Doug Naylor

What do you get when you cross Hugh Dennis and Neil Morrissey with an unremarkable script about a weatherman and his woes? This one-off comedy from Doug Naylor, co-creator of Red Dwarf. Dennis stars as Bill Onion, a middle-aged TV weatherman fired from the BBC and trying to claw his way back with the help of his best friend Jez (Morrissey), Jez's hostile wife (Helen George) and his own wife (Tracy-Ann Oberman). It's the first of three new pilot episodes in a revamp of the BBC's Comedy Playhouse strand.

Radio Times review

Hugh Dennis is Bill, a hangdog weatherman who is sacked from the BBC and replaced by a stunning young woman. Infuriated, bitter Bill sets out to find another job, this time with C4. It's not much of a premise for a comedy, but then Over to Bill isn't much of a comedy.

It's supposed to be a comedy (written by Red Dwarf's Doug Naylor) because it's part of a brief revival of the much-loved Comedy Playhouse strand, which produced abiding hits Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part and The Liver Birds.

But Over to Bill won't trouble the comedy stratosphere like those classics. There are jokes about the accidental drinking of breast-milk, emergency present-buying from a garage and a particularly tasteless routine about bone marrow transplants. Neil Morrissey and Call the Midwife's Helen George co-star as Bill's shallow friends.

Happy 25th anniversary - Red Dwarf!

15 February is definitely a day to celebrate if you love British telly. Twenty-five years ago on that fateful day in 1988, the creation from the mind palace of Rob Grant and Doug Naylor which introduced the world to the remaining on-board inhabitants of a mining spaceship owned and operated by the Jupiter Mining Corporation, became a reality with the premiere broadcast of Red Dwarf.

Red Dwarf XI? C'mon Dave, you know you want more...

Given some recent comments from creator/writer, Doug Naylor, and several inhabitants of the 'small rouge one', it looks like things are leaning decidedly more in favor of another series of Red Dwarf becoming a distinct possibility in the not-too-distant future.

Doug Naylor interview

To mark the last episode in the current series of Red Dwarf, we caught up with writer and co-creator Doug Naylor...

Three years on from the sprawling (but largely underwhelming) Back to Earth mini-series, the boys from the Dwarf go back to basics for this tenth series. It's a smart move, for this is a lively re-creation of the show as we most fondly remember it. It's all here: the studio audience, the bunkroom sparring and the strategies employed by the crew to make their lonely lives bearable.

For the incompetent Rimmer, this means attempting to pass the astronavigation exam and become a Space Corps high-flyer. We've seen him try and fail before, but this time the stakes are higher thanks to an SOS call from an old foe.

Writer Doug Naylor gets plenty of laughs from Rimmer's sense of thwarted ambition while also taking witty pot shots at some classic sci-fi conventions. Watch out for a nice gag that involves Lister faking a talent for touch telepathy, plus the sight of the guys in snug, elasticated Star Trek-style jumpsuits.

Having overreached itself with 2009's Back to Earth, co-creator Doug Naylor sensibly brings Red Dwarf back into the confines of studio sitcom, where it feels more comfortable if also more dated - although any modern day Mac user will nod sadly at the reference to 'spinning beach balls of doom'. We're back to the big four: slobbish human Lister, uptight hologram Rimmer, officious mechanoid Kryten and 'supercool' human-feline hybrid The Cat, the latter now more Little Richard-meets-Bill Cosby than Prince-meets-James Brown. Each is of course played to the hilt, with the flawless cast getting an admirable number of chuckles out of an occasionally creaky script. Tonight revolves around Rimmer, who comes face-to-face with an old enemy while studying, once again, for his oft-failed officer's exam. The laughs are more sporadic and the invention spread more thinly, but TV is still a better place for its return.

A return for the cult sci-fi comedy. This 10th series follows on from the three episodes which went out on Dave in 2009. The original cast of Lister (Craig Charles), Rimmer (Chris Barrie), Cat (Danny John-Jules) and Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) are reunited but sadly the spark has long since gone. This opener to the six-part run, written by original creator Doug Naylor, finds the crew distracted from their usual prattling and squabbling when they encounter an abandoned spaceship and Rimmer's long-forgotten brother, Howard.

Doug Naylor interview

The sci-fi sitcom's showrunner talks to David Brown about series ten, the Dwarf's new young fanbase, and leaving the BBC.