Chris Barrie

Arnold Judas Rimmer grew up in the shadow of his much more successful brothers, who bullied him constantly as a young boy. This bullying turned him into a smeghead. Although some would argue he’s more of a git than a smeghead - a selfish, cowardly git-weasel who would probably make a brilliant dictator if he was able to influence or manipulate anyone.

Fortunately he is disliked by everyone ever, and so will never achieve the power he craves. That said, he does have past glories to fall back on. (In a previous life he was Alexander the Great’s eunuch.)

Rimmer - both the human one and the hologram who replaced him following his death in the Red Dwarf radiation leak - is played by the immensely talented Chris Barrie, who is actually one of the country’s great but unsung impressionists.

He was one of the major voice-over performers on Spitting Image, and even did the Ronald Reagan speech on the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song Two Tribes. Of course, Barrie is also well known as Gordon Brittass, the proto-David Brent character from The Brittass Empire, and the one man more punchable than Arnold J Rimmer himself.