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For characters introduced in Guest House Paradiso, see here.

Richard "Richie" Richard

Portrayed by: Rik Mayall

Let's be English about this.

• Abhorrent Admirer: To any unfortunate woman who catches his eye.
• Alliterative Name: Richard Richard.
• All of the Other Reindeer: As demonstrated in many episodes, but particularly in the episode "Parade".
• Ambiguously Bi: This characterization shows up mainly in the live shows, where Richie's desperation to get laid sometimes caused him to hit on Eddie, but there were a couple of hints in the TV series as well, such as his excitement at the prospect of seeing a nude photo of Desmond Lynam and his admission to appreciating a man's pectorals, even after finding it out he wasn't a woman like he initially believed. There’s also his very feminine personality. His "married couple" relationship with Eddie is very heavy on the Ho Yay spectrum.
• Attention Whore: He's desperately, pathetically needy for companionship and attention, leading to most of his flouncing, idiotic plans and tantrums. On one occasion, he tries to fake his own attempted suicide in order to try and get Eddie to buy him a drink.
• Ax-Crazy: His mental state is all over the place, and he reacts to any slight against him, real or imaginary and regardless of magnitude by beating the poor sod until they’re an unconscious mess on the floor.
• Bad Liar: His Falklands story isn't fooling anyone.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Has an endearing childishness about him, but as soon as you manage to offend him in the slightest way possible (And given his stupidity and habit of misunderstanding people, he will find something to take offence at), and he will scream in your face and threaten you with violence.
• Born in the Wrong Century: His common lament, which his cultural illiteracy fails to back up. He thinks Shakespeare and the French Revolution were in the same century -- the 13th.
• Break the Haughty: In pretty much every episode. His character is defined by undeserved arrogance that will be inevitably foiled by his actual mediocrity as a person.
• Butt-Monkey: The butt-monkey in a pair of butt monkeys. Bad things happen to everyone in this show, but they're pretty much always happening to him.
• Camp Straight: Incredibly camp, and yet incredibly lecherous towards women.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: He needs only one sip of scotch to either become drunk or begin thinking that he's drunk (which amounts to the same thing).
  • In the fourth live show he doesn't even take a sip, but still believes he is drunk.
  • One's tempted to conclude that it's all in his head. On one occasion, when he needed a stiff drink to settle his nerves, Eddie offered him a shot of Tizer (a soft drink, for non-Brits), which did the trick anyway.
  • In another episode, Richie tries to take a swig from an empty bottle Eddie already filled himself with and suddenly believes he's fallen into a drunken stupor, though it doesn't last.
• Casanova Wannabe: Though deep down he knows he's repulsive to women.
• Catchphrase: "That's a charming, smashing blouse you have on."
• Characterization Marches On: His penis size, and his resulting insecurity, are given relatively frequent mention in the TV show, but the stage shows formally measured it at a 1/4 inch and applied the relevant jokes.
• The Chew Toy: He gets his ass handed to him more often than Eddie (and a lot of the times by Eddie), but not without good reason.
• Chick Magnet: Desperately wishes he was one.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Develops into one over the course of the series and live shows.
• Darker and Edgier: In the film version, Guest House Paradiso, he appears as much more calculating (Well, as calculating as Richie can be), amoral, angry, and generally more mean-spirited.
• Drama Queen: He’s extremely melodramatic, and makes a mountain out of a molehill with everything
• The Dreaded: By Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog. They tolerate Richie because of their friendship with Eddie, but they make no attempt to hide the fact that they're scared of Richie and think he's a complete psychopath.
• Drunk with Power: Even to the extent that he runs an off-licence like Nazi Germany.
• The Ditz: Richie is very out of touch with reality.
  • In "Apocalypse", he claims Jesus wrote the dictionary he keeps in his room.
  • In "Parade", he asks Spudgun why he doesn't move to the Soviet Union. Spudgun answers, "'Cause it doesn't exist." In the same episode, Richie's story about the Falklands War has ridiculous details, such as him having fought there for ten years and Argentinians speaking German.
  • In "Carnival", he says it's The '80s and later that it's The '70s. Eddie looks confused on both times.
• Faux Affably Evil: Just when you let your guard down and think he has some air of decency, he'll quickly convince you that he's just as horrible as he first appears.
• The Finicky One: Subverted. Richie tries to put up a front of being this, but in reality he's just as seedy, sex obsessed and repulsive as Eddie. Moreso, even.
• Goshdang It To Heck: Despite regularly swearing like a trooper, he sporadically uses polite alternatives, presumably because he thinks it sounds posher.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Becomes violently angry at the slightest of offences, offences such as refusing a drink, being in front of him in a queue, and passing out after he's just beaten you within an inch of your life.
• Hypocrite: In "Parade", he shamelessly pretend to be a Falklands veteran. But when someone else makes that same claim (truthfully), Richie scoffs at the idea.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Several episodes show him bemoaning his lonely life, and he does try to be sociable at times... however, his repugnant personality always drives people away.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Sometime shows this attitude towards Eddie in the live shows.
• It's All About Me: Dear lord, this guy will turn ANY situation into something about him, be it his inheritance from his recently-deceased aunt, or being more concerned about his safety than the poor sod he (albeit accidentally) pushed down an open elevator shaft.
• Jerkass: Threatens old ladies and, along with Eddie, mugs charity collectors of their collection tins.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Often times you'll see when Richie's at his lowest, he tries to come off as sensitive and sympathetic, but it isn't long before he shows he's just as selfish and spiteful as ever.
• Largest Ham Ever: Well, duh! It's Rik Mayall.
• Lethal Chef: Which is unfortunate for Eddie, as Richie is the designated "wife" in their friendship.
• Like an Old Married Couple: With Eddie.
• Manchild: Despite being a fully grown adult who cooks^note poorly, cleans, and goes out drinking, he is completely childish on all other accounts, unapologetically selfish, and unbelievably petty.
• Meaningless Meaningful Words: Richie is prone to this a lot. Something Eddie lampshades as "talking bollocks".
• Miles Gloriosus: Tells tall tales in the pub about his military service — "walting" — in the Falklands and uses "Argie" as a slur at random people.
• Missing Mom:
  Richie: I wonder what happened to my mother... Oh well.
• Mood-Swinger: Constantly swings between two emotions: childishly optimistic, and violently angry.
• Mr. Fanservice: A surprising example considering how Richie’s character is portrayed. There are a few scenes in the live shows that consist of him not having his trousers all the way up, resulting in the audience (yes, including some men) cheering and wolf-whistling, especially when he announces his removal of his underwear (while behind a modesty screen) for the Evacuator in the fifth live show. Then again, this is Rik Mayall we’re talking about.
• Only Cares About Inheritance: In "Apocalypse", Richie learns that his rich aunt has just died. While at first he seems shocked, he quickly starts inquiring about her will, even insisting that her housemaid search the body for it.
• Phony Veteran: Most notably (and disastrously) in "Parade".
• The Pornomancer: Such is Richie's desperation to have sex, that he seems ready to have sex with anyone willing, but is never successful. In the TV series, he really only displays interest in women with the occasional keenness towards men. However, in the live shows, he seems willing to do it even with Eddie on certain occasions.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Eddie's blue, being more easily excitable and short tempered than his friend.
• Repetitive Name: Richard Richard.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The Sensitive to Eddie's manliness. It's so played upon, that even Spudgun and Hedgehog nickname Richie as Eddie's "wife", behind his back.
• Small Name, Big Ego:
  • He's convinced he's better than everyone else, and on one occasion, he almost deluded himself into thinking he was "the new Messiah".
  • He considers himself the nicest man in the world simply because he "has to put Eddie to bed every night".
• Smug Snake: Likes to talk a big show, but when going against someone other than Eddie, he's either woefully inadequate and gets a Curb-Stomp Battle for his troubles, or becomes so craven that he’s simply browbeat into submission.
• The Sociopath: He certainly shows traits of this. Apart from being very quick to anger and violence, he is also a compulsive liar who makes up stories about himself whenever there's a chance that he could stand to benefit from it (most notably in "Digger" and "Parade" where he claims to be the Duke of Kidderminster and a Falklands war veteran, both times so that he could convince a woman to have sex with him), engages in various criminal acts such as stealing gas from his nextdoor neighbour, has seemingly no empathy for anyone at all and never accepts any responsibilty for his mistakes.
• Sudden Name Change: His last name goes from "Richard" to "Twat" in Guest House Paradiso.
• Teeny Weenie: Played ENORMOUSLY for laughs. His junk actually purportedly got smaller as the show went on, with the live shows repeatedly suggesting that he had to use a magnifying glass to find it.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Guest House Paradiso. Which is really quite something, considering that Richie was already an all round awful human being in the television series.
• Trouser Space: He manages to steal a BBC camera this way. "There's plenty of space in my trousers. Sadly".
• Unfortunate Names: In Guest House Paradiso, his last name is "Twat", but he tells people it's pronounced "Thwaite".
• With Friends Like These...: He considers Eddie his best friend... yet has no problem talking down to him, insulting him, and assaulting him.

Edward "Eddie" Elizabeth Hitler

Portrayed by: Adrian Edmondson

Not a lot of people know that...

• Alcohol Hic: One Running Gag, when someone notices that some alcohol has gone missing, Eddie will randomly hiccup.
• The Alcoholic: He's a cheerfully violent dipsomaniac who will drink absolutely anything, to the point where he's right up there with Father Jack in the world of sitcom alcoholics.
  Richie: [after seeing Eddie drink a cocktail consisting of brandy, meths, Pernod, paint stripper, Mr Sheen, brake fluid and Drambuie] How are you still alive?
  Eddie: I may very well not be.
• Ambiguously Bi: Although not as much as Richie, there is one moment where Richie is fantasizing about Ted Rogers (i.e. imagining what it would be like to marry him and what he would be like in bed) while Eddie can be seen next to him nodding, smiling and agreeing with him. There’s also the Noodle Incidents with Tony Blair and Harry Belafonte (although that last one was apparently a woman who told him that that was her name). In the second live show, it’s painfully obvious that his sex doll is called "Les Ferdinand" even though he denies it. And let's not even get into his relationship with Richie, which seems to rely very heavily on Ho Yay.
• Aside Glance: He has a habit of looking directly and increduously at the camera whenever Richie says something overly ridiculous.
• Becoming the Mask: In "Finger", he gets a little too into the role of "Edina", to the point of openly flirting with a barman.
• Big Eater: He eats a lot in "Gas" and "Apocalypse".
• Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: He's convinced that The Wombles are real, because he's seen them on the telly.
• The Cynic: Unlike Richie, he has no intention on breaking free from his abhorrent lifestyle.
• Deadpan Snarker: When sober.
  Richie: A helicopter! Shout for help!
  Eddie: Is this "Help, help, I'm trapped on a ferris wheel!" or, "Help, help, I'm burning to death!"?
  Richie: (Not being able to fall asleep) I think it's this sleeping bag, you know. It’s letting in a draft.
  Eddie: Oh, my heart bleeds!
• Extreme Omnivore: He has eaten lard, straight from the pack, and washed it down with cooking oil, as well as yoghurt that was so old it sprouted grass.
  Eddie: Who left this pot of cress in the fridge?
  Richie: That's not cress, that's that yoghurt you started during the Gulf War.
  Eddie: [eats it anyway] ...Doesn't taste like banana and peach...
• Gender-Blender Name: His middle name is Elizabeth. This might run in the family, as at one point he says that his mother's first name was Adolf.
• Hidden Depths: He's actually quite clever when he wants to be, concocting schemes that have a very high chance of succeeding.
• It Amused Me: When Richie asks him why he kept hitting the gasman with a frying pan, he replies, "For fun".
• Jerkass: Though not as much as Richie. For one, Eddie actually has friends.
• Lethal Chef: Vodka margarine - with a couple of cans of hairspray for flammability.
• Like an Old Married Couple: With Richie.
• Never Gets Drunk: He's only been drunk once, but he never sobered up. He is thus immune to inebriation.
• Only Sane Man: While this tends to be thrown around like a ball between him and Richie depending on the situation, on average he seems to be just a mite smarter, or at least better imbued with wits and low cunning, than Richie is.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Richie's Red, as he's slightly more level-headed and down-to-earth than Richie is. Only slightly.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The Manly Man, as he usually get the upper hand in many of his feuds with Richie.
• The Sociopath: The only thing that really makes him more stable than Richie is that he actually has friends, other than that he ticks pretty much all of the same boxes. One thing that does make him worse than Richie, however, is how he seemingly takes pleasure in causing pain to others such as in "Culture" where he looks completely content while smashing Richie's head with the fridge door, although this may be due to the fact that it's Richie. He also says that he continued hitting the gas man with a frying in "Gas" "for fun". Also, in "Break", he punches a man simply for calling the world a "beautiful" place.
• Sudden Name Change: In Guest House Paradiso, his last name changes from Hitler to Ndingombaba.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: He vomits on Richie in the episode "Smells" when he's drunk.
• With Friends Like These...: With Richie. There are times where he actually tries to kill him.
• Would Hit a Girl: He doesn't seem to have any qualms about hitting women. An example of this is when he lashes at a woman who turns out to be someone collecting money for a charity against domestic violence.

Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog

Portrayed by: Steve O'Donnell (Spudgun), Christopher Ryan (Hedgehog)

Eddie's friends.

• Big Guy, Little Guy: Spudgun is the big guy, Dave Hedgehog the little.
• Characterization Marches On: In their first episode, Dave Hedgehog's the comparatively saner of the two, while Spudgun's even more simple-minded and alcoholic than in his later appearances. However, Hedgehog's Comically Missing the Point moment when answering Eddie's question about what medieval people did before the invention of TV got such a huge laugh from the studio audience that his Cloud Cuckoo Lander aspects were heavily played up in all his remaining appearances.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: They're both pretty eccentric, but Dave Hedgehog takes the cake.
• Deadpan Snarker: Their usual attempts at humour, especially Spudgun's.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In the duo's first appearance, it was implied that "Hedgehog" was just a nickname Dave had. But in "Terror", his daughter Doreen states it as their actual last name.
• Elder Abuse: Spudgun tries to pull his grandmother's gold tooth out with a pair of pliers to bet on Sad Ken in Parade.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Spudgun's real name is never mentioned. It's doubtful that anyone knows it.
• Only Sane Man: In as much as this show can be said to have one, it's Spudgun, oddly enough; he's an idiot, but he's also often the only one who ever points out that some of the insane things that Richie has them do (such as drinking gravy instead of sherry for Christmas, using bleach to clean a baby, and wearing inside-out dressing gowns when summoning the Devil) are, in fact, quite stupid. Eddie's too used to Richie's eccentricities, and Dave Hedgehog is usually too intoxicated to object to anything.
• Those Two Guys: Never appear separate from each other.

Dick Head

Portrayed by: Lee Cornes

The bartender at the Lamb and Flag pub. He lives up to his name.

• Manipulative Bastard: Often manages to turn Richie and Eddie's scams back on them. For instance, after they try to pay him with Eddie's pornographic forged money, he rats them out to "Skullcrusher" Henderson, then in turn dupes them into paying £200 each to enter that night's pub quiz, whose prize happens to be exactly the amount they need to come up with to avoid a very nasty fate — but also happens to be made up of Skullcrusher's own forged cash, with is useless for paying off their debt.
• Punny Name: Hehe, get it? Dick Head?

Mr. Harrison

Portrayed by: Roger Sloman

The boys' landlord and shopkeeper. He's very bad at his job.

• Child Hater: His attitude towards his infant grandson in Holy.
• Hates Their Parent: This is obvious given how he talks about his deceased mother in Bottom's Up.
• Jerkass: He generally doesn't seem to like anyone, not even his own family members.

Mr Rottweiler

Portrayed by: Brian Glover

Richie and Eddie's violent neighbour.

• Big "SHUT UP!": "SHUT IT! Or I'll start shooting" in a deleted scene.
• Big "WHAT?!": When he shuts Richie's fingers in the door.
• Blatant Lies: Richie describes him as "a nice-enough man", he's anything but...
• Captain Oblivious: Both he and his "bird", they somehow remain fast asleep despite all the noise Richie and Eddie make while breaking into his flat and sabotaging his gas supply, he also fails to notice the presence of Richie despite pulling the bed covers off him after causing the bed to collapse.
• Cranky Neighbor: This is an understatement if ever there was one.
• Destructo-Nookie: He ends up causing his bed to collapse as a result of the unintentional threesome with his "bird" and Richie.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He gets riled very easily.
• Nosy Neighbor: How he sees Richie and Eddie, he's not wrong, given how they react when they realise he has a "bird" in his flat.
• Oh, Crap!: When he sees his kitchen on fire as a result of Eddie's sabotaging, lucky for him the gas-man had just arrived.
• Rage Breaking Point: Finding out through the gas-man that Richie and Eddie were trespassing in his flat.
• Trigger-Happy: Implied in a deleted scene when he overhears Richie and Eddie arguing outside.

Veronica Head

Portrayed by: Julia Sawalha

Dick's niece who briefly takes over as the barmaid at the Lamb and Flag in Parade.

• Jerkass: She takes after her Uncle in this respect.
• Manipulative Bitch: She turns out to be in on her Uncle and Larry's scheme to con Richie, Eddie and all their friends so that they all end up paying for their drinks anyway.

Doreen Hedgehog

Portrayed by: Lisa Coleman

Dave's daughter. Not, in fact, Satan.

Lady Natasha Letitia Sarah Jane Wellesley Obstromsky Ponsonsky Smythe Smythe Smythe Smythe Smythe Oblomov Boblomov Dob, third Viscountess of Moldavia

Portrayed by: Helen Lederer

A rich aristocratic woman who wants to marry Richie because he lied about being of royalty himself.

• Gold Digger: Her family have become impoverished so she only intends to marry Richie for his (non-existent) money.
• Overly Long Name

"Skullcrusher" Henderson

Portrayed by: Nick Scott

The so-called "Master Forger of Old London Town", whom Richie and Eddie inadvertently fall afoul of when they start forging their own money.

• Counterfeit Cash: Despite his supposedly being a master forger, his forgeries are barely any better than Eddie's, featuring drag artist Danny LaRue instead of the Queen. It's implied that he became London's top forger just by crushing the skulls of any rivals, and presumably anyone who refused to accept his forgeries as legal tender.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Richie and Eddie use their forged cash to swindle Dick Head out of maybe £10 worth of drinks, so Skullcrusher demands a £5,000 tribute on pain of having their skulls crushed if they fail to pay up. Though this can be somewhat justified in that he didn't know how much of their forged cash was in circulation, and that they just had the bad luck to have the first person they tried palming it off to be Dick, who happened to be friends with Skullcrusher.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: There's a very good reason why he picked up the nickname "Skullcrusher", which Richie and Eddie find out the hard way after unwittingly trying to pay him off with his own forged cash.

Mr Tent

Portrayed by: Rupert Bates

A streaker who pesters the boys in "S'out".

• Groin Attack: He gets his genitals caught in the zipper of Richie and Eddie's tent.
• Teeny Weenie: Even smaller than Richie's, apparently.

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