Hoot Press column: Red Alert

The genre known as “sci-fi comedy” hasn’t exactly been brimming over with entries down through the years.

Indeed, outside of Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s enormously successful intergalactic sitcom Red Dwarf – currently enjoying a repeat run on BBC2 – it’s doubtful whether there are any other genuine contenders for admission to this most exclusive of enclaves. All in all, it’s just as well that Grant and Naylor did such a first class job with their unique comedic venture.
Following in the hallowed footsteps of classic Brit-com writing partnerships like Galton & Simpson and Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, Grant and Naylor began working together in the early ’80s, gaining a foothold in the London comedy scene with contributions to a variety of distinguished comedy shows, most notably the hugely popular satirical series Spitting Image. Having successfully honed their sketch-writing skills, the duo decided to try their hand at a full-length sitcom.
Taking their cue from grungy space-hobo classics like John Carpenter’s Dark Star and Ridley Scott’s Alien, they set about writing a series based on a spaceship drifting desultorily through the furthest reaches of the universe, populated only by a curry-obsessed lager-lout called Dave Lister, an impossibly bitter and hopelessly cowardly hologram known as Rimmer, and a narcissistic, fashion-crazed feline/human hybrid named Cat.
Grant and Naylor initially hoped that Red Dwarf might just stretch to three series and generate some decent reviews, providing them with a platform from which to launch their comedy careers. They ended up penning one of the most popular British comedy series of the 1990s, but in the beginning things ran anything but smoothly.
Labouring under the less-than-stratospheric production values offered by mid ’80s BBC2 sitcom budgets, the show was banished to the TV industry Siberia known as the Beeb’s Manchester studios, where the writers found themselves pestering local pub patrons to fill out the rows of empty seats at recordings, and the programme’s allotted stage had all the scientific authenticity of a student bedsit decked out in Dr. Who memorabilia.
As time progressed, it became apparent that the initial three series run envisaged by Grant and Naylor was severely inaccurate, given that by the time the fourth series rolled around the cast and crew were only just starting to hit their stride. Crucial to the turnaround in Red Dwarf’s fortunes was the introduction of Robert Llewellyn to the cast. Playing the cube-headed, ultra-logical and incomparably resourceful android Kryten, Llewellyn’s stellar performance as the stoical servant was the missing part of the Red Dwarf jigsaw puzzle, providing a perfect Jeeves-ian foil to the buffoonish antics of his shipmates.
Indeed, series four, which was released on DVD earlier this year, offers the ideal starting point for a synopsis of what makes Red Dwarf tick. With the show having moved to the more illustrious environs of Shepperton studios in London, Grant and Naylor began to focus on two aspects of the programme that were to prove fertile territory in the years ahead; firstly, the truly endless possibilities for mirth offered up by the conventions of the sci-fi genre, and secondly, the fact that the duo had created quite possibly the motliest crew of characters ever to join together in unholy union in the name of British sitcom.
With regard to the former category, the examples of side-splitting gags are far too many to mention, but a brief role of honour would have to include: Cat’s summation of the damage sustained during a violent collision with an asteroid (“We’ve lost the port engine, the fuel line is severed, we’re taking in water, half the electric’s out – and the driver’s seat in the cockpit doesn’t bounce up and down anymore”); Rimmer’s attempts to assert his authority in each crisis situation (“Kryten, this is an emergency. Step up to red alert.” Kryten: “Sir, are you sure? It will mean changing the lightbulb”); and last but not least – and possibly this comedy hack’s favourite running gag in any sitcom – the Space Corps directive jokes (Rimmer: “Need I remind you of Space Corps directive 34124?” Kryten: “34124? ‘No crewmember with false teeth should attempt oral sex in zero-gravity?!’”).
Elsewhere, the scenes where the four characters discarded with the technical jargon and simply tore strips off each other were an equal joy to behold, whether it was Cat bitching about Kryten (to whom he usually referred to as “used-condom head” or some prophylactic-themed variation thereof), Lister riling Cat (typically through a calculated snub about his fashion sense and/or sexual prowess), or everybody having a go at Rimmer (nearly every other scene in Red Dwarf is based around the universal detestation of Rimmer, but Lister is usually content to simply deploy his linguistically groundbreaking two-word dismissal, “Smeg head”).
After series four, Red Dwarf enjoyed two more excellent runs, before taking a break and re-emerging with the inferior but still enjoyable series seven and eight (Grant had by this stage ceased working on the programme). There has been a consistent talk of a Red Dwarf movie over the past couple of years, and the show still enjoys a sizeable – and noticeably international – cult following.
Still, despite the prospect of silver-screen stardom and the possibility of mainstream acceptance, you get the feeling that the Dwarf crew will find it exceedingly difficult to recapture the lo-fi glory of their early ’90s heyday.

Red Dwarf is currently being repeated Wednesday nights on BBC2. Series 1-4 of the show are available on DVD, with series 5 to follow in November