Doug Naylor: How Red Dwarf Made TV Better Than Life

From Television Times with Steve Otis Gunn Jilted Maggot

The co-creator of Red Dwarf wrote a number one single in five minutes, turned around a failing Spitting Image, and had his brand new Red Dwarf movie cancelled because it was the BBC's only successful comedy. You couldn't write it. Well, Doug could.

Doug Naylor is the co-creator and writer of Red Dwarf, which has run for 12 series and continues to find new audiences decades on. He co-wrote the Chicken Song (number one, 1986), was script editor on Spitting Image, and wrote for Jasper Carrott, Cannon and Ball, Ken Dodd, and numerous others. His children's book Sin Bin Island is the Financial Times Children's Book of the Year.

The casting sessions where Alan Rickman, Hugh Laurie, and Alfred Molina all auditioned — and why Danny John-Jules, half an hour late in his dad's old suit, got the Cat after the very first audition
How Craig Charles pestered Paul Jackson until he said "just see him to get him off my back" — and why Doug originally didn't like him
The BBC cancelled the new Red Dwarf movie because it was the only successful comedy they commissioned
The fake Duke of Manchester, who offered £12 million, sent a fax with his bank balance Tipp-Exed out and the amount typed in — and was later sent to prison

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