Doug Naylor

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Douglas Rodger Naylor^[1] (born 31 December 1955) is an English comedy writer, science fiction writer, director and television producer.

Life and career[]

Naylor was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, and studied at the University of Liverpool. In the mid-1980s, Naylor wrote two regular comedy sketch shows for BBC Radio 4 entitled Cliché and Son of Cliché, as well as Wrinkles for the same station. These sketch shows were scripted by Naylor along with another writer, Rob Grant. This writing partnership was successful, with Grant and Naylor going on to co-write and produce numerous British television series throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including programmes such as Comic Relief, Spitting Image and The 10 Percenters. They also wrote for Cannon and Ball in 1983.

The collaborations between Grant and Naylor have often used the pseudonym Grant Naylor. Together, they wrote the British science fiction comedy television series Red Dwarf under this name. Their earlier radio sketch shows formed the basis for the show; Chris Barrie starred in both of these, as well as Red Dwarf.

In 1994, an episode of Red Dwarf from the sixth series, "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", won an International Emmy Award in the Popular Arts category, and in the same year the series was also awarded 'Best BBC Comedy Series' at the British Comedy Awards. The series attracted its highest ratings, of over eight million viewers, during the eighth series in 1999.

Some time between the airing of the sixth series of Red Dwarf in 1993, and the writing of the seventh series in 1996, Grant ended his partnership with Naylor after revealing he was tired of it and that he intended to quit and pursue other projects.^{[citation needed]} The pair announced their professional split and cited creative and professional differences, along with Grant's desire to move into new areas.

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 awaiting trial. However, when Charles was acquitted and Barrie became available for a few episodes, a seventh series finally went ahead. 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), although some episodes were co-written with Paul Alexander and Kim Fuller, and one episode co-written with one of the cast members, Robert Llewellyn.

In 2007, Naylor and Grant Naylor Productions were primarily focused on the production of the DVD releases of Red Dwarf and the postulated movie. In 2008 it was announced by Grant Naylor Productions that Red Dwarf would return to television in the form of four half-hour specials for the UKTV Network channel Dave. The episodes were broadcast over the Easter weekend of 2009, and comprising a three-part special (20 minutes each), "Back to Earth", and a behind-the-scenes 'Making of' special. Naylor wrote the scripts for the three new episodes and also directed them. "Back to Earth" received record ratings for the Dave channel.

In 2011, Dave commissioned Naylor to write a new six episode series of Red Dwarf, later entitled Red Dwarf X.^[2] The series won the Royal Television Society's award for Best Special Effects, presented in 2013.

Naylor formed Three Feet Productions^{[citation needed]} with his son Richard in 2014, and wrote and directed a one-off comedy for BBC One , entititled Over To Bill, starring Hugh Dennis, Neil Morrissey and Helen George and produced by Richard Naylor.

In 2015–2016, Naylor wrote and directed 12 more episodes of Red Dwarf for Dave). Series XI was broadcast from September 2016 onwards, and Series XII from September 2017. Both series were a Baby Cow Productions commission, with Richard Naylor and Kerry Waddell as producers. Naylor has now written or co-written all 73 episodes of Red Dwarf.

Personal life[]

Naylor is married to Casting Director Linda Glover and they have two sons, one of whom (Richard) is a television producer, the other a doctor. Naylor has a prosthetic leg due to a road accident when he was seven years old, hence the naming of his and Richard's production company ‘Three Feet Productions’^{[citation needed][3]}

Writing credits[]

Bibliography[]

• 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.

References[]

External links[]

• Interview (December 2007)
• Doug Naylor at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Doug Naylor at IMDb