05 Who is Grant Naylor? (Red Dwarf)
Description
This article is from the Red Dwarf FAQ, by Patrick M. Berry pat@interpath.com with numerous contributions by others.
05 Who is Grant Naylor? (Red Dwarf)
"Grant Naylor" is the collective name used by the creative team of Rob
Grant and Doug Naylor, who created Red Dwarf, wrote and produced Series 1
through 6, and wrote (individually or as a team) all of the Red Dwarf
novels.
In 1996, Rob Grant resigned as coproducer and cowriter of the show. When
asked why, he told the Radio Times, "We wrote the pilot for the series in
1983 . . . It's been a long time and it's taken up a lot of time . . . I
thought, 'Enough's enough; I want more than just Red Dwarf on my
tombstone.'"
Grant has since written a new science fiction comedy for Sky One called The
Strangerers. The show premiered in the UK in February 2000 and chronicles
"an attempted invasion of Earth by utterly incompetent aliens". He also
wrote a special 5-part "millennium sitcom" called Dark Ages for ITV. Grant
has no plans to write any more Red Dwarf.
The "About the Author" note in the first two Red Dwarf novels has this to
say about the creator(s) of the series:
Grant Naylor is a gestalt entity occupying two bodies, one of
which lives in north London, the other in south London. The
product of a horribly botched genetic-engineering experiment,
which took place in Manchester in the late fifties, they try to
eke out two existences with only one mind. They attended the same
school and the same university, but, for tax reasons, have
completely different wives.
The first body is called Rob Grant, the second Doug Naylor. Among
other things, they spent three years in the mid-eighties as head
writers of Spitting Image; wrote Radio Four's award-winning
series Son of Cliche; penned the lyrics to a number one single;
and created and wrote Red Dwarf for BBC television.
They have made a living variously by being ice-cream salesmen,
shoe-shop assistants and by attempting to sell dodgy
life-assurance policies to close friends. They also spent almost
two years on the night shift loading paper into computer printers
at a mail-order factory in Ardwick. They can still taste the
cheese 'n' onion toasties.
Their favourite colour is orange.
Grant Naylor's number one single was "The Chicken Song," a Spitting Image
spinoff. Philip Pope composed the music and produced the record, which was
released in 1986 by Virgin Records.
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