The Cat's out the bag...

Red Dwarf has been commissioned for a new series, star Craig Charles has revealed.

Speculation has long been rife that the sci-fi comedy would return – especially following the success of the three-part comeback special Back to Earth on Dave in 2009.

And although the cast had been sworn to secrecy, Charles, who played Dave Lister for 11 years until the original series was axed by the BBC in 1999, broke the news in a radio interview.

He told Real Radio: ‘[Back To Earth] got more viewers than BBC2 and Channel 4 combined on the night, which is really good. So they've just commissioned another series of Red Dwarf.’

Filming starts in November, with Chris Barrie as Rimmer, Danny John-Jules as Cat and Robert Llewellyn as Krtyen.

‘We've got to recapture the highlights, like series five or six,’ Charles said. ‘If we can hit that mark, then brilliant. There's no point doing it if it's so-so.’

On his blog, Llewellyn said that writer Doug Naylor had sworn all the cast to secrecy.

He added: ‘So yes, we are making a new series, commissioned by Dave, not a special or a movie or a one off dooberry. A full six half-hour episodes of a brand new series. The plan at the moment, and this could change, the plan is that we record the new series in front of an audience.’

However, he added that producers feared too much spoiler information about the show could leak out over the internet if it was recorded with an audience.

Published: 21 Jan 2011