Grant Naylor was the gestalt form of writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor when collaborating, particularly on the television series Red Dwarf. Grant and Naylor themselves called this pseudonym a "gestalt entity" (i.e. something which is greater than the sum of its parts), or a "Legion". This joke is enlarged upon in the author's notes on the two Red Dwarf novels the co-created with lines such as "but for tax reasons, have separate wives." For similar reasons, Grant Naylor have referred to their collective form in the negative as "Nan't Greylar".

The collaboration began in the mid-1980s when the duo co-wrote BBC Radio 4 programmes such as Cliché and its sequel Son of Cliché, and television programmes such as Spitting Image, The Ten Percenters, and various Jasper Carrott projects. The pair are also credited with writing the lyrics to "The Chicken Song" and a number of other musical parodies for the British satirical television show, Spitting Image.

The "Grant Naylor" collaboration, as it had become known, was best known for the creation of the cult science-fiction comedy series, Red Dwarf. Later episodes of Red Dwarf were made by a company named after this pseudonym, Grant Naylor Productions.

At some point in the mid to late nineties, after the success of Series VI of Red Dwarf, the "Grant Naylor" collaboration ended. Rob Grant and Doug Naylor were writing the second season of their sitcom The Ten Percenters when this happened, leaving Naylor with all the writing duties for the show. When Doug Naylor was apparently left with control of Red Dwarf, Rob Grant cited creative differences as the reason for his departure. His main reason however, he said, was that he "wished to have more on his 'tombstone' than Red Dwarf."

Doug Naylor went on to write series seven and eight of Red Dwarf in collaboration with other writers.

In 1999 and 2000, Rob Grant independently wrote two television series, Dark Ages and The Strangerers, and script edited the series Stressed Eric. In the past few years he has written four solo books and is rumoured to be working on an animated series entitled Cruel Aliens.

As of 2009, Grant Naylor Productions under Doug Naylor was primarily focused on the production of the DVD releases of Red Dwarf and the return of Red Dwarf in the three part special Back to Earth as well as plans for a new series. In 2012 Grant Naylor productions released Series X, funded and supported by Dave. Series X was then followed by both Series XI and Series XII of Red Dwarf on Dave.

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Grant Naylor. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Tongue Tied, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.



