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British director and screenwriter Rob Grant, one of the co-creators of the famous sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf, died at the age of 70. On Thursday, the English media reported on this with reference to the family.
“It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Rob Grant, co-creator of Red Dwarf, passed away suddenly yesterday afternoon,” relatives said. According to them, Grant’s death is a loss not only for his loved ones and friends, but also for fans around the world.
The British public broadcaster BBC broadcast the series from 1988 to 1999, before continuing on Dave from 2009 to 2020.
The comedy saga follows the fate of the mining ship Red Dwarf, whose crew perished as a result of radiation, and the ship is now wandering in the depths of space. The only survivors are slacker Dave Lister, a humanoid cat named Cat, the android Kryton, and a hologram of the pedantic but incompetent officer Arnold Rimmer.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Phil Guest
Rob Grant in a photo from 2004.
The series starred Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules, Norman Lovett, Hattie Hayridge or Robert Llewellyn. Some of them have arrived in the Czech Republic in recent years. Barrie and Charles visited the Prague Comic-Con in 2024, where Danny John-Jules also came last year.
Barrie, who played flight engineer Arnold Rimmer, was surprised by the show’s popularity with local viewers. “I understand it in English-speaking countries like the UK, the United States or Australia, but it’s incredible and fascinating how many fans we have over here,” he said.
Lovett, who personified Holly’s senile on-board computer, visited the Czech Republic in 2019 at the invitation of the Future Gate sci-fi film festival. “I am still grateful to the dwarf. Even without him, I would still make a living as a comedian, but I probably wouldn’t be such a star,” he said at the time.