Dimension Jump X
Saturday
Putting questions to the cast of Red Dwarf is a serious business. Fans get merely seconds to probe the psyche of their favourite performers. Thankfully, Freudian analysis was kept to a minimum as Hattie Hayridge took the stage for her Q&A.
Hattie is a fan favourite - you know she's enjoying the gig every bit as much as you are, regardless of some occasionally odd fan reactions. "This bloke came up to me and said, 'I'm glad I've seen you live, because I thought you were Norman Lovett in a wig'!" Still, her recent career is nothing if not...unconventional. "I've been writing for Julian Clary, and I've been supporting Puppetry of the Penis." No giggling, thank you.
Having met at the Comedy Store, Hattie Hayridge and Lee Cornes have known each other for years. As most fans know, Lee played science teacher Mr Hankin in Grange Hill - all the more surprising when you learn that he's a science teacher himself. "That's cheating!" Hattie bemoaned. "There's no acting at all." Lee agreed that it did cause a few problems. "It's all very confusing for the...less able children."
Out in June, Lee is also one of the writing team for the Mr Bean animated series. But it's not all silent comedy - he's also prone to fart jokes, as the crackling microphone allowed him to demonstrate. "This is worse than being with Les Dennis in the Big Brother house," Hattie complained, before regaling the crowd with a story about the time she was mistaken for, um, Jonathan Ross, and Lee denied that he had been approached to play Harry Potter.
Who would they most and least like to be locked in a room with? "Obviously," Lee said, "I'd like to be trapped in a room with my wife." Aaahhh. "She's not here," Hattie pointed out. "She won't find out." Lee wasn't so sure: "There's cameras here - there's evidence!" And who would Hattie least like to be trapped with? "It would have to be Lee...with no air vent."
Among the other topics covered were comedy heroes, Lee's rather dangerous appearance in Dr Who, the problems of banana continuity (don't ask) and favourite episodes. (Hattie's is Marooned, by the way.)
From heckler to centre stage, it was the turn next of Norman Lovett, accompanied by his daughters, Kitty and Lily. Norman, of course, is extremely comfortable with being on stage. "I can do this without a microphone," he boasted. "But you need a bit of projection. It's a bit early for projection." The innuendo police were apparently called.
Having picked a smattering of favourite scenes - the Holly Hop drive, decimalising music, the garbage pod hoax, the dog's milk (all very much Holly moments, please note) - Norman discussed his use of autocue. "I never learned my lines. I did one or two, but I always had autocue...It took pressure off, because they knew I wouldn't mess up. I did anyway..."
Describing his desire to be a floating head rather than the originally conceived voiceover as "pure ego", the lack of audience on his Series VIII scenes as feeling "very strange", and the jokes made at his expense by Danny and Craig on the DVD cast commentary track as fine because "I'm funnier than the pair of them", he was very honest about his reputation on-set for being a "pain in the arse". "I think I'm better now. Ask my daughters." The two girls responded with a simple, "No." Norman shrugged, "If people get upset with me, I get upset back. Otherwise I couldn't be nicer...I don't think I could kill anyone anymore."
Kitty Lovett is becoming quite the stand-up comic herself, having recently come runner-up in a competition with all her own material. Now she sometimes appears with her dad. "She demanded to do stand-up in my show, and when she demands, you give her what she wants." And what was her reward for the performances? "Five pounds a night. She bought a tortoise."
"We're not doing the [Edinburgh] festival this year," Norman announced. "I wanted to," Kitty sulked. Still, pestering from the crowd meant that the unprepared ten-year-old even agreed to do a short set that evening. People power!
What did Norman make of the American pilot? A pause, until a confused Norman responded: "I thought you were asking about the war for a minute." He wasn't keen on the finished show. "Once you've made your Marmite, you can't make another Marmite."
Discussion ranged from the extra hair applied to his head for the remastering process, the benefits of appearing on-screen with arms and legs, and the potential for an autobiography (some of which could appear on Norman's forthcoming website), and eventually reached the recasting of the Holly role in 1989. "Kathy Burke went up for it. She said, 'I can't do these lines, they're Norman's.'
Much mileage was made of Norman buying coconut hair gel at Body Shop and the assistant's reaction - "I knew inside she was laughing...so I punched her lights out" - and a fan wearing a Holly T-shirt. "That's wearing out with washing, isn't it? What temperature do you do it at? 40 degrees? Good. Don't go above that." Sage advice.
Chris Barrie was up next, and was straight in with a straw poll about Tomb Raider. "I didn't think there was enough of the butler in it." The crowd agreed, though it seems he's more prevalent in Tomb Raider 2. "Of the four month shoot, I was in it for 38 days, 12 of which were in Kenya....You always get one cool scene," he added, referring to his shotgun moment in the first film, "and this time I get stick fighting."
What was his first reaction when doing the DVD commentaries? "Blimey, what a pasty-faced, skinny git!" Chris also recalls headaches from the Stasis Leak script. "I think I spent most of the day going, 'Which Rimmer am I? And Craig going, 'Chris - don't ask.'" He also had trouble recalling the title of the episode which featured robotic historical figures. "Waxworld...No, Meltdown. Yes, I was on Red Dwarf honest!"
But the Dwarf conversation had to be halted while the cry went up for impressions. Old favourites like Kenneth Williams and Brian Clough were joined by Tony Blair, William Hague and David Beckham. "David, what are your impressions of Iraq? 'Oh, they're a great place to keep your CDs.'"
But back to the show - what were his finest Rimmer moments? "Being in bed with Nirvanah Crane - played, of course, by Jane Horrocks. That was sort of...fine-ish." He smirked. Then there was the failure of the hollogrammatic H to stay fixed on Chris's forehead. "In the early days it used to fall off a lot - usually at a vital moment in the recording, when Danny John-Jules was going to wake up and do a punchline..."
Stickyness became a bit of a theme in the end, with a surreal problem facing Chris at one interval. "I've dropped the Blu Tack.... Why have I got Blu Tack? Where did I find Blu Tack?" Clearly bemused, he chose to drop it again.
What would Chris be doing if he weren't an actor? "I would be normal," he answered confidently. "Instead of abnormal but happy. I tried to be an estate agent for a while...but I couldn't help but feel like a cheating liar." Is it true that he was sacked from Harrods for a practical joke? "I wasn't sacked for one big practical joke. It was a series of practical jokes."
Chris, it seems had a tendency to arrange things by phone using the voices of his bosses. "I got a formal warning...then I got another one for cycling around the shop. That was my second warning. Then it was perennial lateness." He might have gone further, but for a ringing in the audience. Chris was unphased. "That'll be the phone. Message: 'R U still listening to that boring arsehole Chris Barrie?'"
Following the revelation that The Brittas Empire might finally be getting a DVD release, and that Nick Wilton from Son Of Cliché was up for the part of Lister, Chris finished up with more questions about cars than were, frankly, necessary. Still, it got our engines running for Saturday night.
