ThisisBigBrother.com - UK TV Forums - Craig Charles talks about the new Red Dwarf episode!

How much are you looking forward to hooking up with your fellow boys from the Dwarf for brand new episodes?
"It's all been signed off now and has been given the go-ahead. I'm really looking forward to doing it. I can't really give the storyline away but it's a fantastic one. It's really quite weird and sees me playing quite a few characters, some of them I've already played on television. That's all I can say…"

How close did the proposed Red Dwarf movie project come to being made?
"It came to be getting all my teeth knocked out and put back in with veneers on! It came to us going to the gym for six weeks and training with a personal trainer, getting ripped! Nah, I joke - it came really, really close. It's one of those things, though. It feels like it's another lifetime now. It's nice to be revisiting it for this special, though. Never say never. If this special goes well, you never know what could come of it."

Have there been any read-throughs or rehearsals yet? When do you begin filming?
"Yeah – it starts filming in January and the rest of them all look ancient! I'm the only one that doesn't look like they've aged. I'm actually playing their child now!"

I'm presuming you're going to have to take a break from Corrie?
"Yeah, they've given me a bit of time off. Not a lot, but they've worked it around holidays, too. It's very kind of them to have done it for me. It's one of those things that I'd have hated to have gone ahead without me."

And finally, whatever happened to Takeshi's Castle?
"Well, we did about 150 episodes of them but then we ran out of episodes. It took me months and months in a booth with a microphone and Japanese DVDs. It was very sad just looking at a television and talking into a mic. There were no scripts, no rehearsals – it was just say what you see TV. You cold get away with so many near-to-the-knuckle things, it was great."

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