Smegheads unite! Today I joined 300 or so fans for the Red Dwarf convention, held at the Rydges Hotel in Melbourne, to see three of the show's main actors: Craig Charles (Lister), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) and Danny John-Jules (Cat). Red Dwarf being my fave show of all time apart from The Simpsons, I couldn't pass this one up.
I'm not what you'd call a regular convention attendee. In fact this was only my fifth one. Previously I'd been to Perth's first Wai-Con (December 2004), Manifest (September 2006), Animania (April 2007) and Armageddon Multimedia Expo (October 2007). I got to meet Billy West at one of those. Try to guess which one. You might be pleasantly surprised. Or not. However, my love of collecting little toys and other kitschy items from Japan and other Asian countries has not waned in the least.
Event manager Scotty Liston had organized the show well and after he welcomed everyone we had our paid photo ops. I couldn't afford a photo with all three guys, so I chose to have my photo taken with Craig Charles. "Hi Craig, nice to meet you," I said as I stepped in front of the photographer's backdrop. "You too, man," he replied. Good stuff.
I can't remember when I first saw Red Dwarf on TV. I was no longer living in England when it first aired there in February 1988 – 25 years ago. Some of my high school friends watched it, but I still hadn't. I think it was on a trip to England in December 1996 when I finally saw an episode. In 2008, I bought all the DVDs and was a definite fan. So to see the Boys From The Dwarf in person was well worth it.
Danny brought a little spray canister, like the Cat uses. "Just making everything mine," he said, spraying various things on stage. He told us in detail how his character emerged, his previous experiences in Australia, and sang a song from
Cats, which he appeared in in 1983. When he first appeared, someone called out "Hi Duane!" In the character voice, he replied "Duane? Duane Dibbley? I don't wanna be Duane Dibbley! He's a dork!"
Like Danny, Robert was extremely funny and did some great voice impersonations (including Craig), but it was a real treat to hear him do his Kryten voice – and an Australian Kryten. At home he is involved in energy conservation, telling us about his electric car, rooftop solar panels and pet chickens he had rescued from being battery hens.
Right from the off, Craig made us laugh almost continuously. It didn't take long to realize this guy
is Dave Lister. No pretense here; he told us "You only need to spend five minutes in my company to realize I'm not acting!" After touching on his early years as a poet (and a couple of his poems), he moved on to Red Dwarf's early days, including reciting a bad review word for word. "Those words are burned on my soul!" he said.
Whoever that reviewer was, they can suck the big one – Red Dwarf is still going strong after 25 years. Here's to its continued success, smeg'ead.
