"To try and make Rimmer funny was always going to be a challenge," says Chris Barrie about the role he took on six years ago, "because he's such - certainly then more than he is now - an unpleasant git. Totally without any sympathy at all."
Chris auditioned for both Lister and Rimmer back in the show's infancy, but he obviously impressed the Producers with his ability to find the comedy in Rimmer's character. "Once you're over the fact that he is dead and everything, that is not strong enough in many ways to feel sympathy for him," says Chris. "He came across as being very nasty sometimes, so it was always a challenge to make something so grotesque and ugly and unattractive, amusing."
Like the rest of the cast, Chris came from an entertainment background, but found himself in a role which the creators had originally intended to be played by a traditional actor. "I heard Alfred Molina had been offered my part at one point," he recalls. "It would have been interesting if it had been cast with Luvvies, you know - traditional Luvvies, and not the smeg heads that eventually took the roles!"
When Red Dwarf first hit British TV screens in 1988, Chris was predominantly known as an impressionist. He had worked on several shows with Red Dwarf writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor before being cast as Rimmer. "I always knew they were working on this project they kept pretty quiet," says Chris.
"I always thought they were thinking of another actor for it, for the main Lister part, who I thought was Nick Wilton at the time. When I worked with Nick Wilton on Carrott's Lib, he kept saying things like, 'there's a project I might be doing with Rob and Doug' - so the only thing it could be, presumably, is Red Dwarf. So I didn't know anything about it at all. I went along to the auditions, like many people that they'd worked with, because they knew us and it might be a good place to start auditioning people, with people, with people that you know."
Chris was attracted to the show from the start, but acknowledges the early scripts had weaknesses as well as strengths. "It was a funny script, or an interesting script," he admits. "They were then saying 'most of the jokes in this are going to be character jokes'.
I think they may have over-estimated the strength of character jokes in a first series of something. It does take a couple of series for the audience to build up and know the characters, to laugh at the character gags. Eventually the characters started to work better in the second series."
The first six episodes didn't get high enough ratings to guarantee a second series, but Chris says he wasn't surprised that the BBC commissioned more Red dwarf. "I was on tenter-hooks as to whether they would do a second series, but relieved I think that they had the sense to do one, because I think with such an
interesting idea, they would be fools not to pursue it. I have faith in the BBC for always giving things two chances because the old ITV as we know and love it, used to give something one series and then if it didn't get twenty-five million-billion people watching it, they'd say 'bugger that'! Whereas the BBC at least give things a second crack.
Both BBC programmes I've done, lets face it, both Red Dwarf and Brittas were not fault-free in their first series, they had a few dodgy bits, ideas and concepts about them which were usually put right in the second series, which is natural."
It also took time to develop Rimmer's character. The underlying sadness that explains Rimmer's smeg head nature wasn't part of the early shows. "I think that was something they homed in on in the second series and since. In the first series he just came across as an ambitious, nasty, ruthless kind of anally-retentive oik - which he comes across as now. But we've learnt more about his very tragic position and lots of juxtaposition type things, like his brothers and his family background put it into perspective.I think the whole thing's changed again now, in the last series - four, five and six, particularly five and six - where the characters are not being explored as much as they used to be. So all that side of Rimmer, about his sad family background and so on is supposedly at the back of the audience's minds, and the same with the other characters.
We now know their backgrounds, and now the superficial surface of the characters we know is 'popping' - is working to serve the plots. So it would be nice to have more reminders of their backgrounds and things, but the way the style of the show is now, it takes up time."
With the filming of Red Dwarf VI just completed, Chris Barrie has now played Rimmer in thirty six episodes, but he denies there is much similarity between himself and the hologram. "Not really," he says. "I think there's a bit of Rimmer in everyone. We're all a bit selfish, we're all a bit fussy on occasions. I hope I'm not that kind of person. He really is a slime ball. But obviously, there's a little bit of me (in him), but I'm a lot more sensitive. He does the things that some people think in the back of their mind, but then they would never concede. Like, if you see an insect that's had its wings clipped or whatever walking across the floor,
a lot of people would see it and would think subconsciously somewhere, "I could just put that thing out
of its misery now by stamping on it'. Rimmer probably would do that and get an enormous amount of pleasure out of it. Whereas I, Chris, would probably go 'no, he's still alive, he can still enjoy walking', I'd let it live."
From Red Dwarf's long and varied history, Chris picks out Future Echoes as one of the highlights of the earlier years: "That was clever, I like that stuff. That was easily my favourite of the first series when we did it." He also singles out Better Than Life and Timeslides as good episodes. But, not surprisingly, it's Dimension Jump which comes out on top. "(That's) probably my favourite of the whole thing because it was a joy to wear that wig and to play such a winner."
In Dimension Jump, Ace is the version of Rimmer who succeeded in everything the hologramatic Rimmer failed at. Ace is one of the most memorable characters to appear in the Red Dwarf Universe, but Chris says he only worked because he could play against the more familiar version of Rimmer. "Really in many ways he's not as funny as Rimmer-Rimmer because he's straight and decent, there's no special reason for him to say funny or interesting things, so I think you always need smeg head Rimmer to keep the friction going, to feel the comedy."
Playing an alternative version of Rimmer meant Christ had to create an alternative persona. "I just thought I'd make him sort of a city boy," he says. "A yuppy kind of character with a slight internationally American kind of feel to it. But very obviously an English boy who's done well and joined the Space corps and not public school, but sort of good grammar school and good at everything. Mr. Popular, but with a conscience. A little bit of Sean Connery thrown in there, and the whole character generally was a bit of a James Bond figure anyway."
But it was the striking costume that put the finishing touches to Ace. "I'm one of these people who puts on a costume, (and) it does help you for some weird reason. Like doing Rimmer, putting on that uniform you feel more like Rimmer, like a wanker, like a prattish, pernickety, fussy I don't know why. Ace, when you put on the wig and you've got the whole flick going and you've got that funny silver outfit. The outfit - it was just so wild it was good! It wasn't actually what I'd thought of; I'd thought of a more traditional American jet-fighter pilot sort of thing and make that spacey. But Howard (Burden - the Costume Designer) did a very imaginative job and I don't know what I feel when I put that uniform on, but it was more the wig and the glasses and the Californian tan."
The transformation was such a success that he found even people on the set reacted differently to him. "It was quite extraordinary," says Chris. "Women who'd reacted to me as a bit of a tosser before, you could visibly see them looking at me - it was the kind of look you'd expect to get from a girl. Now I know what it must have been like for Robert Redford or Paul Newman in their heyday. (Women would say) 'Chris you look better like that'. Someone like Andria (Pennell - the Make-up Designer) would say something like, 'Chris, you're quite shaggable in that wig!' "
One of the more trying scenes in Dimension Jump was an effects shot set up by Peter Wragg and his team, where Ace and Lister have to fix Starbug in a raging storm that included a heck of a lot of water. "That wasn't very pleasant," says Chris. "I couldn't bloody breathe at one point, I was drowning, I had to have a bit of a rest. Bloody wind machine! It was fun. Old Wraggy, he kept up the old effects."
Body Swap in the third series also depended very much on the actors to pull off the comedy, as Chris Barrie and Craig Charles had to become each other's characters. "It was a laugh, sort of imitating Craig," says Chris. He spent most of the episode impersonating Craig's Liverpudlian accent so when Craig dubbed his own voice onto the tape, it fitted Chris's lip movements. "I think I was getting on his nerves, though, because he kept walking around going 'do I really sound like that, man? Do I sound as whining and stupid as that?' and people would go 'well, actually Craig' "
As the show has developed, Chris laments the passing of some of the elements from the old series, like the more dialogue orientated scenes and the Skutters. "The Skutters, where have they gone?" he sighs. "They were quite a laugh, but by God they took time. If they'd been used in this series we'd still be there now shooting it! I mean, they were not best behaved at the best of times, but they were fun when you did get the Skutters, like on the old series (Parallel Universe) where you got the Skutters with lots of little Skutters. That was quite fun.
"They were like a sort of bad racing car set, they had a mind of their own, really unpredictable. You'd get the classic thing of (Director) Ed Bye saying, 'now Pete, will this Skutter do this, will it go over there, get the note and deliver it onto the chair? Can it do that?' Peter (Wragg)'s going, 'yeah, well it did that many times in the store room, so there's no reason why it shouldn't do it here.' And lo and behold the Skutter goes" Chris imitates a Skutter going out of control by waving his arms around and collapsing on the chair. "(Then) all the smoke starts to come through! Very funny."
Sadly, the Skutters don't appear in the new series, but Chris still predicts Red Dwarf VI will be "probably one of the best". Although he hasn't yet seen the episodes in their finished form, he thinks the top episodes will be Gunmen of the Apocalypse and Polymorph II - Emohawk. BBC schedulers permitting, we only have until the Autumn to find out if he is right.