Mark Layton talks to the returning cast of Red Dwarf, a decade after the sci-fi sitcom disappeared into the black hole of history.

IN SPACE, nobody can hear you shout “Smeg”

but there’s bound to be more than a few people audibly screaming with joy at the return of Red Dwarf. Fans will be treated to the first batch of new episodes in ten years, thanks to the Dave channel making its first foray into original scripted programming.

Red Dwarf: Back To Earth is a three-part series, reuniting Dave Lister (Craig Charles), Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), the Cat (Danny John-Jules) and Kryten (Robert Llewellyn).

As the title suggests, the new episodes see the inept crew finally achieve their goal, but in true Red Dwarf fashion, nothing is quite as it seems.

In the opening instalment, the gang are up to their old tricks, plodding around the universe in the grossly under-populated mining ship, until the discovery of a dimension-hopping creature in the ship’s water tank threatens to change everything.

Such a long hiatus may make it surprising that the show ever came back at all, but Craig Charles says it has taken a step beyond its sitcom beginnings.

“This is Red Dwarf for the 21st Century, this is not a situation comedy, this is comedy drama. It looks like it’s shot on film, it looks like a film,” he says.

“The performances are a lot more considered, it’s not us running around shouting at each other and insulting each other any more, there’s a lot of emotion, a lot of pathos.”

Whereas earlier shows were filmed in front of a live studio audience, Craig says the new series has a more modern approach.

“Comedy has moved on and people don’t need to be prompted when to laugh or to be told what’s funny, they’ll find it funny if they find it funny.”

For those who don’t know their skutters from their holoships, or their Blue Midgets from their Talkie Toasters, then here’s a brief recap.

Third technician Dave Lister was the lowest-ranking crewmember on the city-sized mining spaceship Red Dwarf, who, in the first episode, was sentenced to be placed in suspended animation for the duration of the voyage after smuggling a cat on board.

However, during his incarceration, shoddy workmanship on the part of his loathed bunkmate and immediate superior, Arnold Rimmer, led to a radiation leak that wiped out the entire crew.

The onboard computer, Holly (originally played by Norman Lovett and later Hattie Hayridge), released Lister three million years later.

Now the last human being in existence, Lister was joined by a hologram reincarnation of Rimmer; Cat, an evolved descendant of his former pet, and the service mechanoid Kryten.

Setting course for the distant Earth, the crew faced time distortions, white holes, marauding cyborgs, bizarre genetically engineered life forms and even amoral future versions of their own selves along the way.

The last time we saw the gang they were trying to escape into a parallel reality and Rimmer had just kneed the Grim Reaper in the groin.

John-Jules says the Cat is “pretty much the same guy. I was certainly wearing the same costume. Well, one of them is the exact costume I was wearing ten years ago, so I just slipped straight back into it. I actually had two new ones made. The Cat always has to be a bit shiny.

“We were all at Shepperton the other day and looked at the viewing figures from 1997. There we were at the top of BBC2 and we were looking at people that were 15 or 20 places below us who had just signed £5m deals at the BBC and stuff like that. We’d never been so much as invited in for a cup of tea.”

Llewellyn adds: “There was a lot of talk and a lot of meetings about the movie and then in 2001 we started rehearsals for the movie and we had the script, which is brilliant – I’m so annoyed we never did it.

“I think it was just the financial struggle, to raise the money to do it. And then it kind of went off the boil for us.

“From what I can gather, the Dave thing happened very quickly. Dave had been showing repeats of Red Dwarf, which had been getting staggering figures and I think they were then looking to commission original material, and that was on the top of their list.”

Barrie is hopeful that the show is now back to stay.

“I think there’s very much a feeling that this could be a new beginning. Obviously, there are a lot of ifs and buts hanging around, but we all think it’s going to be absolutely fantastic when it goes out,” he says.

“I think it’s some of the best Red Dwarf we’ve ever done, and, as I say, a lot of people on the inside think that as well, and given that, this could be the launching pad for a lot more.”

■ Red Dwarf: Back To Earth, Dave, tomorrow, 9pm