Red Dwarf creator Rob Grant has sadly died at the age of 70, his family have announced. On Thursday (February 26), the writer's family released a heartbroken statement, which read: "With much sadness, we have to announce that Rob Grant, co-creator of Red Dwarf, passed away suddenly yesterday afternoon (25/02.26), a great loss to his family, friends and comedy fans across the world." After the heartbreaking news hit the headlines, star Craig Charles paid tribute to the writer, who was also the brains behind Spitting Image.
He wrote: "Earlier today, I was informed of the passing of @realrobgrant. I am in total shock. He was one of the funniest people I've ever met. A visionary. My heart goes out to his family and friends. The impact he and Doug had on the course of my life is immeasurable. RIP ROB."
The sci-fi show, which Grant created with Doug Naylor, premiered on BBC Two in 1988 and quickly became one of the UK's most-loved shows. His passing comes a month after he announced he was working with Andrew Marshall on the first Red Dwarf novel in 30 years.
Titled Red Dwarf: Tital, the author had planned for the book to hit the shelves in early July. Speaking this week to Radio Times, he teased: "It's Lister and Rimmer before the accident on shore leave on Titan. It's set one universe to the side, so we can have familiar characters, but we can do different things with them because the difficulty was writing something that was going to be original and fresh and using the same characters without breaking canon.
"So it was quite an intricate bit of work that actually took us about a year-and-a-half longer than we were hoping!" He added: "It's common knowledge that there has been a legal dispute over the rights of Red Dwarf for bloody years. It went to court, and it made Bleak House look like an episode of Judge Judy!
"But we finally got it resolved in 2023, and suddenly all these rights became available to me, and one of them was for the prequel, and that's where it started. We originally wrote it as a treatment for a TV spin-off and took it around, but it's horribly expensive, and we couldn't really raise enough interest.
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The show followed low-ranking technician Dave Lister (played by Craig Charles), who wakes up after three million years in suspended animation to discover he is the last living human. The show became a success as it followed Dave’s experience alone and stranded three million years into deep space on the mining ship Red Dwarf. When it premiered, the comedy was highly acclaimed by fans and critics.
It won several awards, including an International Emmy, and was named the Best BBC Comedy Series at the British Comedy Awards in 1994. At its finale, Red Dwarf attracted more than eight million viewers, as many fans continue to share their admiration for the “must-watch” series.
