Exhausting Gratitude

Reflections on an intense weekend with about 920 enthusiastic Red Dwarf fans

One thing before I start. I didn’t take any pictures at the event I attended last weekend. I was too busy and anyway, there were tens of thousands of pictures taken by hundreds of people. It was crazy, it was chaotic but actually, it was really wonderful

It’s very easy, indeed lazy, for people to make assumptions about Red Dwarf fans. Science fiction fans have often been depicted as lonely losers or sad men with no social skills. Whatever, more than half of the people at the event were women, and I cannot think of another environment where you meet nearly a thousand random people, for all around the world, and they are all delightful, funny, friendly, kind, considerate of others and incredibly knowledgeable about a particular long running TV comedy show.

Last weekend I spent two days in the city of Nottingham, along with my fellow Dwarfers, Mr Chris Barrie, Mr Danny John Jules, Mr Doug Naylor (the co- creator, writer and director of red Dwarf) and Mr Craig Charles.

Left to right, Craig Charles, Danny John Jules, myself, and Chris Barrie

We were joined by a small gathering of people who had at one time been featured in the show, obviously Hattie Hayridge who played Holly the computer, but also an old friend of mine, Kerry Shale, who was the voice of Taiwan Tony, the noodle vending machine on B deck, James Baxter who played Jesus (of Caesarea) in the episode Lemons, and the legendary Arthur Smith, who played the irate pub owner in the classic Red Dwarf episode Backwards.

Sadly, Mr Norman Lovett, who also played the ship’s computer Holly, was unable to attend due to sustaining a minor injury after a fall, but apparently he in on the mend poor sausage.

It was busy, it was very noisy, it was at times a bit chaotic but also great fun and a truly humbling experience. Every now and then I pondered on how I ended up at such an event, it was such a remote possibility. For one thing being in Red Dwarf in the first place and also for it to have lasted such a long time.

I first met the creators of Red Dwarf in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. One afternoon I chained my bicycle to a lamp post on Denmark Street, went down a flight of stairs into a basement and met Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. We talked robots, mechanical walks, speech patterns and accents. I told them I had been obsessed with Robocop, and I’d written and performed in a play at the Edinburgh festival, but this was not about a robo-cop, it was aboout a robo-yuppie.

Anyway, we got on, and a few months later I joined the cast and started being regularly covered in rubber. Bonkers.

But thanks to streaming video, and in particular the BBC’s iPlayer, people still watch Red Dwarf. A lot of people. There are people born this century who enjoy watching a show that was made 25 or 30 years before they were born.

Picture taken during rehearsals in 2019, in the Starbug Cockpit

To put this into context, it’s a bit like me watching Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton when I was a kid, silent movies from 30 years before I was born. If I’d had the chance to meet Buster Keaton, well, it would have been amazing. He passed away when I was 10, and he lived in Los Angeles and I lived in England so it wasn’t very likely.

But the outpouring of love for the series, and for all of us equally, is an incredible thing to experience. For some of the people I met last weekend, it seems Red Dwarf was literally a life saver. I have met at least half a dozen people at various events who told me of their struggles with depression when they were in their teens, and how Red Dwarf made them laugh even when they were at their lowest.

It is hard to imagine how painful an experience like that must be, I always reminds me that I have been very lucky. Sure, I’ve been miserable for days on end, I’ve been very sad sometimes, like when a girlfriend dumps you out of the blue, but I always knew it was at least partly because of something I did, or said. Yes, hard to believe but I have had a long histry of saying th wrong thing at the wrong time.

But to find solace in a TV comedy show is not something I would have considered, but I have heard these stories from enough people over the years to know there has to be something in it. In some ways it feels like a responsibility now to be able to accept the gratitude from so many people about the dozens of Red Dwarf episodes. I have always found that sort of flattery uncomfortable, but if, say, I had met Buster Keaton in 1966 at a silent move convention in Nottingham and said ‘I love how funny you are, your such a brilliant comedian and your films always make me laugh’ it would be awful if he said ‘I hate hearing that, go away.’

It took me a long time to understand that when someone says they love your performance, or they admire the way you delivered a line or made a facial expression, my job is to accept that flattery and thank them, not try to shrug it off and claim some false modesty. I have learned from my fellow Red Dwarf performers over the years that this is part of the job.

And to be honest, after spending 14 hours with a rubber stuck to your face, it’s not a bad part of the job.

It’s an incredible privilege not many get to experience. The longer I live and breath, the more profound my gratitude is for the opportunity to join the crew of the small Rouge One. Yes, okay, Craig still does occasionally refer to me as the ‘new boy,’ but after 38 years, it’s really not a problem.

And as for doing more Red Dwarf, well, we are all still alive, we all have various ailments but we are all, generally speaking, in good health.

So, you never know.

But also, I think it’s doubtful.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Except 2028 will be the 40th anniversary of the first episode being broadcast. Just saying.

Later addition.

Oh Lordy sirs and Ma’ams, you know what I forgot!

I meant to subtly plug the ultimate inside story of the making of Red Dwarf. The Man in the Rubber Mask reveals all, and the most up to date version is available here.

Robert’s Modern Bookshop

( https://robertsmodernbookshop.bigcartel.com/ )