The G&T Review of the Year 2020 Features Posted by Ian Symes on 31st December 2020, 13:03 What a very strange year. It seems to have lasted for several millennia, but 2020 is finally over, pending any last minute shenanigans, which we can't entirely rule out. By now you'll have already read a dozen depressing round-ups cataloguing what a horrible anus it's been for the world at large, so let's focus instead on our small corner of it. The trials and tribulations of Red Dwarf may seem insignificant in comparison to the fucking atrocious circumstances we find ourselves in, but it feels more important than ever to find distractions and positives wherever we can, and it's actually been a pretty busy year for a show that's rapidly approaching its mid-thirties. Let's go through some of the highlights, and inevitably some massive lowlights, topic-by-topic, starting with The Promised Land, which yes, really was only this year. Read more →
Let’s Talk About Quanderhorn 2 (on Radio 4) News Posted by Ian Symes on 29th April 2020, 16:57 Yes, almost exactly twenty one months after the first series ended, Quanderhorn returns to BBC Radio 4 at 6:30pm today! You can listen via the Radio 4 website, the BBC Sounds app, on an actual radio (DAB, FM and LW) or just catch up afterwards. It’s a weekly six part series, so we’ll use this one discussion thread to cover the whole lot. Oh, and it’s co-written by Rob Grant, produced by Gordon Kennedy and stars Kevin Eldon. You knew that bit, right? In case you need a reminder, the state of play at the end of the first series is that the Professor’s increasingly unstable time-lock could potentially destroy the whole of reality, our heroes are trapped in the lab which is about to be blown up by Winston Churchill, and Guuuurk’s buttocks are now on backwards, so there’s a lot to resolve before we even get on to unravelling the mystery behind Brian’s memory loss. We’re very much looking forward to it.
Quanderhorn Again News Posted by Ian Symes on 21st April 2020, 19:03 As if it wasn't enough that we get Rob Grant and pals commentating on Red Dwarf episodes live every Sunday, more new Rob Grant material is coming our way on the radio, with the second series of Quanderhorn (having apparently dropped the The and the Xperimentations from its title) starting Wednesday 29th April at 6:30pm on BBC Radio 4. As well as Rob co-writing with his now-established new writing partner Andrew Marshall, he's co-producing the series with fellow Red Dwarf alumnus Gordon Kennedy, with Twentica's The Actor Kevin Eldon returning as resident alien Guuuurk. The first series is currently available on BBC Sounds if you need to catch up, and titles and synopses for the first and second episodes are also online (they tend to be added around a fortnight ahead of broadcast, so the rest will be following soon). Read on for a further blurb covering the whole series, lovingly copied and pasted from the press release. Read more →
DwarfCast 103 – Rob Grant & Andrew Marshall Interview DwarfCasts Posted by Ian Symes on 22nd October 2019, 11:14 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes No, really. Ahead of their new sketch show pilot The Nether Regions airing on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 24th October at 11pm, Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall invited your intrepid DwarfCast team of Ian Symes, Danny Stephenson and Jo Sharples for a big old chat at Rob's kitchen table. We touched upon the "terrifying" experience of performing in front of an audience, the intricacies of their writing process, the sketches and characters that didn't make the final cut, their "bloody magnificent" producer Gordon Kennedy, and also got the latest on Quanderhorn Series 2. And yes, we also discussed another show that Rob co-created, covering his experiences at Dimension Jump, being back on set for the first time since the 90s, and the possibility of him ever writing for Red Dwarf again. All this, plus 2point4 Children, Son of Cliché, Strange, Week Ending and how Rob's The Strangerers caused unexpected problems for one of Andrew's series. We also grill Andrew about his connection to Marvin The Paranoid Android, get Rob's thoughts on the proposed return of Spitting Image, his friendship with Martin Kemp, and how he pissed off Billy Ocean when they were both on Top of the Pops. A huge, huge thank you to Rob and Andrew for their candid, thoughtful and hilarious interview. Read more →
The G&T Christmas Message 2018 Features Posted by Ian Symes on 25th December 2018, 15:00 It's 3pm on the 25th December, and that can only mean one thing - the whole family gathering around for that old Christmas tradition of reading the Ganymede & Titan round-up of what's happened in the world of Red Dwarf over the preceding twelve months. While 2018 was certainly a special year for the show in terms of its numerical significance, it was also the first year in four where no brand new episodes were either recorded, transmitted or both. As such, a quieter year for us, and so we're eschewing the month-by-month format to instead give an overview of the big news and events that occurred, and a festive selection box of some of our own least shit features that we posted when there were no big news and events to keep us occupied. Read more →
The Quanderhorn Xperimentations (book) Reviews Posted by Ian Symes on 1st July 2018, 13:11 NOTE: While this review is spoiler free, readers are free to discuss the novel in the comments, which may contain spoilers for future episodes of the radio series. The first thing that strikes you when you pick up a copy of The Quanderhorn Xperimentations is that it's BIG. Certainly a heavier tome than any of the Red Dwarf novels, and comfortably the largest installment of Rob Grant's post-Dwarf literary career so far. He has some help here, of course, from the presence of co-writer Andrew Marshall, as well as the existence of six freshly-written radio scripts to adapt. The press release that first alerted us to its existence promised us the book would be "springing and expanded from" the radio series, bringing to mind the aforementioned Dwarf novels, which still stand as masterpieces of their genre for the way they take the source material and use it to build a much bigger universe. Now that the book has hit the shelves, does the reality meet those, admittedly rather hard-to-match, expectations? Read more →
Let’s Talk About The Quanderhorn Xperimentations (on Radio 4) News Posted by Ian Symes on 25th June 2018, 08:00 Tell me when will you be mine? Tell me Quander Quander Quanderhorn. Well, the brand new sci-fi comedy radio series, written by Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall, starts today at 11:30am on BBC Radio 4. You can listen live via the Radio 4 website or the iPlayer Radio app, or tune in on an actual radio via DAB, FM or LW. It should be available on catch-up pretty much straight after it finishes airing, again via iPlayer Radio, or on the BBC programme page, which has now been updated to get the co-writer’s name right. (This is all assuming you’re in the UK, of course – foreign types will have to resort to more nefarious means, I would imagine.) Anyway, this is your thread to discuss the episode before, during and after broadcast. Spoilers for episode one are allowed in the comments, but when the book comes out on Thursday, keep please keep discussion of the book confined to that thread, so as not to reveal anything about future episodes of the radio series. Why can’t anything vaguely Red Dwarf related ever be released in a straightforward manner? This will most likely be the only Let’s Talk About for Quanderhorn, unless each episode ends up attracting as many comments as a new episode of Red Dwarf does. Either way, the signs are very promising, and we’re very much looking forward to devouring new Rob Grant material for the first time in years. Let the Xperimentations begin.
Get The Quanderhorn News Posted by Ian Symes on 16th June 2018, 14:05 It's always the way, innit? You hang around Rob Grant for ten years and you don't see one new project. Then all of a sudden, three of them turn up at once. More accurately, one new project turns up, but released in three different ways. The Quanderhorn Xperiment, in its various forms, will be with us before the month is out, so let's take this opportunity to summarise what we know about the three individual products and their release schedule. Read more →
The Quanderhorn Ovelisation News Posted by Ian Symes on 28th March 2018, 13:25 Exciting news - more than a decade on from Fat, Rob Grant has a new novel out later this year. It's an adaptation of The Quanderhorn Xperimentations, the Radio 4 sitcom he's co-written with Andrew Marshall of 2point4children fame, set to be released in June at the same time as the radio version is broadcast. We're told that this will be "expanded from" the radio series, prompting hopes of a Red Dwarf style full novel treatment, rather than a straightforward transposition of the scripts. We're very much looking forward to all of this - it's been far too long since we got hold of any new Rob Grant material, and now we'll be treated to new examples of both his dialogue and his prose, all within the next few months. It'll also be interesting to see how he works with another writer; correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first time he's collaborated with someone other than Doug. Time is short and we are lazy, so here's the press release in full: Read more →
Rob Grant GOSSIP News Posted by John Hoare on 31st July 2017, 00:45 If you’re like me, a couple of times a day you probably sit bolt upright, let out a strangulated groan, and think: “Just what the fuck is Rob Grant doing these days?” After all, his last tweet was in January 2016; his website is stagnant. Here’s some brand new gossip then, from comedy writer extraordinaire Andrew Marshall, (co-)writer of The Burkiss Way, End of Part One, Alexei Sayle’s Stuff, If You See God, Tell Him, and 2point4 Children. Speaking to Steve O’Brien about his old fanzine: If you still do that, Rob Grant and I will have something new to talk about soon. — Andrew Marshall (@AndrewM2p4c) July 30, 2017 And just in case that wasn’t enough: It is sci-fi related. — Andrew Marshall (@AndrewM2p4c) July 30, 2017 Andrew Marshall and Rob Grant collaborating? That is a very, very intriguing team-up indeed. And something to keep us all excited until Red Dwarf XII hits our screens. Then we’ll forget all about it and moan about UKTV Play for six fucking weeks straight instead. Anyway, here’s one of my favourite End of Part One sketches, for precisely no reason at all. With thanks to Ian Potter for the friendly nudge towards this news.
