Doug Naylor

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Doug Naylor is a British comedy writer, science fiction writer and television producer.

Naylor was born in Manchester, England and studied at the University of Liverpool. In the mid-1980s, Naylor wrote two regular science-fiction comedy sketch shows for BBC Radio 4 entitled Son of Cliché and Dave Hollins: Space Cadet. These sketch shows were scripted by Naylor along with another writer, Rob Grant. This writing partnership was successful with Naylor and Grant going on to co-write and produce numerous BBC television series throughout the 1980's and 1990's. These included programmes such Comic Relief, Spitting Image, and The 10 Percenters.

The collaborations between Grant and Naylor have often used the pseudonym Grant Naylor. This collaboration is today best remembered for the creation of the British science fiction comedy television series, Red Dwarf (their earlier radio sketch shows formed the basis for the show; Chris Barrie starred in both those and Red Dwarf). This show went on to achieve global cult status, especially in the USA where Red Dwarf conventions are regularly held even today.

However sometime between the airing of sixth series of Red Dwarf in 1993, and the writing of the seventh series in 1996, Rob Grant ended his partnership with Naylor after revealing he was tired of it and of his intentions to quit and pursue other projects. The pair announced their professional split and cited creative and professional differences, along with Grant's desire to move onto new shows.

With this split it appeared as though Red Dwarf was finished; other obstacles included the fact that Chris Barrie was tied up starring in the Brittas Empire and the other star of Red Dwarf, Craig Charles, was in prison. However when Charles was exonerated and Barrie became available for a few episodes a seventh series finally went ahead. Doug Naylor went on to write the seventh and eighth series of Red Dwarf mostly on his own (70% of the series by his own estimate), but some episodes were co-written with such writers as Paul Alexander and Kim Fuller, and there was even an episode co-written with one of the cast members, Robert Llewellyn (although Craig Charles's hopes of writing an episode remained unfulfilled).

As of 2005, Naylor and Grant Naylor Productions are primarily focused on the production of the DVD releases of Red Dwarf and the postulated and much-hoped-for movie, which is supposedly to be written by Naylor alone.

[edit] Trivia

Naylor is married with two sons. He has a prosthetic leg due to a car accident when he was a teenager.

[edit] Novels by Doug Naylor

• Red Dwarf (1989), with Rob Grant; published under the joint pseudonym Grant Naylor, and sometimes credited as Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers or just Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers.
• Better Than Life (1990), with Rob Grant, published under the joint pseudonym Grant Naylor.
• Last Human (1995), a sequel to Better Than Life.