Future Echoes: Supporting Characters
Dispensing Machine (I)
Episode(s): Future Echoes (A2)
Species: AI Machine
Played by: Tony Hawks
This machine is situated on the corridor outside the Teaching Room, and was used by Lister to order a bacon sandwich with French mustard and a black coffee. However, the machine was malfunctioning. It had a lisp, and its vocabulary unit wasn't working, so instead of giving Lister breakfast, it gave him some wellington boots. It also had a tendency to confuse black coffee with buckets. His malfunctions were reported to the skutters, but whether they'll fix them is another matter.
Tony Hawks: Tony was the warm-up man for the early series of Red Dwarf, and as such was on hand to perform a variety of characters, from dispensing machines and suitcases, to comperes and wax droids. The high amount of appearances he clocked up in the early days earned him the nick-name 'The Fifth Dwarfer'. Aside from these roles, Tony is a veteran of the panel game, with guest appearances on Have I Got News For You?, They Think It's All Over, Just A Minute, If I Ruled The World and Gagtag under his belt. Recently, he has re-invented himself as a travel writer, after writing three successful books, Round Ireland With A Fridge, Playing The Moldovans At Tennis and Something Else That I Can't Fucking Remember. He is also the presenter of camcorder show Lights, Camera, Accident!, but he is no good at skateboarding.
Trivia: A version of the scene involving this dispensing machine was used in Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. However, the lisp wasn't mentioned, and instead of wellingtons and a bucket, the machine furnished a raspberry pavlova in onion gravy, two lightly grilled kippers, forty-three pounds of raw calf's liver and a flaming Christmas pudding.
The Toaster
Episode(s): Future Echoes (A2), Waiting For God (A4)
Species: AI Machine
Played by: John Lenahan
The machine whose raison d'etre is "I toast, therefore I am". The purpose of its existence is to provide the crew with hot, crisp, brown, buttered toast, but despite this, The Toaster has dreams of self-improvement. Toasting turns him into something he doesn't like, and it wants to try something more meaningful, perhaps as a Frank Sinatra tribute act. The Toaster's insistance on providing toast lead to it becoming unpopular with the crew, culminating in Lister smashing it up with a ten pound lump hammer.
John Lenahan: Unlike the majority of Red Dwarf guest stars, John doesn't have a background in acting or comedy. He is in fact an accomplished stage magician, and, as attendees of Dimension Jump X will testify, he's very good at it. Although he mainly performs at corporate venues and as a support act, he has appeared on television on a few occassions, on programmes such as TFI Friday, Comedy Café and Stuff The White Rabbit.
Trivia: The Toaster was due to return in Series II, performing a duet with Cat in Kryten. However, the scene was removed from the episode before John Lenahan recorded his lines, so on the Series II DVD, The Toaster's lines are given as subtitles.
Future Echo Lister
Episode(s): Future Echoes (A2)
Species: Human, Illusion
Played by: Craig Charles
This version of our leading man is a future echo, bought about by Red Dwarf breaking the light barrier. He is 171 years old, and has a fake arm, which has been customised to incorporate a bottle opener. He delivered important facts to the crew, such as Lister's son dying in the explosion, a future echo appearing at the medical unit, as well as belching into Rimmer's ear. He's still got all his marbles.
Jim and Bexley
Episode(s): Future Echoes (A2)
Species: Humans
Played by: Remi Brocks and Jordan Russell (Uncredited)
Jim and Bexley, named after Jim Bexley Speed, are Lister and Lister's twin sons, the mother being Dave, and the father being Deb. As they were conceived in a parallel universe but born in our own, they suffered rapid growth development, and were eighteen years old within three days of being born. To combat this, Dave returned the boys to their father in the parallel universe, where they led comparatively normal lives. However, at some point Bexley will return to our universe and be killed in an explosion when he's in his mid-twenties.
Trivia: Rob and Doug weren't happy at the casual way in which Lister accepted the death of his son, so in Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, certain changes were made, the main one being that it was Lister's grandson who died in the explosion, which makes the relationship a bit more distance. Also, it was the Future Echo Lister who delivered the lines about everyone dying, with the result that Lister seems less jubilant at his relative's death.