plus, the mere existence of this programme will infuriate racists on Twitter, so win-win.
G&TV: Comic-Con@Home (2020) Quickies Posted by Jonathan Capps on 29th July 2020, 11:49 You can say what you like about the deadly global pandemic currently ruling our lives, but at least the little red spikey boi has opened up access to many public events that have been forced to move to a streaming model this year. The result is I've seen two San Diego Comic-Con panels live where I would've previously seen none. Firstly, the lovely Bill and Ted Face the Music panel on Saturday and then on Sunday Red Dwarf had what we believe is its first ever SDCC panel to promote the launch of The Promised Land on BritBox and in attendance were Doug Naylor, Craig Charles, Chris Barrie and Robert Llewellyn. Read more →
G&TV: Beam Me Up, Scotty! Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 26th April 2020, 18:10 As we continue to cogitate on The Promised Land, let's cleanse our palates with our monthly dip in to the archives of vaguely Red Dwarf related things from the past. Here's a particularly obscure one, discovered by Jim Lynn of the always excellent VHiStory blog, the guy who dug up the original 1988 continuity for Series 1 a few years ago. On the end of a tape of Babylon 5 episodes, he found Beam Me Up, Scotty!, a one-off Channel 4 magazine programme about sci-fi, filmed at the 53rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow in August 1995, and presented by Craig Charles. In it, Craig introduces self-contained segments on a variety of connected topics, such as "filk music", cosplay before it was called 'cosplay', Klingon theatre, a somewhat nauseating section on sci-fi erotica and the sexual fantasies of its proponents, an extremely low-energy discussion of the British comics scene with some very morose people who are now very famous writers and artists, and Craig interviewing Terry Pratchett, best known for his appearance on the Red Dwarf A-Z. Jim's blog entry has the who's who of all the interviewees, and of course the full programme itself: Read more →
G&TV: Just A Minute (20/01/94) Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 29th January 2020, 20:57 Following the sad news that the brilliant Nicholas Parsons has passed away at the grand old age of 96, I saw a tweet summarising the various short-lived attempts to bring his seminal Just A Minute to television. Despite it obviously being a BBC show, there were two series produced by Carlton for ITV in the mid-90s, and just one glimpse of that garish, neon-adorned set triggered a vivid childhood memory of watching an episode starring none other than Craig Charles. I looked it up and it turns out that memory is indeed accurate; he appeared once, alongside team captain and fellow Dwarf alumnus Tony Slattery, on 21st July 1995. And that episode is... seemingly not online anywhere. Bah. Still, a handful of editions are on YouTube, including one from the first series that features not only the aforementioned Slattery, but also one time pub manager Arthur Smith, alongside a very young Graham Norton and Ann Bryson. Sod it, two guest stars is enough of a Red Dwarf connection to justify us featuring this, in tribute to its wonderful chairman. Read more →
