Home / robert llewellyn

Apr
14

By

Red Dwarf Review

Category: Blog, Media Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

OK so after half a dozen or so blog posts on the rebirth of the boys from the Dwarf, of photos, information and some would say obsession – it’s finally been and gone.

reddwarf_mYou may not have bothered wondering why I didn’t post a review straight away, after all I haven’t exactly posted much of anything recently.

But the reason for the delay isn’t because of my generally inability to be arsed to write, no it is more specifically because I didn’t really know WHAT to write.

Lets break it down with a couple of words on each of the three parts and then I’ll explain myself in more detail.

Episode one

Felt like we had accidentally joined them on a bit of an ‘off day’. On one of the days the television show wouldn’t have filmed if it was a reality programme.

Although towards the end it started to improve with the caveat that the characters sort of felt like a parody of themselves.

Part two

Weird is the word and the word is weird. This didn’t really feel like a Red Dwarf episode as it was a bit over meta for me.

Part three

This is where it all came together, the twist and turn and big reveal felt like a ‘proper’ Red Dwarf ending.

So what’s with the delay?

OK so that all sounds fairly painless, a reasonable four paragraph review of 75 minutes of television – interesting start, poor middle and good ending.

But its more than that. You see I wasn’t convinced the start and middle where as bad as I thought they were and that they needed a second watch.

So on Monday I put a bit of effort in, I recorded the three episodes from Sky+ to my DVD burner, ripped them all on to my computer, opened them in a video editor, cut the adverts, credits and start up (for the end of ep 1, all of ep 2 and start of ep 3) out and burnt it back to a DVD.

I then sat down with my ≈75 minute feature legnth episode of Red Dwarf, a drink, a snack, lights off and a silent house (everyone was in bed).

It was wonderful, as a whole, a single entity without interuption or gap it felt like a proper episode of Red Dwarf.

The start came across better on the second airing as I picked up subtle jokes I missed the first time, it wasn’t as I originally reviewed it on Sunday ‘a bit crap’.

The middle made sense as I knew what was coming and in fact I noticed the jokes as I wasn’t as baffled by the pointlessness of it all.

And finally the end was more improved than I originally thought. The twist worked wondefully and left things open for a series.

And for it to get millions of viewers over the three parts on a tiny channel like Dave is seriously impressive.

If the BBC brought the second airing rights to the three parts and ran them all together as a feature legnth episode on BBC TWO it may even beat the previous BBC TWO highest viewing figures record – held by Red Dwarf of 9 million.

More on the ratings can be found in the Media Guardian.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Mar
24

By

Dwarf takes virtual twist

Category: Blog Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I’ve resisted posting every snippet of information that has come out of the Red Dwarf team at Dave – but this one was too good to not talk about.

You already know that the show is coming back – for a three part special called Back To Earth, I’m not going to talk anymore about the specifics of the episodes.

What I am going to talk more about is the ‘Alternate Reality‘ element that seems to be springing up around the show.

There are already two very good official Red Dwarf web sites/sections – the first is the official Red Dwarf site and the second is the Dave Red Dwarf pages.

rd5

But now, much like the BBC did with Doctor Who and Torchwood, there will be ‘in programme’ website created as part of a AR Red Dwarf game.

There are already about six sites live and three of them have the first stage of content up.

Lister is coming home (listeriscominghome.co.uk)

This seems to be the starting point of the game, it’s basically a flash video with a postcard for Kryten from Lister with Indian music in the background – the front seems to be photos of Brick Lane Tandori restaurants.

Anyone the postcard talks about the boys being seperated on Earth in the 21st Century, spilling vindaloo on the comms unit and talking to someone about building a replacement Rimmer hologram.

rd5

The guy they want to talk to runs a website called scanningjupiter.co.uk (try it – it’s live and part of the game) and within the postcard is a link to a pdf that includes a graphic you hold up to a webcam on the right flash video to get more information.

Scanning Jupiter is the website of Professor Bob Giles who is doing research into storms around Jupiter and is writing a paper on hologram technology.

The point of this site seems to be as a communications point for the Red Dwarf boys to talk to each other – with garbled messages and snippets of information. Look out for Krytens to get to the next site.

At the moment the next site along (I’ll let you find it for yourself) has a seven minute video on the making of the new episodes of Red Dwarf with interviews with all the cast and behind the scenes snippets.

I haven’t gone any further than this yet – mainly because I don’t think you can – but I wait by my inbox with baited breath for the next installment of the game and wait by my Sky+ remote for 3 April – the day I can set the first episode to record.

rd5

rd5

rd5

rd5

rd5

rd5

rd5

rd10

rd5

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Feb
4

By

Boys from the Dwarf

Category: Blog Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

So we all now know that Red Dwarf is coming back for two special episodes this coming Easter. It’s going to be broadcast on Dave. The Dave channel has posted the first photo of the Red Dwarf boys in costume.

Red Dwarf Boys

Lister is wearing leathers from Series 3 and 4, Kryten in a slightly remodelled breast plate and smaller chest monitor and Rimmer, still a hologram with a uniform mix – part series 6, part series 7.

You can go to the Dave Red Dwarf Library to see the full size version of the above image.

This photo and details were posted to JoinDave.co.uk as part of their weekly set reports, behind the scenes images and general Red Dwarferry goodness.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Jan
30

By

Wossy and BobbyLlew in Tesla

Category: Blog, Web Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

I have a post coming very soon with the title ‘the rise and rise of online video’ that looks at sites like ChannelFlip and Rev3 and how they’re fast becoming the ‘Digital TV’ of the 21st Century.

Jonathan Ross in The Cinema Store, London, 17 ...
Image via Wikipedia

To understand what I mean by that you need to take a step back in time to around the early to mid-nineties when Digital TV (in the form of Sky) was taking off in the UK – becoming mainstream.

At that time it would be really cool if you saw someone you knew (in the fame sense of knew) on one of the digital channels (i.e. not BBC, ITV or Channel 4) – even though the shows were relatively low budget and often a bit crap.

Well Online is fast taking on that role – as Digital Television has become the norm, as it is taking over from ‘traditional’ television in terms of new shows, big commissions etc – online is taking the role of ‘known people’ doing their own things, creating their own shows and doing the whole ‘ooo cool lets get cult’.

It isn’t television but Phil and Phills Perfect Ten, Stephen Fry’s Podgrams and Colling and Herrins Podcast make for great unique, original straight to the audience radio.

And in television you’ve got people like Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrapheap Challenge, Top Trumps) creating their own shows and even networks.

The latest from Robert is LlewTube – which has one main show in the form of Car Pool – that’s just had its second episode (first official). It basically sees Robert driving around London in a car (either Tesla or Prius) with someone famous or interesting or both.

The first episode was with Red Dwarf (and other things) director Ed By and the second with Jonathan Ross. You can watch that now – but please do check out www.llewtube.com.

Did you enjoy it? OK so the quality isn’t perfect yet, the camera work needs a bit of tweeking and the audio needs a bit of a sledghammering – but the concept is brilliant, the content is brilliant and there are another 16 already recorded – being released weekly.

But this isn’t the only online video Robert is doing – he also presents MoWer (or Machine of the Week) for ChannelFlip – the network launched by Wil Harris and Justin Gayner.

ChannelFlip, despite a slightly slow start that saw several months go by without an update – has rapidly increased both its output, its profile and its user numbers.

As well as having Robert Llewellyn – Wil Harris recently announced via his Twitter stream that comedian David Mitchell (Peep Show, Mitchell and Web) will be presenting a show for the network.

That will be added to the already impressive line-up of shows from lesser known presenters – including Wil and Justin themselves.

You can watch an episode of Robert Lewellyn’s MoWer which has just broken the iTunes top 30:

Back? Right so lets move on – it isn’t just the big high profile sites providing great content – there are also smaller players – just go through YouTube Channels or look at Blip.tv for some of the brilliant independent video content online – but ignore my channel.

As video production gets increasingly more simple, as costs of bandwidth and ease of putting online (set up a blip.tv network, upload video, tick podcast box and go) improves – and as advertising revenues for podcasts increase – I can imagine an increasing number of mid-level celebs launching their own shows.

How long before Andi Peters launches a weekly cooking show – actually Wil Harris – how about giving Andi a call or sending him a Tweet – xxandip?

Stephen Fry's Podgrams
Image via Wikipedia

But there is a more serious side to this online video lark – with sites like ChannelFlip trailblaising their way through and millions using the iPlayer on a regular basis (an average of 700 thousand a week for Top Gear alone while it was on) – could we see a new online PVT service funded from the £130 million BBC digital switchover fund?

Should that money go towards creating a new PVT online broadcaster that carried documentaries on difficult subjects, carried entertainment shows that aren’t commercial enough or wide audience enough to work on television but still interesting enough to follow up?

Could an online PVT service include live streamed (or even just reported) coverage of all the local councils in the country or more specific local news – that there is NO WAY local newspapers will effectively deliver across the country.

Who knows.

Speaking of cookery shows – I got my wife to film me making pasta salad as a sort of test piece to see whether I should continue with my ‘Reluctant Geeks Diet Diary’ idea – the camera work was brilliant – lets leave it there.

So back to the drawing board for my own video ideas – I need an idea for a project that isn’t just me talking into the camera – answers on a postcard – or ideally in the comments bellow.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Jan
27

By

Return of the Dwarf – 10th April

Category: Blog, Media Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

reddwarf

I promise I won’t let this become and almost exclusive ‘Red Dwarf’ blog but you will have to indulge me a little for a while.

I got an e-mail today from a lovely man at UKTV with a press release and accompanying photo for the new two part Red Dwarf special.

I went all giddy.

Don’t worry though, I’ve finally pulled myself together and have decided I’m in need of an all night Red Dwarf marathon – the DVDs will be coming out tonight.

But until then I’m going to share some bits and pieces about the new specials with you.

dwarflogo

This is the New Red Dwarf logo

It’s called ‘Red Dwarf: Return to Earth’ which I’m hoping doesn’t mean an end to the show – I’m hoping the boys will find some worm hole that takes them back to earth but it later turns out to be the nostril of a space dwelling slug who sucked them in because he had a cold and needed to prevent the snot from leaving.

But that’s just me.

Lets get back to the press release – the two episodes kick off on Friday 10 April at 9pm on everyones favourite channel – Dave.

I LOVE Dave for a number of reasons – 1) because it has some of the best television shows ever made and shows them regularly and b) because they’re making the leap and commissioning original programming – something I’ve been calling on the digital channels to do for a long time.

I moved to Jersey about ten years ago – in fact it will be ten years ago this coming October and its also about ten years since we last saw the crew of the Dwarf – not one of the best series but still better than a lot of other things on TV.

In the last ten years I’ve god married, had three children, started working for the BBC and failed to finish writing my comedy novel, my geek guide and launched and forgotten about a dozen blogs and podcasts.

But what’s happened to Kryten, Lister, Rimmer and Cat in the intervening decade?

Well apparently while the crew are older “they’re still none the wiser.”

Kryten
Image via Wikipedia

The press release sets the scene of the two part special for us:

When Lister’s busy day of annoying Rimmer is interrupted by a monstrous attack, it’s pretty much business as usual – until a shock development throws Rimmer, Lister, Cat and Kryten back to planet Earth…

But where is the big space slug and its snotty nostrils?

Anyway – part of the running premise of Red Dwarf for eight series (52 episodes) was Dave Lister wanting to get home to Earth.

Now it looks like that is exactly what’s going to happen – and everything seems to be going forward as well.

The specials are written and directed by Doug Naylor and it will feature Chris Barrie as Rimmer, Craig Charles as Lister, Danny John-Jules as Cat and Robert Llewellyn as Kryten – no news on Holly though.

They start shooting for the specials in the middle of February with a whole weekend of the Dwarf coming up over the Easter Weekend on Dave.

The whole thing starts with the new two part series on Good Friday followed by a couple of interesting features.

Dave Lister
Image via Wikipedia

The first is Red Dwarf Unplugged – this is seriously going to test the talents of the main four – it is a “no holds barred episode that delivers the cast of Red Dwarf as they’ve never been seen before.”

That basically means: “no sets, no effects…and no autocue!”

The weekend finishes with a behind the scenes production of the specials shown a few days earlier.

As I’ve already mentioned once or twice – this is on Dave. Although the channel has a couple of pretty good original shows – none are scripted (in the fictional sense) shows.

This is the first. And they’re going all out online to make sure everybody knows all about it – sending a press release to a blogger was a nice start – thanks 

On their website at joindave.co.uk they will have news updates on the series, competitions, podcasts from the stars of the series (can’t wait for that one) and other behind the scenes bits and pieces.

They’re also taking a leaf out of the BBC Doctor Who websites book and will be posting weekly behind the scenes snippets of news from the production set – coming Wednesdays at Noon.

So set your browsers to Dave and get ready to set your Sky+ box to record – oh and avoid space snails with a mucus problem.

Cheers Dave

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Jan
27

By

Zero to 1000 in 10 minutes

Category: Blog, Web Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

rustyrockets

OK so I just witnessed something a bit weird – the opening up and first postings of what will soon become one of the highest profile Twitter accounts.

It’s great that @Wossy (Jonathan Ross) and @stephenfry (Stephen Fry) and even @bobbyllew (Robert Llewellyn) are on Twitter but now that @rustyrockets (Russell Brand) has joined the BritTwit fellowship – things are going to go mental.

Russell Brand
Image via Wikipedia

I watched Jonathan Ross post at around 10.25pm “russell now has proper twitter account ! Would you like his name ?” which was quickly followed by “@rustyrockets” three minutes later.

Between that moment, which was quickly followed by this post from @rustyrockets “i have come to join you pleas be gentle with me as ive been feeling vulnerable… yet implausibly, sexy” and now – he went from 0 to 1700 followers.

It seems to have settled down a little bit now but at one point – a refresh every second saw an extra 20 or 30 followers.

There’s even a TwitPic from @Wossy – I guess Russell was at his house. Oh and “Hello Daily Mail Hack searching for Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand in the hope of finding another pointless story”.

Of course this comment from @Wossy might mean a limited number of posts from @rustyrockets “my kids just told russell that twitter is for oldies. he is cursing me now.”

But somehow I doubt that would have an effect – although interestingly not long before that @bobbyllew was talking about his daughter describing Twitter as being like “MSN for old people”.

Is Twitter really for old people? OK so I’m now in my late twenties – so what are the, oh god I can’t believe I’m about to post this but, what ARE the kids using nowadays?

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Jan
24

By

NEW RED DWARF!!!!

Category: Blog, Media Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

UPDATE:

I’ve posted a rough outline of what the episodes are going to be about, when they’re on and a bit of background HERE.

Return of the Dwarf – 10th April

Sorry about the god awful over exuberant and excessively punctuated headline but I’m a little bit giddy with excitement.

Let me start by sharing my Twitter post I sent straight after first finding out about the news – must log in to twitter more often.

Red Dwarf
Image via Wikipedia

“Bouncing around the room with a grin on my face like a small child in a room full of chocolate and cookies. NEW RED DWARF. Love @bobbyllew”

I should explain.

Robert Llewellyn one of the first of the British celebrity geeks to discover the wonderful world of Twitter, has confirmed that he will once again be donning the oddly shaped prosthetic head.

Yes @bobbyllew will once again become one of the greatest androids of all time in the form of Kryten of Red Dwarf.

He confirmed on his twitter stream that Red Dwarf will be returning to our screens for a four part series this coming Easter – it seems filming has already begun.

He posted this yesterday evening “I love Twitter. Been tweeting about new RD for past 2 months. We are making 4 new eps start shooting next week.”

And then this in response to a question: “Yes, it’s a new UK series of RD”

And then this: “They will be shown on channel Dave at Easter. Don’t know exact dates yet.”

Um…. wait DAVE? The home of Top Gear DAVE?

Yup it will be shown on Dave this coming Easter which is fanastic – the channel is half owned by the BBC and is already building a reputation for creating pretty good original programming.

I’m a big fan of Argumental and don’t mind watching the odd episode of Batteries Not Included either.

Kryten
Image via Wikipedia

Anyway back to Twitter.

Robert then got into the gritty and nitty of the filming: “Up early. Had a wet shave ready for mask. Long day ahead.”

Followed by: “Now at Pinewood studios. Doubtful I will be able to reveal anything other than you are so going to love it.”

He then teased further with: “Red Dwarf read through and makeup test V successful. trying to get permission to post a few pics. Amazing to be together again after so long.”

The most recent posts have been further confirmations of it being on Dave and on this coming Easter as well as a bit of a defense of his and Lister (Craig Charles) weight.

Now me.

I, like many a geek of my generation have been a fan of the boys from the Dwarf since my teenage years – I grew up with it – I joined the fan club – I knew all the lines – I had the sound files on my old Amiga 600 – I was a fan.

I have all the vanilla DVDs AND the box sets sitting on my shelf in pride of place right now.

The question is – can a show filmed for Dave live up to the expectations of a dedicated and loyal fan base that have been waiting on a movie for over ten years?

Oh and I now know (thanks to a post on the TV Forum) that this was actually announced back in September 2008 on the official reddwarf.com website – just goes to show how much attention I’ve been paying doesn’t it?

I’m not a big fan of official websites as they involve me going to yet another website every day – I personally prefer the quick hit nature of Twitter and message boards – but will add Red Dwarf to my morning routine – at least until the new episodes air.

What I have found out from reading the site though is that it is actually just two new ‘adventures’ but a four part series that will include a making of and a clip show – still better than nothing AND if it inspires the BBC or Dave to commission a full series – all the better.

Oh and if you can’t wait until Easter, have re-watched the Dwarf to death and want something new (that isn’t Corrie) why not head over to Channel Flip and see Robert Llewellyn in fine form talking machines on MoWer – his show for the online male video network.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Jan
5

By

Clarkson on Twitter?

Category: Blog, Web Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments

The latest bandwagon our illustrious British celebrities (especially the cooler ones) seem to be jumping on is that bastion of micro content – Twitter.

Stephen Fry is a regular Twitterer and has something like 30 thousand plus followers – mainly because he is actually a very good twitterer with interesting things to say.

fry_body

Robert Llewellyn is also on Twitter (AKA Kryten) with something like 2000 followers and, killing time before getting back on the air in a couple of months, Jonathan Ross (under the username Wossy).

And now (although I’m still not convinced it is actually him – a post on the Top Gear Transmission blog would go a long way to proving it) none other than Jeremy Clarkson has found himself tweeting away.

In fact I WILL need to see a post on Top Gear.com to believe it really actually truly is him – until then I’ll read it as if being written by a Clarkson/Top Gear fan.

clarkson_body

When I first checked this morning JC had around 250 followers – at the time of writing this blog post (12:45) he has nearly 550 and it seems to be increasing every time I refresh.

His first post was on 19 November as was the second but then nothing else until 29 December. There have been new posts every couple of days since then with five so far today alone.

If this really is Clarkson he may well be the first Brit to beat the American Technorati into the top five on Twitterholic – although Stephen Fry might just beat him to it.

What other British geeky celebs would you like to read on Twitter?

Sep
16

By

Kryten Kryten Kryten Kryten

Category: Blog Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

I was going to write a post about one of my new favourite shows and it was going to be called ‘Love the Show – Hate the Player’. That isn’t the name of the show, just the name of the post.

The show is called Top Trumps – it basically does what it says on the tin and sees two grown men playing real life Top Trumps.

One of those men is Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrap Heap Challenge, Various uber geek web projects) and the other is Ashley Hames (Sin Cities).

The idea is a simple one, in fact as simple as the game that inspired it. Robert goes in one direction looking for something (first episode was a boat, second was a plane) and Ashley goes and looks for something else of the same thing.

They test their things out, see what they can do and gather facts. They then meet at the end to swap notes and gather scores – and as with Top Trumps the winner is the one with the most high scores (the best card).

It’s a simple format for a show but one that works so well that I’m shocked it hasn’t been made before to be honest.

The series started on the 8th September but I didn’t hear about it until after that – actually through a Tweet by Robert Llewellyn himself.

This is where the crap player bit of my title comes in – it has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the fact the Five insists (as does 4 and ITV) on using that craphole piece of arse – Windows Media Player – as its platform of choice.

But I don’t want to talk about any of that. Not the brilliant new series, not five’s arse end of a donkey’s nutsack of a player – no I want to talk about Red Dwarf.

The actual bit that the title refers to

You see I’ve been so busy with work recently that I missed a story that would normally have had me heading for WordPress within seconds – Red Dwarf is coming back.

Now I’ve already admitted to being a member of the fan club as a teenager – I own all the DVDs twice (box set for saving, vanillas for watching), have brought the books and the Audiobook versions of those books.

The cast of Series VIII. From left to right: C...Image via Wikipedia I’m now trying to get my five year old son into it – he likes the slapstick but, and quite rightly, most of it goes well over his head.

Anyway back to the point. Red Dwarf is coming back. Let me say that again: RED DWARF IS COMING BACK!!!

After what is approaching a ten year break – Robert Llewellyn has let on (at a convention and on MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte) that there will be some kind of special episode or mini series.

I don’t know anything else about it and I’m guessing you all knew about this long before me (the video at the top of the page was originally posted last week and the MacBreak Weekly was also from last week (I’m seriously behind on my podcast – I’ve got about 40 to listen to if I want to catch up – and I do) and I think the originally story was like two weeks ago.

So I think, with all that in mind – the only thing left to be said is: RED DWARF IS COMING BACK!!!

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
« Older Posts