Mr Flibble Talks To... Doug Naylor | Features

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Mr Flibble gets very cross for the 100th time - this time with Red Dwarf co-creator Doug Naylor!

21 February, 2003

In part two of this exclusive interview, Mr Flibble talks later series, DVDs and the movie with Doug Naylor.

Andrew wanted to pick up where the last interview left off - which only gave Mr Flibble another excuse to do an audition piece - this time tap dancing. Not too impressive when you've got flippers. What are your feelings now on SERIES VII?

It was a hard series to make. Chris wasn't available for most of the series, which left a black hole in the heart of the show. Also, I believed Chris would return, certainly for the movie and even for Series VIII providing we didn't replace him with someone else playing the part of Rimmer. This meant, of course, there could be no Lister/Rimmer thing. Rob had also left... another huge blow.

In retrospect, and it's easy to say now, but Series VII was the series where I took a lot of people's advice instead of trusting my own instincts. At the time a lot of the suggestions sounded sensible. 'Don't try and write them all yourself put together a writing team and there can be more shows which is what the fans want and the writing team will guarantee the scripts are good and the quality is maintained.' At the time I was concerned it wouldn't work because putting comedy writing teams together that work is notoriously hard - and never seems to work in this country for some reason - but equally, if I'd have said, 'No, I'd rather write them all on my own,' everyone would have thought was an arrogant idiot.'

My view now is I should have let them think what an arrogant idiot and just got on with it. Instead other writers came in, there were a lot of last minute re-writes, and in one case a show was junked and replaced at the last minute. To be fair to them it wasn't easy - the feature of the show that people loved the most, the Lister/Rimmer relationship, no longer existed and new relationships were being defined that weren't nailed down yet.

Also, in this series, we changed the way the show was shot. Ed wanted to shoot it single-camera, because he'd done The Detectives single-camera. He said it would make it look much better - and he was absolutely right. He brought in his DP [director of photography] Peter Morgan. Shooting single cam made absolute sense to me at the time, because we were intending to do a film. I thought it was going to be good practice for the guys, me included - we could learn a lot of things we didn't know. Which we did.

To shoot single camera, where every camera angle is lit separately, we had to lose the studio audience. And in some ways the cast missed them enormously. Hearing the laughs, getting immediate feedback of what was going well and then milking the next bit for all it was worth. Rimmer's salute or Lister pipe tapping from Series VIII are two examples of the audience helping to make the show funnier by reacting to what was being done and then the actors altering their performance ever so slightly because they knew they could do more of something because it was going down so well. It also works in reverse where the audience don't laugh so much at something so they pace it up to get onto the next bit.

Also, there were things we learnt about energy levels - energy levels go down when you haven't got an audience, the cast can sometimes lose focus and energy as we do yet another take as opposed to 'Wow, the studio audience are here - it's showtime!!' Of course now we know that we can look out for it when it comes time to shoot the movie.

The video footage for that season was treated with a now-common 'film effect'. How do you think that affected the show?

The difference between video and film is that, generally, film makes things more 'romantic'. You're more distanced and it's more glamorised. With video you're there, what you see is absolutely every pimple. With VII it was interesting how anti 'the look' some people were. It made them angry to think it was shot on film. It actually put them off. They thought we'd been given a ton more money and we were showing off. It was the same old video we'd always used, lit for each and every camera angle and then run through a computer which removed every alternate frame to take away the video sharpness and simulate the look of a film. It was still video it just looked like film.

We also had a situation where the miniatures were shot largely before filming began and finished half way through the shoot - instead of shooting taking place during the series and running into post production. This meant that, when scripts changed, certain shots were irrelevant and equally with some of the later shows we had no shots at all because the miniature unit had wrapped. I don't know who agreed to this. If it was me it was on a day when I wasn't listening. So we had a situation where the budget had been spent and we didn't have all the shots we needed and some of the shots we did have didn't work but everyone had gone onto other stuff. That's why Chris Veale became involved. We desperately needed stuff just to tell the stories - we didn't have the shots.

We actually showed Tikka to Ride in a cinema, on a big movie screen in cinemascope - 1:2.35 and it never looked better. It's a completely different show! It looked like a movie. We showed the series to various live audiences and recorded the laughter, and this will surprise people, everybody's favourite show was Duct Soup. By a mile. Craig, Robert, Chloë - without exception. There was real acting in it, it looked good, the audience loved it... and, well, there you go.

What elements of the series are you pleased with?

I liked Tikka to Ride. It was a shame that a lot of the research got wasted. I researched it for about a month, and then spent six weeks writing it, and a lot of the detail just went - it hit Red Dwarf reality, limitations of budget.

I have to say, I also liked - though it does go on too long - Kryten being jealous, with his squeaky voice, in the 'folding sheets' scene [from Ouroboros]. At the time when I wrote it I really liked it, and I know the fans hated it - but I watched this the other day, and, although it's a bit long, I loved Robert in it. I love the way he's ironing while he's furious, lobbing the shirt about, and I thought Craig was great in that. I thought the acting between them had moved up to a new level. There was a lot more... subtext.

How would you sum up Series VII?

It was a strange series. There was a lot of me taking advice and not listening to the little voice in my head going, 'Are you sure that's a good idea?' It was much easier when Rob was there - for starters, we out-numbered everyone. There were two of us. You can say: 'We think this ...' when actually what you mean is, 'I think this ...' and people back off. Still, it's a lesson I think I've learned now. I listen to the little voice above everyone now. (Laughs)

When we did Series VIII, it was interesting. Everyone said, 'It's got to be single camera again, it looked so good, it's got to be this, it's got to be that' - and I went, "No way. We're going back to a studio audience. We're losing the writing team." A lot of people did think it was a backwards step. But Series VII was too much change too quickly.

Which brings us very neatly on to SERIES VIII...

There was a part of me that always felt - and this was only afterwards - that we could have ended the first series with the stasis leak which wiped out the crew. Because there was a lot of fun to be had with the two lowest guys on the ship doing ship things and getting into trouble with the captain. Sort of 'Bilko in space.' Also, I desperately wanted Mac to be back.

Plus, there are things that we've done with one eye on the movie. Without giving away what we're going to be doing with the movie, there is a degree of experimentation, along the lines of 'what happens with this piece of chemistry?' This character and that character - would there be fun with those two for a scene?

Mr Flibble is sure this is why he wasn't approached for the series. It's not that he's expensive, it's just very hard to get hold of a cheap trailer with a fish-filled pool. That series was also full of multi-part episodes. Was there a reason for that?

That was a budget problem. In the end there were only so many locations we could do. 'We can't do this if you're going to have dinosaurs running around'. That would be one of the things I would change about that series if we were doing it again. I would make eight single stories - or maybe the first three-parter as a two-parter, but after that all singles. The reason single-parters became two-parters was because it was cheaper because we were re-using locations and props and stuff.

The way it works is, the BBC say - after a ton of negotiation - "There's your money, it's 2.7 peanuts or whatever, now go and make the series. But you get no more once you've spent it." But in Red Dwarf, no-one is able to properly cost anything until you start to do it because no-one quite knows what I mean about anything, and a lot of it has never been done on UK TV before. There's nothing to compare it with in terms of cost. So inevitably there's an element of rock 'n' roll about it. The more ambitious you get, the more tricky it is. How much does a dinosaur cost? No-one can tell you outside of the big FX houses, which we can't afford, so someone makes a guess; they turn out to be wrong and then we have to cut costs to claw the money back.

So are there two long-lost Dwarf episode scripts somewhere?

The episodes that were dropped weren't properly finished, written episodes, they were just ideas. I can't even remember what they were now! The decision to make Pete a two-parter was taken quite early.

The ending to that series also changed - from the Dwarfers being left on the abandoned ship (and ignoring Hollister's hail from Blue Midget) to Rimmer facing Death himself...

The "I see no ships" [ending] was never properly done. The ending we have now is much better than the end that was going to be [included]. We re-shot it, as retold in the excellent Series VIII book. (Laughs)

Would the MOVIE have followed Series VIII if you'd been able to return the characters to the regular status quo?

If we'd returned to the status quo it could have gone from there. But there was also a real feeling that we must not make the movie 'Series IX', because then it'd just look like it was a TV movie. The movie has to be a movie-movie and be accessible to both fans and people who don't know Red Dwarf. So it's going to be starting from a different place.

Your first audience for the movie is always the people who are putting up the money, plus the distributors, the people who take your movie and sell it to the different film markets around the world and these people have certain rules for every project. If you don't get past these dudes the movie doesn't get made.

Years ago the producer told me what they would say - which is, 'You've got to have a woman in it, it's no good having just four guys in space.' - hence Kochanski and Series VII. To be honest, I've never bought this argument. To me it's like saying: 'We're re-making The Magnificent Seven - of course at least two of the seven have to be women or no-one will want to go and see it.' The twelve disciples: 'All twelve are guys and Jesus is a guy too, plus God is a guy? This story is never going to work!'

So now we've introduced Kochanski, into the melt, seen what works and doesn't. We have the benefit of knowing what the fans think about certain things, and where the fans views have coincided with my own that's been very helpful. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win the war. Another thing the money guys are against is starting 'in the middle'. It has to be stand alone. There's a certain logic to this, and there is no movie unless you get past these people. It's been tricky at times, but I think we're getting there.

What kind of look will the film have?

It will be [shot on] a combination of film and 24P HD [High-Definition digital, as used on Attack of the Clones]. 24P HD allows us to do more - because we don't get crippled by the huge compositing costs you do on 35mm [film]. But we need to shoot the miniatures, and any sequences with variable frame rate, like slo-mo or fast-mo, on 35mm. We don't have ILM's ability to create all the extra frames required to alter the frame rate, so we're shooting the miniatures on film. So it will be 24P HD and 35 mm. But to everyone who sees it, it will just look like a movie - which is all that matters.

It'll be character-driven, but rich-looking. A world that you can believe exists. I like the first Men in Black, in that it was a comedy and it was cool. Not that there's a huge connection with Red Dwarf, but I did like that it was a cool-looking science fiction comedy. There aren't too many of those. I like Galaxy Quest; I like Back to the Future - the first one - which is an absolute classic.

In terms of the directing style, it's certainly going to look like no Red Dwarf TV series. But to describe that is quite difficult, because the sets aren't built and the locations aren't agreed on yet. But if we get it right, it should look a lot more expensive than it actually cost - but it's not about going, 'Wow, look at this great wide shot, isn't that amazing,' because no-one's interested. You'll get better with Lucas and the Matrix guys. We can't compete with that on our budget and we're not going to try. We have to remember the core - and the core is about the character relations and the comedy.

Has the delay - and the 'false-start' the film had - been frustrating?

It's been the most frustrating thing in my life apart from supporting Man United during the 1970s. The whole thing started with, 'Go and make Series VII and VIII and we'll get the money to make the movie.' So then it was, 'We now have the cheque for the movie, go off and write it.' Which took a while.

Then that company's share price hit the floor - practically as soon as the script hit the desk. And then there's been bank after bank, all of whom fell by the wayside after wasting three or four months of our lives, plus the enormous amount of paperwork. So yes, it's been frustrating, no question.

But now it seems we're finally getting there.

It looks like we're shooting this summer, with a release at Easter the following year.

Which begs the usual fan question - will there be a Series IX?

We're going to do the film, and then see how we feel about whether we do more movies, or Series IX, or specials.

Mr Flibble passed on his agent's details - y'know, just in case. Have you been surprised by how packed the early DVDS have been?

On Red Dwarf we've always tried to give people their money's worth, and I think the DVDs are another example of that. The Red Dwarf VIII Scriptbook was a similar kind of thing. The work that's gone in... I expected that, and I know we'll continue doing it for the remaining DVDs.

I know you were unsure if there would be many deleted scenes in the archive...

Deleted scenes, yes - I didn't remember them. I'd erased them, I think. (Laughs) Actually, my memory was that we never had enough material to delete too much. So there weren't a whole bunch of fantastic sequences that got cut out - we didn't have enough money in the budget to over-shoot.

Finally, I want to talk about your COMEDY influences - and I read recently that you're a fan of Woody Allen.

The moment when Rob and I decided we wanted to be comedy writers was walking into Sleeper. We'd missed the beginning, and I'd been on and on at him to see Woody Allen, this was the fourth or fifth attempt to get him to see this. We'd missed the first fifteen minutes or so, and it was the scene where he was on his first date and there's the slapstick with the record sleeve - and we were both laughing before we sat down. Just walking into the cinema, close to hysterics before we even sat down.

I would skive off college and go and sit on my own in the Aaben Cinema in Hume, which was an arts cinema, and just watch double-bills of Love and Death and Sleeper over and over again. I saw Love and Death thirty times, I think, before I stopped counting. I'd get furious at people behind me going, 'Hey, that wasn't bad for a B-movie.' Foam would be coming out of my mouth... (Laughs)

There was a book by Eric Lax ['On Being Funny'] which I read and read while I was at Liverpool University. Over and over and over again. It was Woody Allen's... sort of 'three months in the life'. I was fascinated by that. Then I got all his stand-up stuff sent from America, which was fabulous stuff. Through all that, I fed into Bergman and all his influences, and then found out who Sid Caesar was, read about Jack Benny, Mel Brooks, read all the Neil Simon plays. They were all connected, and that was really my comedy education.

What kind of things have impressed you recently?

I remember when I saw the first episode of The Office, and read a review saying how terrible it was. The next day I had a meeting with a music publisher and I asked if he'd seen it. He said, "Yeah, what did you think?" I said, "Well, I've just read a review that said it's rubbish, so I can promise you it's going to be huge. The fact that it's so good and the critics don't understand it yet means it's destined for greatness." (Laughs) So I think that's great. I also like Peter Kay, Phoenix Nights. And I want Johnny Vegas to have my babies.

Those are very 'real life' kinds of comedy. Is there any of your real life in Red Dwarf? You're a golfer yourself, and it does seem to suggest a connection to Lister's lost virginity in Marooned.

Lister's sex on a golf course was based on a real experience that one of the writers had, who wasn't me. (Laughs) Naming no names... and he was much older than Lister claimed he was, obviously.

So was your reaction Rimmer's reaction?

I think it probably was actually, yes - think it was a real conversation. "On a golf course?" "Yeah." "Seriously?!" "Yeah." "In a bunker?!" "Yeah." (Laughs) And I was thinking, 'My Dad's a member of that club, bloody hell, I bet he didn't rake the bunker!'

Mr Flibble enjoyed talking to Doug, and now that it's over... Mr Flibble is very cross.

Doug Naylor