This is a list of characters from the TV sitcom Red Dwarf.
Contents |
| Character | Actor | Series |
|---|---|---|
| Dave Lister | Craig Charles | I – Back to Earth |
| Dave Lister is the last human male in the known universe due to an accident leading to him being kept in stasis for three million years. His best clothes have only two curry stains down the front - and wrongly believes he is a fantastic guitarist.[1] | ||
| Arnold Rimmer | Chris Barrie | I – Back to Earth |
| Arnold Judas Rimmer is Lister's bunkmate brought back to life as a hologram to keep Lister sane. He is unpopular with his crew mates, and is often the target of insults and pranks. Throughout the first seven series, his character wore an "H" symbol on his forehead, which stands for "Hologram." In series VIII, he was brought back to life, along with the other members of the original Red Dwarf crew. | ||
| The Cat | Danny John-Jules | I – Back to Earth |
| The character has no name besides "The Cat." He is the humanoid descendant of a modern house cat called Frankenstein, which had been Lister's pet cat. The cat society (Felis sapiens) left Red Dwarf seeking the promised land, leaving behind those who were too ill or old to travel. The Cat is the son of the cripple and the idiot.
The Cat's personality mirrors that of a cat - thinking only of his own well-being, vain and superficial. Despite all of his boasting, he has never had any genuine experience with a female. |
||
| Kryten | David Ross | II (guest star) |
| Robert Llewellyn | III – Back to Earth | |
| Kryten is a neurotic Series 4000 mechanoid robotic servant. He is humanoid, with the exception of the flat cubical face and head. Once the personal servant of three attractive female crew members of the Nova 5, he was found and rescued by Lister who has been teaching Kryten to "break his programming" in order to develop his own personality and develop human character faults (such as the ability to lie). | ||
| Holly | Norman Lovett | I,II, VII & VIII |
| Hattie Hayridge | III – V | |
| Holly is an intelligent computer. Holly's user interface appears on the ship's screens as a disembodied human head on a black background, he can also be downloaded onto most television screens, and can roam around on a monitor mounted on a cart. Holly regularly proclaims that he has an IQ of 6000, though there are frequent references to the fact that it is now much lower due to three million years alone - "computer senility." | ||
| Kristine Kochanski | Clare Grogan[2] | I,II & VI (guest star) |
| Chloë Annett | VII, VIII, Back to Earth (guest star in Back to Earth) | |
| Kristine Z Kochanski is Red Dwarf's Navigation Officer who was the object of Lister's lust before she was killed by a radiation leak. In Series VII, the crew discover an alternate universe where Kochanski survived with Lister as her hologram. She ends up stuck on Starbug and takes Rimmer's place in the crew. | ||
Ace Rimmer (Commander Arnold Judas Rimmer) is an alter-ego of Arnold Rimmer, also played by Chris Barrie. Ace first appears in the episode Dimension Jump and is the antithesis of Rimmer, modest despite being a popular, knowledgeable daredevil hero. He comes from a seemingly "perfect" universe, in which Rimmer and Lister lived happy, successful lives and were good friends.
Ace's childhood paralleled Rimmer's up-until the age of seven, when one of them was kept down a year at school while the other was not. The one kept down became Ace, who claims that the shame of being a clear foot taller than the rest of his class inspired him to buckle down, fight back, and work hard, while Arnold spent the rest of his life making excuses for his many failures.
Ace travels from planet to planet wearing a gold, fur-lined flight suit and saving peoples lives. He was originally a test pilot for the Space Corps in his own universe, which also features an alter ego of Lister (nicknamed 'Spanners' by Ace) who is a flight engineer married to Kochanski and has twin sons called Jim and Bexley (the sort of family to which the regular Lister always aspired). Ace's other friends included the Space Corps chaplain (played by The Cat actor Danny John-Jules), a receptionist named Mellie (played by Holly actress Hattie Hayridge), and Admiral Sir James Tranter, a superior officer whom Ace nicknames 'Bongo' (played by Kryten actor Robert Llewellyn). Despite being happily married, Bongo has a gay crush on Ace, who takes it in stride despite not reciprocating his feelings. Unlike Rimmer, who wants to be an officer and have the adulation there in, but was little more than a vending machine attendant, Ace is an officer, but does not like the attention he receives, and spends his time with Spanners, the engineering crew, and the enlisted men/ratings. He even refuses to attend a lavish party his fellow officers are throwing for him to go to a smaller one with Spanners and the enlisted.
Ace was offered the chance to pilot a brand-new kind of spacecraft, one that can cross dimensions - leading to his meeting the Red Dwarf crew. Rimmer was instantly bitter that Ace got all the breaks he did not while Ace regarded him as a weasely maggot. In contrast, Ace and Lister became firm friends, prompting a lot of snide remarks on Rimmer's part about their 'relationship.'
Following his visit to Red Dwarf, Ace extended his adventures through the multiverse, becoming a hero, and meeting many alternate versions of himself. When he finally became unable to carry on, he passed his wig and his legacy on to another version of himself, who became the new Ace. Previous Ace Rimmers were sent, when they finally died, to orbit a planet in an unknown location in small yellow 'coffins,' and by the time Red Dwarf's Rimmer took on the mantle in Stoke Me a Clipper, the billions of Ace Rimmers who have come before him had formed a ring around the planet (resembling the logo of the TV series).
Ace's catchphrase is "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!" and it is a running joke in the series that everyone who comes into contact with Ace Rimmer exclaims "What a guy!" in tones of complete adoration.
After encountering a polymorph in Emohawk: Polymorph II, the original hologram Rimmer is robbed of his emotional bitterness, and as result takes on a personality identical to Ace. The now brave and heroic Rimmer helps to save the lives of the rest of the crew, but must reluctantly return to his cowardly ways upon defeating the creature.
Duane Dibbley is the dorky alter-ego of the Cat, played by Danny John-Jules with a pudding basin haircut and big overbite. He first appears in the Series V episode "Back To Reality," as part of a hallucinogenic experience, designed to cause despair in the Dwarfers. He then returns in "Emohawk: Polymorph II," caused by a polymorph absorbing the Cat's cool (Rimmer described him as "looking so geeky, he couldn't even get into a science fiction convention"). In the BBC's Red Dwarf Night he inexplicably appears in the Can't Cook, Won't Cook parody (Can't Smeg Won't Smeg) after The Cat refuses to take part in the show.
In Series VIII episode "Back in the Red," the Cat, Lister, Kochanski, and Kryten disguised themselves as "The Dibbley Family" by wearing mop heads on their heads and large false teeth.
The character's brief appearances have proved incredibly popular. John-Jules' explanation for this was "No-one's ever written a black nerd before."
The Dog is a minor character played by Matthew Devitt. He is an alternate version of the Cat from a parallel universe. His origins are presumably similar to the Cat, except that Deb Lister (Dave Lister's duplicate) brought a dog called Dracula on board the ship, rather than a cat called Frankenstein. As such, he has dog-like traits - for example a hatred of bathing - and so does not get on with The Cat
Queeg 500 is a "back-up" computer played by Charles Augins. Queeg claims that Holly's IQ is not 6,000 but 6 and that Holly gets his information from a children's science book, called the "Junior Colour Encyclopedia of Space." He demotes Holly to night-watchman and takes over the ship.
Queeg soon makes the crew's lives hell. Rimmer is forced to take regular long distance runs whilst Cat and Lister are made to work for tiny amounts of food. They appeal to Holly who challenges Queeg to a game of chess, with the loser being deleted. Holly loses the game and fades from view. He then returns and announces that he was Queeg all the time. The whole thing was a practical joke to teach the crew to appreciate Holly even though he has gone a bit "computer senile."
Queeg is a reference to Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, USN, a fictional character in Herman Wouk's 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny and 1954 film The Caine Mutiny. Both Queeg and Queeg 500 are in command of a vessel and prone to eccentric behavior. Both display an oppressive command style and are prone to unprovoked angry outbursts.
The skutters are motorised service and maintenance robots that stand at around 2 feet (61 cm) tall, appearing as motorised boxes with a single limb each, ending in a three-clawed hand with an electronic eye. They perform menial tasks around the ship, such as sweeping the cinema floors after a movie, or painting the corridor walls. The skutters are unable to speak (except with bleeping noises), but can usually make their feelings clear. Their hands are particularly well designed for giving "flipping the bird" (a.k.a. "up yours") gestures with one or two digits, most often to Rimmer. Their behaviour is rather more human-like than might be expected for such crudely designed robots; they play cowboys-and-Indians, enjoy watching films, are highly emotional and appear to be somewhat unstable and malfunctional, presumably as a result of 3 million years of continuous operation.
The tiny, motorised, three-clawed service droids were actual working models, save the episode "The End", where the skutters were a post-production addition to the chicken soup nozzle scene. They were made up of various parts including old shoe boxes and the engines of radio controlled cars. Interference originating from the radios of a nearby taxicab company, which was particularly busy during filming of the episode "Future Echoes", caused havoc with the skutter models on set. One reportedly poked Craig Charles in the eye, and another launched an attack on Chris Barrie's groin. Coincidentally, the skutters had been scripted as very inept towards their maintenance work and mischievous towards humans.
Kryten referred to a skutter by the name Bob in the episode "The Last Day". Series VIII also featured a skutter named Bob along with his "wife" Madge. The skutters are fans of John Wayne, having their broom cupboard filled with Western props and pin-ups of Wayne, and are members of the John Wayne Fan Club.[3]
Two skutters appeared in the US pilot playing poker until one of them gives Rimmer what looks like "the finger". These skutters were given a revamp in design: a wider, rounded body with a complex neck and a narrow head with concealed eyes that pop up.
The skutters are unusually capable of sex, as in the episode Parallel Universe, a "male" Skutter and its "female" equivalent from the parallel universe are seen with "children".[4]
In "Back To Earth", the skutters had been given a complete redesign, and were added in post as a CG effect rather than being a remote controlled mechanism, as there wasn't enough money in the budget to even revamp the casing. Due to this, as the actors had no visual cue, Danny John-Jules was required to step in as a replacement for a skutter so that Chris Barrie had something to react to.
Talkie Toaster is a minor character, a monomaniacal talking toaster that tries to steer every conversation to the subject of toast.
Owned by Lister, Talkie Toaster is a toaster with artificial intelligence who is completely obsessed with making toast and annoys everyone on board. In Series I (and a deleted scene in Series II), "he" (the toaster has a masculine voice) appears as a standard 1970s-style toaster made from stainless steel but with a circular light on the side which flashes as he speaks, and is voiced by John Lenahan, with a more-or-less American accent. In Series IV, he appears as a red toaster made of plastic, with his name "Talkie Toaster" emblazoned on the side, and rather more flashing red and green lights and is voiced by David Ross[5] (who played Kryten in his title episode).
The Toaster would keep interjecting in conversations and whenever possible would try eventually to steer the conversation towards toast. Eventually Lister smashed the Toaster with a 14 lb lump hammer. Kryten repaired the Toaster in order to use him as a guinea-pig for "intelligence compression" — restoring his former intelligence (his AI chips were very badly damaged) at the cost of reducing his operational lifespan. The Toaster's repaired personality was somewhat different from his original one: it now had a different voice and no longer tried to hide its obsession with toast.
Outside the TV series, Talkie Toaster plays a secondary, yet vital role in the book Better Than Life, where Holly revives him in order to have someone to talk to while the crew are stuck in the virtual reality game. In this version, it is Toaster who figures out how to restore Holly's IQ after perusing Holly's manuals, and later is also the one who informs the Dwarfers how to survive a black hole, Holly having given him this information while showing off his intelligence before he had to shut himself down (Although he 'required' the crew to eat multiple pieces of toast before he gave them the information, Kryten having to eat Rimmer's share).
Toaster's interviews with various Red Dwarf characters (complete with offers of toast) can be found on Red Dwarf's official website.
The Chocolate Dispenser has a minor role to play in series VIII, in which it is stolen from by Rimmer and then complains about this. It is voiced by Tony Slattery
Its only appearance was in Only the Good.... Having been stolen from by Rimmer, it sets off an alarm to alert the Captain of chocolate being stolen ("Alert, alert! A choccie nut bar has been removed without payment!") It later goes on to inform Rimmer concerning his becoming its 'nemesis.' His appearance in the last scene involved it telling Rimmer that the formula which he got from the parallel universe, which would stop the virus that was destroying the ship, had in fact become the formula for the virus again; then firing a drinks can at Rimmer's head with its final lines, "Every dog has its day, and this is the day, and I'm the dog!" and Rimmer is knocked unconscious.
In the alternate ending, the virus' antidote in the other world became the virus and the virus in that world became the antidote and then, the ship was saved from destruction, they were no longer in the Tank and later, Rimmer finally pays the money he owes the dispenser, but it still fires a can at Rimmer's head, knocking him unconscious anyway as Rimmer says, "Every dog has its day...", and after he is knocked unconscious, the Chocolate Dispenser finishes with, "...and this is the day, and I'm the dog!" and he howls as the audience applauds.
The Revolving Toilet is an artificially intelligent toilet which is located on a revolving plinth behind the washbasin in Lister's bedroom. It speaks in a dull male voice and bears a sign which reads "Now irradiate your hands."
The Revolving Toilet appeared in Balance of Power, in which it appeared to Lister when he dismissively responded "Oh crap" to Holly's statement that he thought Rimmer was the best person to bring back as hologram because he would keep Lister sane. When Lister says he didn't want the toilet, the Revolving Toilet apologises and says that it wasn't paying attention.
Captain Frank Hollister is played by American actor Mac McDonald[6] in the television series.
Hollister is the captain of the interplanetary mining vessel Red Dwarf. He is seen in the first episode, in which he sentences Dave Lister to eighteen months in stasis for bringing a cat on board. When Lister is released Hollister, along with the rest of the crew, has been radioactive dust for three million years. In Series VIII, with the crew resurrected by nanobots, Hollister becomes a main character. This is also the series where it is revealed that the captain is in fact "Dennis the Donut Boy" and had abused confidential files in order to work his way up the ranks and become captain. In the first Red Dwarf novel, the captain is a woman named "Kirk".
Olaf Petersen is played by Mark Williams[7] in the television series. He is a Danish catering officer on the Red Dwarf mining vessel.
First appearing in the pilot episode, Petersen is the best friend of Dave Lister. He, Lister, Selby and Chen spend most of their free time getting drunk. Like the rest of the crew, Petersen is killed in the radiation leak. His remains are found in the Drive Room as a white powder that Lister tasted. Petersen is resurrected along with the rest of the crew in Series VIII, but is not seen, although often referred to.
Selby and Chen are played by David Gillespie and Paul Bradley,[8] respectively. Chen works in the ship's kitchens and both spend their time drunk. First appearing in the pilot episode, they spend most of their free time with Lister and Petersen getting drunk. Like the rest of the crew they are killed in the radiation leak. When the crew are resurrected in Series VIII, Selby and Chen are the first crew members the regular characters encountered. They are not seen again.
George McIntyre was a minor character aboard Red Dwarf.
In the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, McIntyre was an officer on Red Dwarf who was severely depressed due to growing debt problems. After a horrifying experience in the hands of gangsters (he returned to Red Dwarf carrying his nose in a Titan Hilton Hotel napkin), McIntyre committed suicide. He was brought back as a hologram and replaced the ship's first hologram, Frank Saunders (much to Saunders' relief).
According to the original script of The End, McIntyre was killed by a minor radiation leak from the drive plate that Rimmer failed to repair.
In the television series, McIntyre was only seen at his "Welcome Back Reception" thanking everyone for flowers and turning up at his funeral, and his choice of music at the funeral was "See You Later Alligator" as his ashes were blasted into space. George was portrayed by Robert McCulley. He was switched off during the radioactive disaster, for Arnold Rimmer to replace him afterwards by Holly to keep Dave Lister sane. The cause of his death isn't mentioned in the TV series.
Frank Todhunter appeared in the first episode only and was played by Robert Bathurst. He is in charge of the stasis booth and tries to describe how it works to anyone who goes there. He is also an exam invigilator causing him to be someone that Rimmer severely dislikes. As part of Kristine Kochanski's story to ease Lister's claustrophobia, she claims the Todhunter from her dimension is gay, despite being a married man and notorious womaniser.
Prison Governor Ackerman is played by Graham McTavish.[9]
Seen only in the eighth series, Mr Ackerman is a stereotypically sadistic prison governor, enjoying his power over the inmates in Floor 13 (Red Dwarf's brig), "The Tank." He has a glass eye, which at one point is stolen from him. Prone to overreaction, he is a victim of pranks from the inmates on more than one occasion. After having sodium pentothal put into his inhaler as a prank, he shows up late at a meeting with the captain and reveals that he was sorry, but he was busy having "jiggy jiggy" with the Science Officer's wife, and needed time to change out of his Batman costume. Following the prank Lister suggested that a Tarzan costume would be better, since it would take less time to change out of.
According to various interviews on the Red Dwarf website, Ackerman was originally part of the same prison ship that was transporting the simulant encountered in the episode "Justice," but escaped from the ship after accidentally enabling the simulants to get free.
Warden Knot
Like governor Ackerman, Knot is a fairly sadistic warden. He dies in the episode Cassandra when Arnold Rimmer is due to die of a heart attack, as according to prophecy, but sets up Knot to die in his place.
Kill Crazy is a minor character played by Jake Wood,[10] appearing only in Series 8.
Kill Crazy (Real name - Oswald Blenkinsop) is a psychopathic inmate who is obsessed with killing things. He is not very bright, thinking that he could fight a Tyrannosaurus Rex using his fists. His fighting buddy is Baxter (played by comedian Ricky Grover). When the prisoners arrive at the destination of a mission, Kill Crazy screams "LET'S GO KILL SOMETHING!" before charging forward at great pace and knocking himself unconscious on a low doorway.
In a hallucination induced by the ink of a despair squid, the crew encounters Katerina Bartikovsky. In this hallucination, Katerina was the science officer of the Red Dwarf before the accident. She is of Russian heritage and speaks with a strong accent. Her personality is strict, serious, and judgmental, with a certain amount of scientific genius and arrogance. She suddenly appears as a hard-light hologram in "Back to Earth, Part One" after Rimmer's negligence nearly results in the death of his crewmates. She uses her superior rank to make herself ship's hologram and tries to have Rimmer deactivated and destroyed; it is also evident that she has personal disdain for him. Meanwhile, she attempts to bring Lister home with a device she made with a mining laser and the DNA of a dimension-hopping squid (the hallucination's explanation for the despair squid), which the rest of the crew enters through to get back to Earth, which allows Rimmer to escape deletion. She later encounters Rimmer in a street on Earth, claiming to have gone through a second portal, where they discuss the morals of deleting holograms. Katerina argues that since holograms are simulated dead humans, then killing them is acceptable. Using this logic, Rimmer pushes her into traffic, whisking her away. She is not seen again after this incident.
The Cat Priest was the only member of the species Felis sapiens seen on the television show Red Dwarf apart from The Cat. He was played by Noel Coleman.
The Cat Priest was blind. He was the Cat's teacher and guardian after his parents died, but Cat was never really interested and preferred to go off investigating. The Cat Priest was once a devout follower of the Cat religion, but over time as the Cat race fled Red Dwarf and those who stayed aboard died he lost his faith.
When the Cat Priest was dying, Lister appeared and revealed that he was the Cat god Cloister. The Priest apologised for losing his faith, saying "You tested me, and I failed you." Lister assured him that he had not failed, and he would get into Fuchal. The Cat Priest's last words before he died of a heart attack were "This is the happiest day of my ..."
In the remastered version of the episode in which he appeared, the Cat Priest's body was cremated and the ashes jettisoned into space.
Mr. Flibble is a hologramatical hand puppet penguin. He is fluffy and malevolent, and often "very cross." In the episode Quarantine, Arnold Rimmer wore Mr. Flibble on his hand and together they terrorised the rest of the crew. Rimmer had been infected by a hologramatical virus, the "Hex virus," which gave him mental powers, but also made him completely psychotic. Both Mr. Flibble and Rimmer were armed with the power of Hex vision. When they attack with this power, their eyes glow red, and then a deadly beam of energy is discharged from their eyes.
Although he only appears in one episode, Mr. Flibble became a fan favourite, and is now an interviewer on the Red Dwarf official website.[11]
Hudzen-10 appeared only in the Series III episode The Last Day, and was portrayed by Gordon Kennedy. A replacement for Kryten, Hudzen-10 followed Red Dwarf for many years, eventually being driven insane. After the Red Dwarf crew told him to leave the ship, he deigned them all to be members of species which are not human (bar Lister, whom he designated 'What the Hell!', concluding that he was 'Barely Human'), and attempted to kill them all. He was only stopped when Kryten told him that 'Silicon Heaven' did not exist, forcing him into an existential dilemma.
Rimmer's mother is referred to several times in the series, not altogether consistently. In Polymorph, Rimmer describes her affectionately as "prim and proper", almost austere but with no time for fools. Yet in The Last Day, he indicates that she was overly sexually promiscuous. In Dimension Jump she is briefly shown as a mother who is concerned for her son's upbringing and education but is insensitive to his feelings (for example, lecturing him about his situation at school while he is hanging upside down as the result of a mean prank by his brothers, rather than help him down first).
In the episode Polymorph, the Polymorph makes Rimmer angry so it can suck out his anger; to do this it changes into Rimmer's mum and has sexual intercourse with Lister, who has lost his sense of fear. Holly repeatedly stresses to Rimmer that this is all a ploy to anger him, so he manages to keep his cool until the Polymorph taunts him, saying "The things this boy can do with Alphabetti Spaghetti..."
The Lift Hostess is a minor character who only appears in the Series II episode Stasis Leak in the form of a recording. She tells passengers how many floors they are travelling down and what to do in an emergency; her appearance ends with her saying that if the lift has to make a crash landing, death is certain, and there is a tape recorder under the seat for recording a last will, also a bag which contains a cyanide capsule. She then demonstrates how to use the capsule and promptly dies.
Many co-stars of the first few episodes have gone on to careers away from Red Dwarf, such as Robert Bathurst, Tony Hawks, Paul Bradley, Craig Ferguson and Mark Williams. But later series have attracted established stars, some of whom were fans of the show.
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