Casting

Series XI had assembled one of the most impressive guest casts in Red Dwarf's history. For Series XII... encore.

Johnny Vegas was perhaps one of the highest-profile comedy stars ever to make a guest appearance on the show - and what was especially gratifying was that the comedian declared that doing so was "a big old tick off the bucket list". Johnny had actually been filming Still Open All Hours in the studio next door to Series XI, and so was delighted to get the call to hop over a couple of months later and appear in Timewave. He was joined in the episode by Jamie Chapman as Ziggy, and Paul Leonard as the Guru.

Appearing as Aniter in M-Corp, Helen George was already known to Doug Naylor and casting director Linda Glover after appearing in Doug's Over to Bill. She threw herself into the role with relish, likening the terrifying AI persona to "one of those women who work on the desk in an airport, when they're telling you really bad news about your flight, but they still have a smile on their face because they really don't care!"

Cured saw a famous face from the BBC's Pride and Prejudice - Adrian Lukis and his distinctive voice had given life to that series' Mr Wickham - alongside a rising star who just happened to be an enormous Red Dwarf fan. Ryan Gage was best known for appearing in The Musketeers and two of the Hobbit movies, but he wasn't on the show's radar until getting in touch with the Naylors on social media to express thanks for Red Dwarf giving him so much joy.

Deciding to cast him in the show, Doug and Richard initially struggled to find a role for him - until Linda made the left-field suggestion of Hitler. It proved to be an inspired choice, with the regular cast singling him out for particular praise, due to his surprisingly sympathetic performance and dedication to honing his mannerisms. Cured's larger-than-usual guest cast was filled out by Chloe Hawkins as Messalina, Callum Coates as Stalin and Philippe Spall as Vlad the Impaler.

Another long-time Red Dwarf fan making an appearance in Series XII was Ian Boldsworth. Under his then-stage name of Ray Peacock, Ian had been the show's warmup throughout the last three series - in the process winning the hearts of the show's audiences and the main crew. Following in the footsteps of predecessor Tony Hawks, Ian made the step-up from warmup to cast member by playing M-Corp's computer-generated friend Steve, after spending several of his recording nights joking about sneaking himself onto the set as a secret character!

Siliconia required several new faces to play a wide range of mechanoids - among them Richard Glover (Into the Woods) as Wind, Marcus Garvey (Four Lions) as Excalibur, and Laura Checkley (Detectorists) as Areto. Another famous name from recent British comedy, James Buckley of The Inbetweeners and fellow UKTV and Babycow stablemate Zapped popped up too, in the role of Rusty.

Series XII wasn't quite as heavy on voice-only parts as Series XI had been, but there were still a range of ship-based devices that needed voicing. Having already played a whopping four roles in XI, the versatile Daniel Barker returned to play one of the vending machines in Mechocracy - with the others performed by Penelope Freeman (voice of the lifts and the "Gosh!" lady back in Officer Rimmer) and Oliver Maltman. Oliver also returned for M-Corp, in the memorable role of "Chippy" the diagnostic machine.

And then, of course, there were the returnees from the BBC era - three of them in all. David Ross had pretty much retired from acting by the time Mechocracy came around, but jumped at the chance to return as Talkie Toaster. His lines were recorded from his local BBC Radio studio in Blackburn, and he admitted to needing to be sent a recording of his original performance to remember how to play it - but when he did so, it was like he'd never been away.

Norman Lovett and Mac McDonald had their appearances in Skipper kept tightly under wraps all the way to recording night - leading to some quite spectacular reactions from the watching audience on both counts. Danny John-Jules described the round of laughter and applause that greeted Norman's reveal as being "like an earthquake", while Craig Charles joked that the cast could have "gone for a tea break" while waiting for it to die down.