Doug Naylor

Red Dwarf was very nearly the most A-list sitcom of all time. Imagine this: Hugh Laurie as the prissy, uptight hologram, Rimmer.

Alfred Molina as his stand-in. And Alan Rickman playing Lister, the last living human and the biggest slob in the universe.

That's the Alan Rickman who was the Sheriff of Nottingham in Prince Of Thieves and Professor Snape from the Harry Potter films.

Hard to picture him with dreadlocks, eating ice cream out of a tub with his fingers.

But as Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years (Dave) made clear, the show has never lacked ambition.

Writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor conceived it as a cross between Sigourney Weaver's Alien movies and The Odd Couple, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

And why not? I've got an idea for a costume soap opera that combines Pride And Prejudice with Are You Being Served? -- about a Georgian department store, where Mr Darcy is in gentlemen's outfitting and Miss Bennet sells ladies' underwear.

But I'm not mad enough to suppose the Beeb would turn it into a series.

The difference is that Grant and Naylor really did believe their show could work. They kept believing it, despite being turned down three times at the BBC.

Rickman refused the part because he didn't fancy doing sitcom in front of a live studio audience.

He might have been right -- archive footage of the pilot episode revealed the jokes were met with baffled silence. It was so bad the show had to be rewritten and recorded again.

Instead of the all-star cast, the creators ended up with a performance poet (Craig Charles), a mate who did the voices on Spitting Image (Chris Barrie), and a dancer from Lena Zavaroni's backing group (Danny John-Jules).

And when they finally got the go-ahead to start filming, the studios were shut for 12 weeks by a strike. If ever a show seemed doomed...

Yet Grant and Naylor never stopped believing in it -- and 32 years later, despite a hiatus that lasted more than a decade and a switch to the backwater Dave channel, Red Dwarf is still going.

In fact, as the recent feature-length special proved, it's funnier than ever. That's the real significance of this three-part documentary celebration of the series.

Its details were sometimes interesting -- for instance, the discovery that John-Jules based the Cat's walk and screeches on Godfather of Soul James Brown.

But what matters is the endless determination and self-belief of the writers. Anyone wanting encouragement for their own dreams will find it here.

Red Dwarf creator Doug Naylor teases more to come

There's a willingness from UKTV and the producers to make more episodes.

Red Dwarf review

Red Dwarf (Dave), the sci-fi sitcom that's been running almost since the ­beginning of the universe, switched format to record a feature-length episode, a full two hours. Even Dad's Army couldn't ­manage that. And it was funny. Not just catchphrase funny, more than simply in-joke, fan-favourite funny, but loaded with some great gags.

How Red Dwarf became a comedy classic, despite the BBC

It was deemed 'too weird, too alien' for the Beeb. But Red Dwarf is now a British comedy institution - wobbly sets and all.

TV Review: Red Dwarf - The Promised Land, Dave

The idea of a Red Dwarf film has been floating around for years and now they have finally done it. OK, The Promised Land is not getting a Star Wars-style major cinema release and in a way the show's devoted army of fans might have preferred another full series, but this 90-minute special certainly had plenty going for it.

Red Dwarf: The Promised Land, review

In this space sitcom no one can hear me laugh.

The Red Dwarf chronicles - Series II

The writers' quest to make Red Dwarf the best it could be was helped by a new slightly bigger budget, which allowed for more guest stars.

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'.