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"Danny John-Jules has reprised his role as laid-back police officer Dwayne Myers for the second series of detective drama Death in Paradise. Digital Spy sat down with John-Jules to discuss the show&amp;#039;s reception, its ensemble cast, and its parallels to Red Dwarf.    Were you happy with the way the first series was received? &amp;quot;Yes, it was huge, very quickly. It was pretty much on that scale of Red Dwarf really, because on that first series we were these reprobates on a mad roller coaster ride, where it was, &amp;#039;Yes! My first TV show!&amp;#039; and then, &amp;#039;Oh, electricians&amp;#039; strike at the BBC, we&amp;#039;re not gonna film it&amp;#039;. And then, &amp;#039;Hey, we&amp;#039;ve remounted it again&amp;#039;, and halfway through the filming of the first series we were recommissioned. It was bizarre. And Death in Paradise was nearly as rapid as that.&amp;quot; What do you think appeals to audiences about Death in Paradise? &amp;quot;I think Red Dwarf and Death in Paradise are very similar because of the ensemble feel. Even though Ben [Miller] has got a huge amount of work as far as taking the lead, and lots of dialogue, it still has that ensemble feel. Even if you&amp;#039;ve got three lines, it seems like you&amp;#039;ve been in the show for the whole episode. That was often the case with the Cat, people would go, &amp;#039;Hang on, we&amp;#039;re 11 minutes in and we haven&amp;#039;t seen the Cat yet&amp;#039; -\u00A0I don&amp;#039;t come in until 20 minutes into the first episode. But even if you&amp;#039;re seeing a character for 50% of the show or whatever, you don&amp;#039;t miss them, because you know the cast is all for one and one for all at the end of the day.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s coming up in series two? &amp;quot;More of the same, but I think it&amp;#039;s more in-depth, and the characters are more settled and I think we know now when it&amp;#039;s working. The characters are bouncing off each other a lot better. You want it always to seem to be moving forward, and that was definitely felt, and I think the audience will get that sense. That&amp;#039;s what they&amp;#039;re asking for -\u00A0on social media, now that Red Dwarf is finished, it&amp;#039;s, &amp;#039;When is Death in Paradise coming on?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Does Dwayne change much as a character in the new series? &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s more where he&amp;#039;s questioning, and getting stuck into solving cases. He can&amp;#039;t take the lead too much because he&amp;#039;s the lowest rank on the team -\u00A0it&amp;#039;s a bit like Rimmer. Every time he takes the lead it goes disastrously wrong. Rimmer desperately thinks he&amp;#039;s captain material, whereas Dwayne knows he&amp;#039;s not captain material, he&amp;#039;s not going to try and kid himself that he could actually lead the case and solve the crime on his own.  &amp;quot;Whereas Fidel&amp;#039;s [Gary Carr] character is very much, &amp;#039;I could do this, when am I going to get to lead a case, I want to be a sergeant!&amp;#039; And Dwayne&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;Calm down, son. Will you be quiet? You&amp;#039;re just gonna get us more work to do!&amp;#039; Fidel&amp;#039;s like the Rimmer character, and I&amp;#039;m the Lister character, in Death in Paradise. That&amp;#039;s the comparison I could make between the two shows. Fidel and Dwayne are like Rimmer and Lister.&amp;quot;   Do you think there&amp;#039;s much crossover between fans of Red Dwarf and fans of Death in Paradise? &amp;quot;Yes. I always explained the appeal of Red Dwarf as &amp;#039;people enjoy watching the actors enjoy it&amp;#039;. They actually enjoy the actors enjoying playing those characters, and I think Death in Paradise has a bit of that element. Red Dwarf fans are not the type of people who are gonna watch a show just because I&amp;#039;m in it, or Craig&amp;#039;s in it or Chris is in it. They&amp;#039;re very critical people, and you know they will be brutal if there&amp;#039;s something in our show that they don&amp;#039;t like. And so for them to then say &amp;#039;When&amp;#039;s Death in Paradise coming on?&amp;#039; is amazing. &amp;quot;[Red Dwarf co-creator] Doug Naylor came up to me and said he&amp;#039;d really enjoyed Death in Paradise, and he said, &amp;#039;Your character was great Dan, it&amp;#039;s so different&amp;#039;. And Doug is just, he&amp;#039;s sort of\u2026 zero tolerance on everything, he&amp;#039;ll just come out and be like, &amp;#039;Nah, it&amp;#039;s not funny Dan&amp;#039;. And that&amp;#039;s talking about me in his show! We used to laugh at them [Naylor and co-creator Rob Grant] because they would be so blatant. Or they would say, &amp;#039;It&amp;#039;s not working, it&amp;#039;s not funny. It&amp;#039;s not you guys, it&amp;#039;s us this time&amp;#039;. So I know that if he says it he means it. I&amp;#039;m used to being told, &amp;#039;You&amp;#039;re not being funny, Dan. Were you up late last night?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Were you consciously looking to play a character who&amp;#039;s so different to the Cat? &amp;quot;Yeah, because Dwayne&amp;#039;s not that fast-cracking, joking character -\u00A0quite the opposite in fact, he&amp;#039;s very much laid-back and the comedy comes out of his laziness and lack of enthusiasm for the job -\u00A0for the fans to like that is a big boost for me. I&amp;#039;ve been very lucky as far as my characters that have run in tandem with Red Dwarf. It&amp;#039;s very easy for your fans to do, &amp;#039;Oh god, why did you do that?&amp;#039; But I&amp;#039;ve been lucky.  &amp;quot;The Story Makers, MI High, Maid Marion, all these characters that they&amp;#039;ve followed and embraced, and now Dwayne. A Dwayne character again! Everybody made [the Duane Dibley] comparison, like, &amp;#039;Did they write that for you?&amp;#039; Most people think that character was written for me, and I was saying, &amp;#039;I promise you, it was not!&amp;#039; If it was, I certainly wouldn&amp;#039;t have had four auditions!&amp;quot; Series two of Death in Paradise debuts on January 8 on BBC One.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/red-dwarf/interviews/a447923/danny-john-jules-talks-death-in-paradise-red-dwarf-comparisons/>