This is a
list of characters from the TV sitcom Red
Dwarf.
Major characters
| Character |
Actor/actress |
Series |
| David 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. |
| 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 watches or roam
around on a monitor mounted to 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 |
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. |
Alter egos
Ace Rimmer
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 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 the lives of beautiful women. 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 being 'strictly butter-side up.'
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, even sighing
when a booby-trap set by Rimmer failed to work. 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, adventuring, becoming a hero, and meeting
all the 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
Duane Dibbley is the
dork
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
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 on
board the ship, rather than a cat. As such, he has dog-like traits
- for example a hatred of bathing - and so does not get on with The
Cat
Queeg 500
Charles Augins as Queeg 500
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 & 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.
Shipboard robots
The Skutters
The
skutters are motorised
service and
maintenance robots that stand at around two
feet 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
behavior is rather more human-like that 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 an
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. Ironically, 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.
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 it's "female" equivalent
from the parallel universe are seen with "children".
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
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.
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 14lb 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, and later is also the one who
informs the Dwarfers how to survive a black hole.
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
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.
In its first appearance, 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 last appearance in
Only the Good... 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 today is the day that I am 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 that I'm the
dog!" and he howls as the audience applauds.
Other Red Dwarf crew
Captain Frank Hollister
Captain Frank Hollister is
played by American
actor Mac McDonald 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.
Olaf Petersen
Olaf Petersen is played by
Mark Williams 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
Selby and Chen are played by
David Gillespie and
Paul Bradley, 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
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 Ya Later Alligator" as his ashes were blasted
into space. 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
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
Prison Governor Ackerman is played by
Graham McTavish.
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
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
Kill Crazy is a minor character played by
Jake Wood, 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
(after all, how's the T-Rex going to punch him with those tiny
arms?). 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 clattering
himself unconscious on a low doorway.
Katerina Bartikovsky
In a hallucination induced by the ink of a despair squid, the crew
encounter 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 crew mates. 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 enter 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 fine. Using this logic, Rimmer pushes
her into traffic, whisking her away. She is never seen again. Some
take it that her light bee must have been destroyed, but then she
is hard light, described by Legion as "practically indestructible."
Her nicknames include "Mizzt Bartikovsky" and "Kremlin Kate".
Despite her mean streak, her character is described by Kryten as
"absolutely flawless", after being ordered to find "dirt" on her by
Rimmer. It should be noted that the episodes claim that their
hallucination, as all do in the Red Dwarf universe, created an
alternate reality where she in fact does exist.
Miscellaneous characters
The Cat Priest
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 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
Mr Flibble and Rimmer
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.
Rimmer's Mum
Rimmer's mother is referred to several times in the series, not
altogether consistently. In
Polymorph,
Rimmer describes her affectionately as "prim and proper", not
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
schoolmates, 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..."
Guest stars
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.
References
External links
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