DwarfCast 180 – Rob Grant: Thanks For The Memories DwarfCasts Posted by Ian Symes on 9th June 2026, 12:00 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes “The Carousel of Hideous Mistakes That Make You Say ‘Fuck’ In The Middle Of A Supermarket” The loss of Rob Grant earlier this year was a complete shock. Whether you knew him personally or were one of his thousands of fans, it was a bolt out of the blue. It’s taken us a little while to be able to talk about it, but with the release of Red Dwarf: Titan – Rob’s final work – rapidly approaching, we wanted to get together and discuss just how much he meant to us. So join us for our reminisces about all of G&T’s interactions with Rob over the years, discover the origin of that “ex-wife’s honeymoon video” quote, relive the moment that Ian’s imminent fatherhood was announced to the world unexpectedly, and discover what’s on the wall of Rob’s downstairs toilet. You can also peruse the show notes section below for a bumper dose of Rob-related content, and feel free to share your own memories of Rob in the comments. DwarfCast 180 – Rob Grant: Thanks For The Memories (44.4 MB) Show notes Cappsy’s ancient White Hole interview Mr Flibble Talks To Rob Grant Danny and Ian interview Rob and Andrew The Quarantine Commentaries archive The last G&T interview with Rob Andrew Marshall‘s tribute Our obituary for Rob The incredible TOS tribute
Thanks for putting this together. I didn’t know Rob personally, but it was lovely to be able to exchange a few emails with him during the period they were doing the Quarantine Commentaries. He couldn’t have been kinder and it was nice to email him the series 2 deleted scene of the Cat singing which he’d completely forgotten about. He then played it in during one of the commentaries. I guess for all of us who started watching Dwarf as kids, we never thought we would make contact with one of the writers. Especially one who was away from the show for so long.
I thought the parting message from his wife on the official website’s tribute was truly beautiful, haven’t been able to forget it in having read it months ago. I just finished rereading Backwards in December of last year ahead of Titan’s release, I won’t pretend I don’t take issue with parts of it but the prose was brilliant throughout and altogether a great read nonetheless. Extremely excited for Titan and grateful we have the opportunity to enjoy it.
I won’t pretend I don’t take issue with parts of it but the prose was brilliant throughout and altogether a great read nonetheless. I’d only listened to it unabridged as a kid, and didn’t really care about it, but since reading it properly, I love it. You just have to be in the right mood and know what you’re in for. Like watching Demons & Angels, only more so.
I read it a few years ago and my opinion vastly improved on it especially a lot of the Backwards Earth stuff I thought was boring and slow initially I really came around to upon my second reading, but I didn’t recall liking the Gunmen section (I believe that’s not in the audiobook version, but I’ve never listened to it) and that remained the same for my revisit. Its well-written but too meanspirited for my liking, which is funnily the total opposite of Last Human which I find far too saccharine.
I met Rob at the first DJ he ‘came back’ to, he was incredible kind and signed ALOT of things for me without me even having to ask, at one point he saw a book in my bag and said ”Oh! I’ll sign that too!”. I met him once or twice afterwards (Including the BFI event were ”Titan” was announced) and he remembered me! A very kind man. Fantastic DwarfCast :)
It’ll probably be a few days til I get time to listen to this but very much looking forward to it. Well done for even getting it out – I know Ian mentioned there were one or two aborted attempts. The incredible TOS tribute Psst, wrong link.
This may as well be the official Red Dwarf site so not entirely inaccurate although the lack of Mr Flibble interviews does knock it down in credibility quite a bit.
Really glad you got this one out. Living in a post Rob Grant world sucks, but hearing of his openness and generosity in life definitely helps. When it comes to posthumous works, I’d be sad to learn he wrote something substantial if it would never see the light of day. But it is definitely a thing that some writers just don’t want their work to be out there when it’s unfinished and out of their control – Terry Pratchett had his unfinished works literally steamrolled!
I won’t pretend I don’t take issue with parts of it but the prose was brilliant throughout and altogether a great read nonetheless. I’d only listened to it unabridged as a kid, and didn’t really care about it, but since reading it properly, I love it. I assume you meant abridged because if not I need a link for that yesterday.
I assume you meant abridged because if not I need a link for that yesterday. Oh yeah, my fingers autocorrected from habit from all the years of weeding out abridged cassette-era audiobooks in YouTube searches.
A truly lovely Dwarfcast and a great personal tribute to Rob. It’s tragic to lose him (and especially so just before the publication of Titan), but I love that this conversation featured so many personal memories of him that showed what a great person he was as well as an excellent writer. His pandemic activities in particular deserve the focus that they received here, as the weekly commentaries and performances were a real lifeline for the community at a traumatic time. More broadly I just wanted to say thanks to you guys for podcasts like this and your tribute to Seb that have dealt with some difficult topics with openness, honesty and even humour. Processing this kind of thing and the tough events that we all encounter throughout our lives can be difficult, but these Dwarfcasts provide a great example of how to talk about feelings that can be all too easy to bottle up in a way that isn’t healthy. Well done for setting such a positive example.
Thank you, Dave. All three of us have a friendship with next to no filters, so it certainly helps when it comes to not bottling things up, and getting that across in this DwarfCast is exactly what I hoped. But it’s important we don’t forget that Ian posted that news piece about Can of Worms being Danny John-Jules
But it’s important we don’t forget that Ian posted that news piece about Can of Worms being Danny John-Jules I laughed out loud.
Thank you, Dave. All three of us have a friendship with next to no filters, so it certainly helps when it comes to not bottling things up, and getting that across in this DwarfCast is exactly what I hoped. But it’s important we don’t forget that Ian posted that news piece about Can of Worms being Danny John-Jules The State of Online Journalism in 2026
It’s precisely because of our friendship that I was so convinced by Cappsy and Danny’s case that it was him, and that I took the stick and didn’t dob that pair of cunts in when it was proven wrong.
Me today: I fancy reading a really niche joke that about 200 people will get.Cappsy: Whatever you say, Adrian Rigelsford. Me: Massive office lol. Cheers.
Here are some past magazine interviews with Rob Grant is anyone is interested. From http://www.stasis-leak.org SFX #14 (1996) Dreamwatch 26 (1996) Focus Magazine – April 1998 SFX – Best of British Sci-fi (2011)
Lovely Dwarfcast, a wonderful job all around. The closest I came to meeting Rob was watching the lockdown commentaries. In one of them they were asking how Ed Bye had learned to touch type since the previous one, and I typed in to say he must’ve been playing Mario Teaches Typing and Rob laughed. It’s not hugely significant to anyone else, but it’s a magical memory for me. He really had such a warm laugh. Colony was the first book I bought with my own money, and I properly love it.
The lockdown commentaries were a nice memory. I’m glad I got to be part of the chat. Had a couple of my questions acknowledged by Rob, Ed and Paul, which was cool.
I’ve finally felt up to listening to this. It’s been a tough month and I just wasn’t up to a memorial Dwarfcast. But that was really lovely, a beautiful tribute to an incredibly talented and lovely human being. The bit about Kath continuing his promise of presents made me cry, I have to admit. What a beautiful community this silly show about people arguing on a spaceship managed to create.
