Rob Grant, the British comedy writer best known for co-creating and co-writing the sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf, died Feb. 25, 2026, his family said. He died suddenly. His age and the cause of death were not announced.
Grant’s defining work was Red Dwarf, first broadcast in 1988 and created with Doug Naylor. As one half of the “Grant Naylor” partnership, he helped shape a distinctive brand of British science-fiction comedy, using space travel, workplace dysfunction and long-form continuity for running jokes and character-driven humor.
His death came shortly after the announcement of a new Red Dwarf prequel novel, Red Dwarf: Titan, co-written with Andrew Marshall and scheduled for publication July 16, 2026. In a Radio Times interview published Feb. 24, 2026, Grant described a prequel focused on Lister and Rimmer before the accident, using a separate continuity approach to avoid disrupting established canon.
The project followed the resolution of a long-running legal dispute over Red Dwarf rights in 2023, which cleared the way for the prequel. Beyond Red Dwarf, Grant continued writing for television and fiction, including The Strangerers and Dark Ages, as well as several novels. He is remembered for helping create a cult British comedy series whose characters and worldbuilding endured well beyond its original run.