Dave Lister wasn't exactly cut out for space travel. The street smart gimboid's academic career reached the giddy heights of ninety-seven minutes at art college. Lister left when he found out there were lectures - first thing in the afternoon - and after 3,000,000 years in stasis, work is still a four-letter word.  For Lister, life on the Red Dwarf Mining Ship is spent salvaging space wrecks, playing poker and eating curry - without much salvaging. Lister hates Rimmer, but it's driving the supercilious hologram nuts that keeps him sane. Over the years, Lister has emerged as the good guy of Red Dwarf. Perhaps that's why he has ceased to worry about his appearance. As the ship has travelled deeper into space, Lister's original issue fatigues have been superseded by the scuzziest sartorial off-cuts in the universe. On important occasions Lister wears his special T-shirt - the one with only two curry stains - and boxer-shorts that actually blend.

Despite a tendency towards melancholia, Lister has become resigned to his galactic fate.  If it wasn't for Arnold Rimmer always getting in the way, Lister could almost be content bumming around the universe for all eternity. Danny John-Jules illustrates the thin dividing line between actor and character. "We were having breakfast in the BBC canteen. Craig joined us and said he was worried about people thinking he really was Lister. While he was talking, he took a sausage off Danny's plate, squirted some tomato ketchup straight onto the Formica table, dipped the sausage in the ketchup, and ate it. "I'm really worried", he chewed, "I'm really worried I'm going to get type cast as Lister - I'm nothing like him, man". Danny laughed so hard, he almost choked to death."  The amazing thing is that Dave Lister, er Craig Charles, didn't realise what he was doing. If there's one risk about starring in a long-running successful series, it's that your alter ego can sometimes start taking you over.

Of course, as Craig Charles recalls, he might not have got the part of Lister at all: "I'd done Saturday Night Live with Paul Jackson, and one day Paul lent me a Red Dwarf script. He wasn't offering me a part, he just wanted me to tell him if I thought the Cat was racist. I said I didn't think so, and I wouldn't mind auditioning for Lister. At the time, all these diva actors were up for Lister. Alfred Molina had apparently been given it, but they seemed to think I kicked off Chris (Barrie), so they offered me the part."  Despite a shared penchant for sausages a la table, Craig Charles doesn't believe there is too much overlap between him and Lister: "The accent's the same but it's not actually written as Liverpudlian, Rob and Doug made a point of not having any Liverpool slang in it. Instead, they came up with things like 'smeghead'."

As Red Dwarf has developed, Lister's character has matured. He is still partial to vindaloos, kippers and Kristine Kochanski, but his outfit has changed from cheap cotton slacks to chunky Mad Max leathers and his psychological make-up has become more complex. "He's changed in every series," explains Charles. "Now he's older and wiser, he's become the social worker of the crew. Believe it or not, he's the most well-balanced of a bad bunch. Rimmer is just a wrecked mass of neuroses."  While most of the action in recent episodes has happened to Rimmer, Charles believes that Lister has become the anchor role: "Even if it's a Rimmer story, it's seen through Lister's eyes, and it's all about Lister's reactions and his moral codes." When it comes to his favourite episode, he feels: "Everyone talks about 'Backwards', but 'Marooned' was my favourite. I'm very fond of 'Timeslides' too".

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