Doug Naylor

Doug Naylor

Douglas R. Naylor (born 1955) is a British comedy writer, science fiction writer, director and television producer.

Naylor was born in Manchester, 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 Radio 4. 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 1980s and 1990s. These included programmes such as 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.

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 that he intended 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), 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 and much-hoped-for movie.

In 2008 it was announced by Grant Naylor Productions that Red Dwarf would return to TV screens in the form of four half hour specials for the digital channel Dave. The episodes were broadcast over the Easter weekend, 2009, and comprising a three-part special (20 minutes each), Back to Earth, and a behind-the-scenes "Making of" Back to Earth. Naylor wrote the scripts for the three new episodes and also directed them. Back to Earth received record ratings for freeview channel Dave.

One of the Red Dwarf's highest accolades came in 1994, when an episode 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.

In 2011, Dave commissioned Doug Naylor to write a new 6 episode series of Red Dwarf, later entitled Red Dwarf X.