RED DWARF "The Show Was At Its Funniest With An Audience"

The boys from the Dwarf are back for a new six-part series on Dave this autumn. One of the big talking points about the comeback is that the live studio audience – a mainstay of the show's early days, but absent for series seven and 2009's three-part "Back To Earth" – has returned for Red Dwarf X . We asked Doug Naylor, co-creator of the show and writer of the new series, why he decided to go live again.

"I think Red Dwarf was at its funniest with an audience," Naylor told SFX . "The only reason the audience was dropped on series seven was because we were looking at doing a movie, and Ed Bye who was directing suggested we should do it that way because it was good practice for the film – it would be a different vibe. I totally bought that idea, so we did it like that and then played it to an audience and it was a bit of a mess, because you can’t really gap it for laughs – you can’t expect the cast to accurately guess every gap. Then we went for the slightly different format with the prison on series eight, but I brought the audience back, and that was a bit raucous that audience, it was like having a rock and roll night. Despite that the cast love working with an audience, it brings them alive. It's show night so they produce this energy that you don’t necessarily get if you’re shooting five days a week with single camera. It’s a different skill."

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Richard is a freelancer journalist and editor, and was once a physicist. Rich is the former editor of SFX Magazine, but has since gone freelance, writing for websites and publications including GamesRadar+, SFX, Total Film, and more. He also co-hosts the podcast, Robby the Robot's Waiting, which is focused on sci-fi and fantasy.