The Man In the Rubber Mask

by Robert Llewellyn

  The floor manager said, ‘Quiet on the floor please,’ and moments later Ed shouted, ‘Aaaaaand Action!’

  Without missing a beat, everyone in the studio heard Louis say to his mum, ‘You’ve got to be quiet now, mum!’

  Perfect, much laughter, poor little Louis obviously rather confused.

  Due to the availability or otherwise of the T-72 tank, we had delayed the exterior shoot for Kryten’s intervention into the Jane Austen World AR game.

  On the big day, we gathered by a lake at a Surrey army camp where a wonderful gazebo had been built right by the water. It was a very hot day and as soon as I was fully made-up, Andrea made a rather unusual suggestion.

  ‘Robert, you’re going to get very hot today. I know you’re excited about your little tank, but you do need to keep cool. Why don’t you go and sit in the freezer trailer.’

  I discovered that the catering truck had a large trailer to store food that was actually a mobile freezer. Andrea asked if I could sit in it to cool down, they were fine about it.

  So, I was sitting in the dark, in a freezer, in pants, vest and rubber head when I felt the whole trailer start to wobble. This movement was accompanied by a low rumble that gradually grew louder.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said to myself. ‘The T-72’s here.’

  I dashed out of the trailer and ran to the track we had arrived on. Sure enough, there was a massive Russian tank rumbling toward me. I followed it through the woods until it arrived next to the gazebo.

  One of the crew later informed me that he believed he would never see anything more bizarre to his dying day than a Russian tank approaching him followed by a half-naked man sporting a square rubber head.

  We then set about shooting the moment Kryten comes out of the lake in the tank and informs the rest of the crew that ‘dinner is served’. This brief moment of screen-time took ages; getting the tank into the water was a challenge, the engine had to be kept running to operate the pumps, the noise was deafening, no one could hear anything, but eventually that part was done.

  Then we all had to retire to the far side of the lake as the special effects chaps got to work rigging up Mr Bingley’s gazebo for the detonation shot. What we didn’t know was that due to the excitement our presence had created on the army base, some of the explosives chaps from the army lent a hand. Well, more accurately, they lent us some Semtex ribbon, or demolition tape I believe they call it. They use it for blowing up bridges and stuff, big explosions, they love it, it’s all normal to blow stuff up in the army, that’s what we pay them to do.

  After what seemed like a long wait, we sat on the far bank of the peaceful lake. I was watching the moorhens and ducks paddle about. A warning horn sounded and suddenly Mr Bingley’s gazebo was launched into low orbit. When things blow up on telly it’s usually just flash powder and maybe a bit of petrol. It doesn’t make a lot of noise, that’s all added afterwards. This was not the case with Mr Bingley’s gazebo. It made a lot of noise. The shock wave hit us like a frenzied rugger bugger, people screamed, especially Chloë Annett.

  We watched as bits of burning debris fell all around. We watched as the top of a tree came crashing to earth. We listened as car and burglar alarms went off for miles around. We also watched as some local residents came into the public area of the camp to explain that windows had broken in their houses. Mr Bingley’s gazebo, I think we can proudly claim, set the bar for on-screen explosions. It was a monster.

  When we’d finished recording series 7, I’m sure there was a wrap party. I’m sure everyone hugged everyone and thanked them for being so lovely, that’s what we do in showbiz, but I truly don’t remember anything about it.

  The next thing for me was the birth of my wonderful daughter who also came into this world under water, but this time in a birthing pool at home.

  When she was still a tiny mite in a basket, we all gathered at a screening room in London where a large audience were shown the first four episodes of the new series. Their laughter was recorded to be laid on the sound track later and this is the nearest Red Dwarf has ever come to canned laughter.

  We repeated the event a week later, for the last four episodes and my chief memory of this event is trying to control my son who was doing a lot of four-year-old play-fighting with Craig’s son Jack, who would then have been about ten. He was very patient with my son and they wrestled and giggled and fell about in heaps for hours, neither of them the least bit interested in watching either of their dads on a big screen.

  Now many hardcore Red Dwarf aficionados have said they didn’t like series 7; they thought it had lost a lot of the original strengths of the previous six series. I can see why they said that but I think now, after many years to reflect, it had some brilliant ideas in it that were carried out incredibly well. Without question, the cast all prefer to perform in front of an audience but I think series 7 was a very brave experiment that came very close to being brilliant.

  Chapter 10

  1998 started with a dizzying hive of Red Dwarf-related activity. Once again, I spent Christmas and New Year in Australia with Judy and the kids. Christmas in Australia has a unique flavour and I have to say I loved every minute.

  I spent all the time with the kids, doing kid things: going swimming, making things, reading stories and cooking. We went for long walks in the rainforest – think I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, only with pushchairs. In fact the I’m a Celeb series is made just down the road from Judy’s mum’s. Well, down the road in Australia terms, which means about forty miles away.

  We had travelled to Australia separately due to my work commitments. Judy left first with our son Louis, he was then four years old and loved flying in the big aeroplane. I constantly remind him now he is an incredibly over-privileged kid to have had that experience. He doesn’t agree with me.

  However, on this trip the poor little lad developed a lung infection on the flight and spent four days in a hospital in Singapore. Massive stress and anxiety, many midnight phone calls, but thankfully he pulled through and they went on to Australia.

  I was left with our delightful, easy to manage, one-year-old daughter, but I was still quietly grumbling to myself that I had drawn the short straw.

  Our flight left Heathrow at eleven-thirty at night. When I arrived to check in with my already sleeping daughter, I descended into chaos. It looked like a scene from a sci-fi movie where all the residents of the city are trying to escape the hordes of mutant zombie killers.

  It turned out all the baggage handling machines had broken down and passengers had to carry their own bags to the waiting lounge where they would be hand-loaded onto the flight. Not such a nightmare if you are young and have a backpack, a bit more of a challenge if you have a sleeping one-year-old in your arms, her carry-on baby requisites in a big bag, and another massive bag full of stuff, I don’t even know what was in it. When I travel alone, I travel super light, one small carry-on bag, nothing else. Babies take that bit of easy selfishness and laugh in your face as they throw it out of the window. Babies gurgle and say to you, ‘I need a lot of back-up equipment Daddy, I mean a LOT.’

  I waited in the checkin queue with a sleeping baby in my arms, shuffling bags along the ground. The very nice checkin lady said she was a big Red Dwarf fan. Normally I would be ready, happy to joke along with someone. But not this time.

  I tried to smile, I tried to be charming but I wasn’t in the best of moods. I signed an autograph for her husband, took my boarding pass and made the long, slow journey to Gate 122.

  When I finally walked onto the plane, ready to turn left for my economy seat down the back near the toilets, the lovely man from Singapore Airlines ushered me to the right. I hesitated for a moment before checking my boarding pass. Without me asking, the woman at the checkin had bumped me up to first class. I was gobsmacked, dumbfounded, knocked back, staggered. I didn’t even know such a thing was possible. I have had people say to me, ‘Oh, I bet you get bumped up all the time,’ but this was genuinely the first
occasion. I wanted to run back to the checkin and thank her.

  So I turned to the right and placed my still-sleeping daughter down on a massive luxury seat, covered her with a massive luxury blanket and then took my place in an equally enormous seat next to her. I almost cried.

  The faces on the other first-class passengers were a picture of discomfort when they saw a scruffy bloke with a baby settle down. They didn’t want a screaming infant spoiling their incredibly expensive luxury. However, by the end of the flight, the fact that my daughter was an absolute angel had won her many admirers. She never made a sound, she slept like a log, she had her bottle, did a bit of wobbly walking and never embarrassed her dad for a moment.

  After a big family Christmas, and many hours in swimming pools and visiting ancient aunts, Judy suggested I go off and spend some time on my own and do some writing. Maybe I was getting grumpy, she’s very good at noticing and the fact that she notices makes me grumpy.

  I had a lot of writing to do. I had finished my first novel, The Man on Platform 5, which was going through the painstakingly slow process of being published. I was also halfway through my second novel, Punchbag, which was a project very close to my heart that had seen many different guises, a film script and a stage play.

  So I went off to the Gold Coast, an incredible beach about sixty miles south of Brisbane fringed with the most absurd array of high-rise apartment blocks. Face one way and you see a sight of incredible natural beauty. Face the other, well, it’s the Gold Coast baby, like Las Vegas with a beach.

  I rented a room in a cheap hotel, settled in quickly and got down to work. I rang Judy the first night to check on how things were going, she told me the Mayor of the Gold Coast had rung up as they heard I was ‘in town’. They had found Judy’s mum’s number after I had done an interview on a local radio station. Judy had gone to college with the radio interviewer, the Mayor’s office had got in touch with them, they gave the caller Judy’s mum’s number. If the media village is small in London, it’s a three-house hamlet in Brisbane.

  The next morning, I was woken by a call to the hotel room. I have to remind myself this was before the mass adoption of cell phones and people used to actually ring you at the hotel. You know, on a phone with wires. Quaint.

  It was the Mayor of the Gold Coast on the line, a charming man with a full-on Queensland accent and he invited me out for lunch.

  The whole purpose of my stay in the Gold Coast was to get a bit of peace and do a lot of writing. I didn’t want to talk to people, but I couldn’t be rude, it’s not in my programming. So I went for lunch with him and his staff and it was all very pleasant.

  He discreetly enquired as to why I was staying at the rather cheap hotel near the main road. I said I just needed a bed, a desk and no interruptions to write. He said he’d sort it out, and without me doing anything, I was suddenly staying in the presidential suite of a five-star hotel overlooking the beach, all inclusive.

  I only recount the events of being bumped up on a flight and getting a massive hotel suite because the experience was unusual for me. I don’t get those sorts of treats every day. I’ve never had one since, but I have to say, first-class travel and sitting at an enormous desk looking out of the massive tinted window on the thirty-second floor, where I could only see the Pacific and the golden beach, was rather pleasant.

  Not only did I still manage to write a lot, I went for a five-mile run on the beach every morning, had a fabulous breakfast, wrote for six hours, went to the gym for an hour, slept for an hour and then wrote on into the night. I don’t want to rub it in too much, but I had the most fabulous time and I didn’t even feel guilty.

  During all these events I started hearing rumours from the Grant Naylor offices in London about all manner of madness. It seemed the BBC were going to mount a Red Dwarf night to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the original broadcast.

  At the time it all seemed just a chaos of arrangements, international travel, jet lag, child-care, transport difficulties and associated stress, but looking back now, that was a truly remarkable thing for the BBC to do.

  When I got back to the cold, wet United Kingdom that year, I had just enough time to get over jetlag before the Red Dwarf night recording was scheduled.

  A whole night dedicated to one TV series; it was a strange, but I have to say, very enjoyable series of programmes including the cast taking part in a Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook special with Ainsley Harriott. Ainsley had played a GELF Chief in the series 6 episode, Emohawk.

  We also took part in a Red Dwarf quiz, chaired by Bamber Gascoigne, where the combined intellectual might of the Red Dwarf crew was pitted against a bedraggled crowd of Red Dwarf fans. The fans won hands down.

  All through 1998 there were rumours about series 8. They were confirmed in midsummer and I started to make arrangements.

  During that summer, I shot a new series for Channel 4. It felt like a one-off, weird quirky show that might find a microscopically small audience. It was called Scrapheap Challenge.

  I loved working on the show. It combined many things I was interested in, passionate about even: tinkering, engineering, bodging things together and recycling rubbish. The shooting schedule was insane and the exhaustion legendary but it was an amazing show to be involved with.

  It was also during this year that I was sitting in the writing shed in my garden, watching a thrush clean its beak in the hedge outside the window, when the phone rang. I don’t know why I remember watching the thrush but there we go, that was what I was doing.

  The call was from my literary agent in London, who told me to sit down as she had some news. A company called New Line Cinema in Hollywood had made an offer for the film rights of my first novel, The Man on Platform 5. They offered one million dollars.

  Although I knew we had received one or two enquiries from London-based filmmakers, it was all a bit hazy. They wanted to talk to me about making the book into a film, nothing more than that. This news from Hollywood came totally out of the blue.

  I sat looking at the thrush in the hedge. It hopped about, utterly unaware that inside the shed it was beside, a man was going through a major life moment. I was feeling a bit dizzy, I was sitting down and I think I said something like, ‘Yeah, alright then.’

  Just to tie up this rather bonkers bit of information, the story of the film rights deal is long and very complex, I won’t bore you with it but needless to say the film was never made. The individuals in Hollywood who bought the film were all fired, then reinstated, half a dozen screenwriters were hired to write the screenplay, then they were all fired. If they had been in a position to fire me I’m sure they would have, but that morning in the shed I wasn’t that bothered. I had sold the film rights to my first novel for one million dollars. I lit up a massive cigar Danny John-Jules had given me and immediately felt very sick.

  By the autumn of 1998 I packed my bags and headed off to Acton to start work on Red Dwarf VIII.

  Instead of either schlepping all the way from Islington where we still rented a flat, or renting another one in Shepperton, I begged a room off an old friend, Maria McErlane, in her lovely house in Acton, which was only half an hour from Shepperton. Maria and I had worked together for many years, we had also toured together as stand-up comedians.

  It was Maria’s cheeky voice you may have heard describing the German man who made amusing sculptures out of plaster cast penises in the disturbing and delightfully tacky TV series Eurotrash.

  Series 8 brought together quite a few people I had known as long as Maria. I first worked with Mac McDonald (Captain Hollister) when he was part of a sketch troupe called The Chip Shop Show in the early eighties. He was a very funny man then, he’s a very funny man now, so it was a great pleasure to work with him again. And even more of a surprise, another man I’d worked alongside many years before, Norman Lovett, returned to play Holly, the ship’s computer. In all the time I’d worked on Red Dwarf I’d never done an episode with Norman. He’d been in the original cast and w
as, other than Hattie, the only person from the original cast I knew, but he left before I started in series 3.

  When the cast and crew gathered in the autumn of 1998, there was quite a big crowd. What had once been mainly the four of us had grown into a much bigger cast.

  Along with the core crew from Starbug (which crashed into the newly reconstructed Red Dwarf right at the start of the series) was Graham McTavish playing the terrifying Akerman and Andy Taylor playing the ship psychiatrist, Doctor McClaren. Lovely. Just check that chair is screwed down will you, with really really long screws going deep, deep into the ground.

  It was also around this time there was much talk of money among the motley main crew of Red Dwarf.

  If I recall correctly, the theory went that once we had finished series 8, there would be fifty-two episodes of Red Dwarf, enough for a big US broadcaster to buy them as a season. If this happened, so the speculation went, we would be paid literally gazillions of pounds. We could all retire and float about on our luxury yachts being fed peeled grapes by scantily clad youths of our preferred gender choice.

  Guess what? Yes, you’ve got it in one, it never happened. But as Cat would say, ‘You gotta dream!’

  While I’m on the subject of money, there’s one aspect of my involvement in Red Dwarf I need to get off my chest. Cough.

  Before I start I should warn you, this is a classic thespian moanfest, so you may want to skip over the next chunk. However, in my defence I think the following sad tale goes beyond the whining sulk of a well-paid actor in a popular situation comedy. It is a perfect illustration of what has happened in the United Kingdom in the last thirty years. It’s a tale of how careful corporate lobbying and the demise of the trade union movement added to a flurry of deregulation and privatisation, while having some benefits, has generally shifted wealth from the very many to the very, very few.