Tales From BBC North West’s Scene Dock

Sometimes, if I put on my magenta-tinted spectacles, I think that the most fun I ever had with Red Dwarf was in 1994. That was the very first time I watched the series, and indeed the very first time the show had been repeated from the beginning at all. So I could blithely enjoy the show without being troubled by what other people thought of it… or specifically, what the writers thought of it.

So the fact that Rob Grant and Doug Naylor hated the grey sets by production designer Paul Montague in the first two series of Dwarf was unknown to me. I really liked them. I also liked the new sets from Series III onwards, by Mel Bibby. I just… liked Red Dwarf an awful lot. And Grant Naylor poking fun at the sets of their own show in Me² (TX: 21/3/88) entirely passed me by.

LISTER: But why are they painting the corridor the same colour it was before?
RIMMER: They’re changing it from Ocean Grey to Military Grey. Something that should’ve been done a long time ago.
LISTER: Looks exactly the same to me.
RIMMER: No. No, no, no. That’s the new Military Grey bit there, and that’s the dowdy, old, nasty Ocean Grey bit there. (beat) Or is it the other way around?

Truth be told, I still love those early Red Dwarf sets, and no amount of people who actually worked on the show slagging them off will change that. In particular, I think the endless permutations of the same basic sections did a really good job at selling the ship as something genuinely huge, and I don’t think this is acknowledged enough. I didn’t even mind the swing bin.

Ah, yes, the famous swing bin. Of all the elements made fun of with those first two series, this one is a perennial. You can see it in action during the very first episode, “The End” (TX: 15/2/88), in McIntyre’s funeral:

It is undeniable: McIntyre’s remains are blasted into space through the medium of a kitchen swing bin, built into a circular table-like object. The commentary on this scene in the 2007 DVD release The Bodysnatcher Collection is brutal:

DOUG NAYLOR: The idea of this is was that it’s supposed to be quite moving, wasn’t it?
ROB GRANT: Yeah, I liked this scene in the script, because it was tender, and a different tone.
DOUG NAYLOR: Yes, but obviously it’s not working as conceived? Now first of all…
ROB GRANT: The canister.
DOUG NAYLOR: The canister, and then the… kitchen bin.
ROB GRANT: Just fantastic! But he pressed that button good, that’s good button-pressing acting… I mean, what is that? It’s not even a good bin, is it?
DOUG NAYLOR: And because there’s nothing in the bottom of the kitchen bin, it just thuds to the bottom, and I think eventually they put tissues in so it didn’t make that terrible clanking noise.
ROB GRANT: Oh dear Lord.

The above scene did actually go out as part of the first episode. But our notorious swing bin also played a big part in what has become one of the most famous deleted scenes in the whole history of Red Dwarf. Shot during the original recording of the first episode, but cut from transmission, we see Lister trying to give a respectful send-off to the crew.

Rimmer’s “What a guy. What a sportsman” is one of the great lost lines of Red Dwarf, as far as I’m concerned. Swing bin or no.

So, what happened to our notorious prop, after the first episode was completed? Well, it hung around in the Drive Room set for the rest of the series, sometimes used as a table whenever the need arose:

But once those first six episodes were over, that was it. Series 1 was recorded at the tail end of 1987; when Series 2 started recording in May 1988, not only was our famous swing bin prop nowhere to be seen, but the entire Drive Room set had been replaced, with something rather less… grey.

Surely our swing bin was never to be seen again?

*   *   *

It is perhaps not widely known that the production of early series of ChuckleVision and Red Dwarf were intertwined. But intertwined they were.

At this point, ChuckleVision was a bit of a different beast than it became; it was a studio-based show, albeit with heavy location elements, rather than a fully location show. And Series 1 of ChuckleVision was shot in BBC Manchester’s Studio A around the same time as Series 1 Red Dwarf, in the last half of 1987.¹ ChuckleVision was in studio just five days before Red Dwarf started shooting, and was still recording five days after Series 1 of Dwarf had been completed.

And when Series 2 of ChuckleVision was recorded in the same studio the following year, in October 1988, it gained a new member of crew: a certain Paul Montague, the production designer of Red Dwarf. Who had finished Series 2 of Dwarf just three months previously.

Same studio, same production designer, same year? You’ve figured out my thought process by now, surely. Let’s take a look at the ChuckleVision episode “U.F.O” (TX: 14/1/89) and see what we can find…

Oh, hello there. Repainted from grey to cream, and with a a whacking great telescope stuck on top, but that base is clearly the same prop as Red Dwarf.

And in case there was any doubt… there’s our swing bin in plain view on the side. Painted the same colour as the rest of the prop to try and hide it, but once you know it’s there, it’s obvious.

I need a lie down now.

*   *   *

So once you know that one part of Red Dwarf had been reused in ChuckleVision, it’s a small step to guess that there might be some other links between the two shows.

Sure enough, in the ChuckleVision episode “Music” (TX: 10/12/88), we get a glimpse of the same set used in Rimmer’s dream in “Thanks for the Memory” (TX: 20/9/88):

In the Christmas special episode of ChuckleVision (TX: 24/12/88), we get a glimpse of the set used in “Better than Life” (TX: 13/9/88), where Admiral Rimmer holds court at dinner²:

And that’s seemingly your lot.

OK, so I admit, I was hoping that the whole original Drive Room set would show up in ChuckleVision at some point, but never mind. These small clues are the best sense we can get of the resonating history of Red Dwarf‘s production in Manchester. I mean, save for an actual Red Dwarf script stuck to the wall or something.

Oh.

With thanks to David Brunt, Darrell Maclaine and Tanya Jones.

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1. For more about Red Dwarf‘s life in Studio A at Manchester, see this article. ↩

2. This one is particularly interesting, because the Red Dwarf scene here was actually shot on location, rather than in the studio. The production actually took some wall pieces out to Sachas Hotel to record the sequence. This weird blending of location and set I find very pleasing. ↩

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