Holly is a fictional character in the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf. The character, who is the eponymous spaceship's onboard computer, has been played by Norman Lovett (Series I–II, VII–VIII, XII, The Promised Land) and Hattie Hayridge (Series III–V).
Actors Red Dwarf, written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, was first televised in 1988, and was an iteration of Grant and Naylor's "Dave Hollins – Space Cadet", which was a regular segment on the BBC Radio 4 show Son of Cliché. In the radio version, Hollins was the last surviving human and had only the computer Hab, played by Chris Barrie, for company. For the television series, Hollins was renamed as Dave Lister, Hab was renamed as Holly, and the cast was expanded. In the script for the pilot episode, Holly was female, but when Norman Lovett, a man, auditioned for the role of Arnold Rimmer, he was instead offered the role of Holly and accepted it. The role was to have been only as a voiceover, but at Lovett's suggestion, Holly's face appeared on screen. The character was played by Lovett in Series I and II. In series III the character had a "head sex change" and was played by Hattie Hayridge from Series III–V. Holly did not appear in Series VI, but reappeared in the Series VII finale as the original male version, again played by Lovett. The male version of Holly appeared throughout Series VIII, but does not appear in Back to Earth, Series X, or Series XI. Lovett reprised the role for the final episode of Series XII and again in an extended special episode, The Promised Land, in 2020. Doug Naylor also revealed on Twitter that Lovett's return was permanent for any future series or specials. In the unaired pilot for the American version of Red Dwarf, Holly was played by Jane Leeves.
Name Holly's name follows a convention sometimes used in Red Dwarf of computers being named after their abilities. In Holly's case it reflects them being a "Tenth Generation AI Hologrammatic Computer", capable of generating holograms. In later episodes, Stocky would be introduced as a computer with stochastic abilities, and Pree as a computer with predictive abilities.
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, Kryten's chest display, and on a motorcycle speedometer when the crew visited Waxworld. In Series I his face appears pixelated on a blue background, but this idea was dropped from Series II. As a male, Holly initially appears to be approximately 50 years old and has receding brown hair. After meeting his female counterpart, Hilly, in the series II episode "Parallel Universe", Holly adopted Hilly's likeness due to falling in love with Hilly and adopting her persona. This was explained in a tongue-in-cheek text crawl shown at the beginning of the broadcast version of the first episode of Series III ("Backwards"), to hand-wave changes to the ship, crew, and other details. In reality, the switch from Norman Lovett to Hattie Hayridge as Holly came down to practical and production decisions. Norman Lovett left the show after Series II due to dissatisfaction with how production was handled. Hattie Hayridge, who had already appeared as Hilly in the "Parallel Universe" episode, was brought on as the new Holly. 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. In "Skipper", the final episode of Series XII, Holly re-appears in a brief appearance when Rimmer travels to a point in time where the crew are about to be killed by the radiation leak as demonstrated in "The End". He appears to be approximately 70 years old, has less hair than his previous appearances and that hair has become more grey.
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