23 January 2026
Sin Bin Island
Rich meets Red Dwarf co-creator and writer for A Kick Up The Eighties, Doug Naylor to talk about his thrilling and funny new book for kids, Sinbin Island. They chat about how Doug got started in comedy, why he gave us the Chicken Song, how Galton and Simpson inspired the writing of Red Dwarf, the difficulty of getting a sci-fi sitcom off the ground and how losing a leg at the age of 7 led to a correspondence with Douglas Bader. They then talk about what inspired Sinbin Island and how it started off about being about aliens, why so many kids books revolve around orphans, the decision to make the story reassuringly old-fashioned and yet still funny and relevant, whether the story is deliberately written to be unfilmable (at least without a huge budget) and if it was inspired by Doug's own experiences at boarding school. Plus the intriguing Russian nesting dolls and what they say about free will or time travel, but let's not give too much away.
Buy the book here - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/sin-bin-island-a-financial-times-children-s-book-of-the-year-from-red-dwarf-co-creator-doug-naylor-doug-naylor/3ad56d65845f8273
