How we made Red Dwarf

‘The BBC’s head of comedy said it would only work if there was a sofa. We said spaceships don’t have sofas – and he said it won’t work then’Rob Grant and I were writing a Radio 4 comedy show called Son of Cliché in which there was a recurring sketch called Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, a parody of Alien, with a lone survivor and a computer, voiced by Chris Barrie. I remember watching [70s sci-fi comedy movie] Dark Star and saying: “It’s crazy n