Holly (Red Dwarf)

Holly
Red Dwarf character
First appearance	"The End"
Last appearance	"Only the Good..."
Portrayed by	Norman Lovett Hattie Hayridge

Holly is a fictional character in the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf. The character has been played by Norman Lovett (series I, II, VII, VIII) and Hattie Hayridge (series III, IV, V).

Actor

The character was played by Norman Lovett in Series I and II. In series III the character had a "head sex change" and was played by Hattie Hayridge. Hayridge played the part of Holly from Series III–V. Holly did not appear in Series VI, but reappeared in the episode Nanarchy as the original male version, again played by Lovett. The male version of Holly appeared throughout Series VIII, but does not feature in Red Dwarf: Back to Earth or Series X.

Appearance

Holly is an "intelligent" computer. Holly's user interface appears on ship screens as a disembodied human head on a black background, and can also be downloaded into a watch worn by Lister. In Series I his face appears pixelated, but this idea was dropped in Series II. As a male, Holly appears to be approximately 50 years old and has receding brown hair.

Holly with her female face, from Series III–V.

After meeting his female counterpart, Hilly, in the series 2 episode Parallel Universe he fell so madly in love with her that he had a "computer sex change" and based his new face on hers. As a female, Holly appears to be approximately 30 years old and has shoulder-length blonde hair and red lipstick.

In series VII–VIII, the upgraded male version of Holly appears to be around 60 years old with receding grey hair and a bald patch.

Character

Holly is the ship's Tenth Generation AI hologrammatic computer. After releasing Dave Lister from stasis in The End, Holly told him that the crew have been wiped out by a radiation leak and that he had spent three million years in stasis. Holly prides himself on the fact he had an IQ of 6,000, but after three million years by himself, he had become computer senile, or as Holly put it, "a bit peculiar". The crew often ridicule Holly on his senility, but Holly often comes out on top. He often plays practical jokes on the crew, such as fooling Lister into thinking that NORWEB Federation space fighters were after him and wanted £180 billion in arrears for leaving his bathroom light on three million years ago, as well as wanting to arrest him for "Crimes against Humanity" as he had left some German sausages alone in his apartment for three million years and they now covered 7/8 of the Earth's surface. This love of practical jokes culminated in his generating an alternate personality, Queeg, and passing him off as the ship's backup computer which was seizing control of the ship.

Holly always speaks in a droll, slightly monotonous, and quiet voice, even when sounding alarms, which consist of himself speaking simply "Ding-dong. There's an emergency going on. (pauses) It's still going on." and repeating as much. He often greets the crew with "All right dudes?"

Among his achievements was the invention of Hol Rock, where he decimalised music (having ten notes instead of eight — although he admits that this would result in "piano keyboards being the width of a zebra crossing, and women being banned from playing the cello"). He also wrote an A-Z guide of the Universe.

He was friends with another computer called Gordon, who had an IQ of 8,000 and was an Eleventh Generation AI hologrammatic computer. Gordon resembled Holly in that he was represented as a balding middle-aged man. Despite having a higher IQ than Holly, Gordon showed a lesser understanding of technology than Holly. One of the more worrying aspects of Holly's senility is that he has developed a blind spot for the number 7. When he invents the Holly Hop Drive, he claims that one mistake in his 13 billion calculations and they would be blown up. He then misses the seven in his countdown, possibly the cause of the error that sent them to the parallel universe.

Holly runs most of Red Dwarf's systems, although in several episodes such as Quarantine, Holly is shown to not have complete control of Red Dwarf, and in Holly's absence in Series VI and VII, a computer is mentioned by the crew, and is seen to control autopilot.

Holly was lost for some time, along with the ship, which had been stolen by Kryten's nanobots. He was found on a planet made of junk from Red Dwarf, having reverted to his original male form, and was downloaded into Lister's Holly-watch. When the nanobots rebuilt the ship, there were two versions of Holly: the original, who usually remains in the watch, and a rebuilt version who had not suffered the effects of three million years alone. The non-senile version only appeared in one episode, Back In the Red, Part III, and was distinguished by having an enormous forehead shaped like an egg. The original Holly then states that he was responsible for re-engineering the Nanobots to resurrect the dead crew, all for the purposes of distracting Lister from going insane.

In Red Dwarf: Back to Earth it is revealed that sometime after the events of Only The Good... Holly is offline due to water damage, later elaborated as being the result of Lister leaving a bath running in the officers' quarters for nine years and the water subsequently flooding the ship.

Kryten briefly mentions Holly in the series X episode Fathers and Suns, saying that the crew "miss" him before installing Pree, another computer.

US pilot

In the unaired pilot for the American version of Red Dwarf, Holly was played by Jane Leeves.

External links

• Podcast ending with an interview with Hattie Hayridge (Holly the computer) contains anecdotes about Red Dwarf and about how she got selected to play the computer
• Article on, and interview with, the two actors who portrayed Holly