Red Dwarf Spotified

Audio books now available on the streaming service.

13 March, 2015

As you'll know if you're a regular reader, we try to keep you as up to date as possible on reddwarf.co.uk with details of how you can watch Red Dwarf episodes via various on demand and streaming platforms. But those of you who've switched your media habits wholesale to a monthly-subscription kind of approach may have been disappointed to find that you can't get Red Dwarf's classic audio books at will in the same way as you can watch episodes.

Well, you couldn't before, but you can now. Because following the digital re-release of the Red Dwarf Radio Show by Laughing Stock Productions last year, the audio adaptations are also now available on the music streaming service Spotify.

The Radio Show, of course, is an abridged version of Chris Barrie's readings of the first two novels: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better than Life. Packaged into a broadcastable format, Chris' narration and impersonations are augmented with additional background atmosphere and sound effects, turning the books into something more akin to an audio drama. They're a pretty great rendering of some pretty great source material, frankly. Each book is split into two distinct volumes, and those volumes are then divided into shorter chapters/tracks for the digital release.

Tracks on Spotify - including the Red Dwarf albums - can be listened to entirely for free, simply by installing the dedicated software, but if you're a Free user you can only stream them directly (not download them for offline listening), and they're regularly interrupted by ads. Signing up for a Premium account at £9.99 a month lets you use the mobile app, download tracks to your device, and listen completely free of commercial interruption. If you're signed in to Spotify, you can actually listen to the first volume right here in this web player:

And as well as the audio books, you can also find a few Dwarf-related tracks by Howard Goodall on there - his two Piano Fantasy recordings, along with a 2012 re-recording of the early series theme tune:

Of course, if you'd rather just buy a completely DRM-free digital version of the audio books, to listen to on any device and at any time you choose, you can still do that as well, by heading over to Laughing Stock and buying the tracks directly. And if the unabridged audio books are more your thing, then you'll be happy to know that they can be found over at Audible.

Cor, with all of this audio goodness, it's a wonder we ever need the pictures...

Find out more about Spotify and sign up at spotify.com!