Last Friday saw the last Red Dwarf X audience recording. And last Saturday saw the last Red Dwarf X Ganymede & Titan audience recording report. I’ve been part of the site since 2003, and whilst I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, as Alex Picton-Dinch would say, I do think these are some of the best things we’ve ever published, and worth a link here. If only because it’s fairly difficult to make them boring.
The second episode of Red Dwarf X was recorded on 23rd December at Shepperton Studios, with a studio audience. I wrote this about it.
Apologies for the writing being even more sub-standard than usual. Look, it’s Christmas Eve, you’re lucky to be getting it at all. Now piss off.
With David Croft’s death earlier this year, there has been much talk of how his shows proved that audience sitcom works best if, y’know, it’s actually about something. (You may have thought that was fairly obvious, but hey, it’s a start.) Indeed, one of my favourite sitcom episodes of all time is It Ain’t Half Hot Mum‘s final episode in 1981, The Last Roll Call, which deals with demobilisation – a weighty topic which people used to trust audience sitcom with at one point.
“What is the point……really?” – david barnes, DwarfCast iTunes review
So, Red Dwarf X is starting the first of six audience recordings this Friday. And I can’t resist plugging the latest DwarfCast from Ganymede & Titan that I’m “proud” to be part of, talking about our hopes and expectations for the new series, alongside a healthy dose of ignorance.
We’ve been doing these for over five years now, and they’ve grown from being crap, to not being that crap but still quite crap. Give us a try if you’re at all interested in the upcoming series, though.
Something I wrote over on Ganymede & Titan.
It makes me sad. Sniff.
Whilst we’re on the subject of GOLD transmission errors, the below – broadcast yesterday – brings me out in FISTS OF RAGE. The dinnerladies episode Minnellium – and just as we get to the discovery that Anita was the one who abandoned her baby:
One of the most heart-wrenching endings they ever had to an episode: ruined. The last joke in the episode: ruined. One episode of dinnerladies: ruined. All because they triggered their pre-recorded voiceover in the usual place, rather than actually checking the end of the episode to see if it fitted.
Brilliant, GOLD, well done.
OK, so you thought the Brittas Empire ticket and programme leaflet were obscure? Back in 1993, my girlfriend attended a recording of BBC sitcom Every Silver Lining. On a British Legion trip. A rude comment about the blue rinse brigade would be demeaning but accurate.
Luckily, being the type of person she is, she kept the programme leaflet given out at the recording, a scan of which follows below. Click to enlarge. Anyone care to guess how many of these still exist?
Piss poor. But move on.
I presume it’s not just me who has a list of sitcoms they wish they’d been at recordings of. From Fawlty Towers to Blackadder to Men Behaving Badly, for me the list extends even to specific episodes of a series. The fact I will never see the Red Dwarf episode Back To Reality recorded pains me immensely.
Another sitcom on the list is the vastly underrated The Brittas Empire. A few years back, however, someone eBayed their audience ticket and leaflet given out at the show – and I now present this material which I have refused to allow to become ephemera. Click for bigger versions:
When I think back to 2003, two things stick in my mind. Firstly, that was the year when I dropped out of uni a complete and total failure. Secondly, it was when I got involved with a Red Dwarf fansite run by a certain Ian Symes – Ganymede & Titan.
A lot’s happened in the intervening years – whether it’s arguing with Iain Lee, nearly getting sued by Grant Naylor Productions, or… well, arguing with Norman Lovett. Yet oddly, for me, one of the most exciting things we’ve done is a repackaging of old stuff. Because last month, we put a book out.
Look, mum, I did an interview!
http://www.ganymede.tv/indepth/the-beginning
Nic Farey, founder of The Official Red Dwarf Fanclub, and ex-team member Maxine Lehmann, discuss early Red Dwarf fandom – something I’ve always been fascinated by. Even if you’re not a hardcore Dwarf fan, though, there’s some interesting stuff there about the nature of fandom before most people had the internet.
Also: it contains my favourite answer to any interview question I’ve ever asked…