When I went to meet Rob Grant and Doug Naylor in 1988, I had no idea, or experience, or knowledge of what was in store.
They asked me to play the part of a mechanoid (a robot to the uninitiated) called Kryten in a BBC comedy series called ‘Red Dwarf.’
Cut forward a couple years and I had learned a great deal about Red Dwarf, the story, the other cast members, the writers and producers, the director and the amazing crew we worked with.
What I hadn’t really experienced was the fans.
I knew there were fans, I’d met some of them on the street when I was out and about, but not that many and not that often.
For the first 10 years of my involvement with Red Dwarf, I wasn’t exactly immediately recognisable when I was out of costume and make up, and that was fine with me.
Then Craig Charles suggested I go with him to a convention in Chicago, I had literally no idea what this meant.
Just to explain to people who know nothing of this legendary TV series, it was a UK show but it was shown around the world. In the USA it was a niche hit on certain PBS stations, Chicago being one of the big ones.
So around 1991 Craig and I flew to Chicago and arrived in a massive hotel complex quite near the airport. The event was a sort of Trek Dwarf hybrid, some actors from the incredible first generation of Star Trek were present. Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols and George Takei were all there.
We all met in a crowded and noisy green room but we were both so jet lagged I don’t remember much about it.
The following day we were ushered into a big hall in the convention centre and we sat behind a big long table covered in white tablecloths. After a few moments a huge number of people entered the room and stood in a long snaking line defined by posts and ropes, the sort of queue you get at an airport immigration section. Craig had been to conventions before and knew the ropes, I knew nothing.
Maybe 4 hours and many hundreds of autographs later, I was beginning to get the hang of it. It was at the same time delightful and exhausting, we met so many people and they were all really friendly and funny. They all loved Red Dwarf and wanted to know all about it, and would we make more, and what was Chris Barrie like, and did I get on with Danny, and is the make up hot, and did I like Craig, and could I say ‘Smeg Head.’
Later that day Craig and I sat on a stage with one of the organisers and did a Q and A, again not something I’d ever done before. And also, although I’d been performing in front of large audiences for many years at this point, rarely had it been on this scale, there were over a thousand people in the space, it was overwhelming.
I can’t remember what I was expecting, but I remember I was just staggered by the huge numbers of people attending. Of course the vast majority of them were there to see the Star Trek cast, we were just a niche add on, but there were still enough niche fans to keep us very very busy.
The rest of the event is now a blur of signing autographs, posing for pictures and endless questions about the show. On the plane on the way back to the UK, I know I slept for pretty much the entire journey.
I learned from Craig how to conduct myself, he has boundless energy and is always charming and funny with the fans, and of course they love him. Sometimes we would meet severely disabled people in wheelchairs and I immediately felt awkward and wasn’t sure what to say. Craig just dived in there, talked to them without awkwardness or embarrassment and made them laugh.
On one particular occasion a young man arrived in front of us with his dad. The young man was in an electric powered wheelchair. Craig asked if he could have a go, the young man was thrilled, so Craig helped lift him out of the chair, got me to hold him steady while he zoomed around the room in the wheelchair.
Of course the young chap was thrilled, Lister had been riding in his wheelchair. I would never have had the nerve or the idea of doing such a thing, but Craig’s empathetic and funny attitude really showed me how to be with the fans.
It’s a strange relationship I’d never experienced before and it took me a long time to work out how to behave, but in the 9 years of Red Dwarf’s BBC production run, I started to attend more conventions in the UK. I wrote a book about my Red Dwarf experiences titled ‘The Man in the Rubber Mask’ and I attended many book signing events around the country and in Australia.
After the last BBC series was made in 1998, I reduced the amount of conventions I attended, I tried to do them when the rest of the cast were present as that made it more fun, but signing autographs and posing for selfies felt increasingly odd as for a long period in the early 2000’s, Red Dwarf had become, ‘a TV show I used to be in.’
Then we started making it again for the Dave channel and everything started up again. We have now made 74 episodes and 12 or 13 series, depending on how you count them. In the last 15 years I’ve attended dozens of conventions around the UK and signed thousands of pictures. I posed for thousands of selfies, this was brought back to me recently when I found this picture taken at one of these events with myself, Craig and Danny.
I’m guessing this was taken in the late 1990’s or early 2000s judging this by how young Craig and Dan look and the fact that I still have have some dark hair.
I was attending one or two conventions a year until 2020 when everything like that stopped. Now, when I get invited, I generally don’t have the time as my work on the Fully Charged Show takes up 90% of my waking hours, and it just feels strange again and I don’t think I have the energy.
My focus is elsewhere and there is a side of me that doesn’t want to be an old actor who was on the telly 30 years ago and is hoping for some recognition about that. I always remember an early convention I attended again with Craig, I think it was at the NEC in Birmingham, we had a huge queue of people waiting to see us, and on the opposite side of the hall from us were 3 old actors sitting behind a table with no one waiting to see them.
They had been in a TV show in the 1960’s that wasn’t overly successful at the time, but I took note of this moment. I never wanted to be one of those people.
Maybe if we eventually do make some new Red Dwarf episodes I will start conventioneering again, but for the time being, I’ll be either filming Fully Charged Show episodes, attending our massive live events or I’ll be pottering about in my garden.
An American fan, I'm so glad I managed to attend Dimension Jump XX. I met the whole cast and many production folks, including selfies with all the cast. Bobby, you will never be "an old actor who was on the telly 30 years ago and is hoping for some recognition about that". RD is a classic that will stand the test of time. Thanks for making time for the fans, and for letting us know why you might not be as available in the future. That said, thanks for your focus on electric cars; I wish the American market was as advanced as the Europeans.
I attended the 1997 Red Dwarf convention with my son and his friends and I will always remember the occasion. You Robert, and all the cast were charming and entertaining. For some reason my son's camera (yes, camera, no phones then!) didn't work when I stood with you for a photo and when I came back and requested another try you very kindly obliged and I still have this photo, along with many others from this occasion. Thank you for the memories!!