Ade and Rik worked by knowing what you could get away with – and then pushing the boundaries. I did have some problems with BBC executives at the end of the whole process, and had to cut a scene where Rik pre-ejaculates. Well, I didn’t cut it out, I just chose different shots so that you could see less of Rik.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After that, Rik and I did a weekly sketch as The Dangerous Brothers on Saturday Live on Channel 4, and found it very hard work.
Ben Elton had written most of The Young Ones and a lot of Blackadder, so we’d been hanging around with him, watching how he wrote sitcom.
I’d worked with Rik and Ade as production manager on The Young Ones, then as director on a sitcom called Girls on Top, with Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Ruby Wax – my wife – and then moved to direct Red Dwarf.
Everything was really tightly scripted, so we rehearsed each show for slightly less than a week, so we could film it as quickly as possible in front of a live audience.
One fight involved pulling bathroom cabinets off the wall, smashing through a door and crashing into a banister.
I did have some problems with BBC executives at the end of the whole process, and had to cut a scene where Rik pre-ejaculates.
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