Characters / Dead Set

Main Characters

Kelly Povell

Played By: Jaime Winstone

• And Then John Was a Zombie: Dies offscreen and turns in the finale.
• Anti-Hero: Has cheated on her boyfriend and can be quite ruthless.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Chooses to attempt to fight her way through the zombie horde at the end of the last episode rather than continue hiding out in the diary room with no supplies or any other hope of escape.
  • The next scene shows she most definitely failed.
• Determinator: She's hell-bent on survival.
• Only Sane Woman: Seems to be one of the most level-headed out of the group.
• Took a Level in Badass: Once she comes to terms with the destruction of the world, she becomes a leader.

Riq Rahman

Played By: Riz Ahmed

• Betty and Veronica: Gender-flipped towards Kelly. He's the Betty,
• Determinator: When chased, he doesn't stop running.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Patrick shoots him in the belly. Kelly begs him to stay with her as he dies.
• Took a Level in Badass: For what it's worth.

Space

Played By: Adam Deacon

• And Then John Was a Zombie: Turns after being bitten in the finale.

• The Lancer: To Kelly.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Or rather, his stage name.
• Only Sane Man: Space is the only housemate who seems content to keep to himself, remain calm and approach problems in a rational manner. He's also the first housemate to realize something's wrong when the outbreak happens outside. Everyone else bickers about mundane crap, but Space figures out that the cameras are unmanned.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The morning after the outbreak, when Marky and Grayson start an argument over the latter using the last egg Space decides he's done with the show and is about to leave, however when he tries to enter the diary room Big Brother doesn't respond, making him realize something isn't right.

Patrick Goad

Played By: Andy Nyman

• Asshole Victim: Given that he is willing to throw others under the bus to save himself, it's not sad to see himself being killed by the zombies.
• Bad Boss: The worst one you can ever work for.
• Breaking Speech: Gives an utterly brutal one to Joplin.
  "You're old. You're a pervert. You're pretentious. You stink the bog out. Your clothes make you look like a cunt! They have poured insults over you like buckets of cum! D'you know what they call you when you're out the room? Eh? Gollum."
• Cluster F-Bomb: One right after the other, all the time. Amusingly, even while he's been torn to pieces by a mass of zombies he's still screaming insults at them.
• Deadpan Snarker: He may be utterly horrible, but there's no denying he has the best lines.
• Devoured by the Horde: In the finale.
• Dirty Coward: When the zombies first attack he holds the door shut, locking his assistant outside to get eaten, and then shoves a man in a wheelchair in front of the zombie chasing him to escape.
• Flowery Insults: Drifts into these from time to time, calling Pippa 'specimen' and 'fetus'.
• Hate Sink: Is he ever! A Dirty Coward who is fine with leaving others at the mercy of zombies as long as he can live, need to spell it out for you?
• Jerkass: Undeniably so.

• Karmic Death: Easily suffers the goriest and most agonizing death out of all the characters, and quite deservedly so after all the horrible things he'd done up to that point.
• Manipulative Bastard: He coerces Joplin into setting him free by (truthfully) revealing that all the other housemates hate him.

• Off with His Head!: His head is ripped off after a long and agonizing feast.
• Surrounded by Idiots: And the worst thing is, he's not wrong.
  Patrick: "Are you on a personal mission to redefine ineptitude?"
• Token Evil Teammate: He doesn't give a flying fuck about the other people around him.

Marky

Played By: Warren Brown

• And Then John Was a Zombie: He's seen eating the remains of Patrick along with Veronica.

• Devoured by the Horde: Is dog piled and devoured by a group of zombies in the finale.
• Idiot Ball: After getting a hold of a rifle, he's in charge of keeping the gated area clear of zombies. Later, Riq comes running in and he starts shooting at him, even after Riq screams "I'm normal!"
• It's All My Fault: Angel getting bitten.
• Jerkass: He's smug, cocky and mockingly asks Kelly if she's a 'mong' when she breaks into the house.

• Satellite Character: Within Big Brother, he was apparently considered one of these to Veronica.

Veronica

Played By: Beth Cordingly

• And Then John Was a Zombie: She's seen eating the remains of Patrick along with Marky.
• Anti-Hero: Even more ruthless than Kelly after a certain point.
• Devoured by the Horde: Is dog piled and devoured by a group of zombies in the finale.
• Hidden Depths: At first she seems like the stereotypical superficial and thoughtless reality-TV type, being more concerned that she might not be on tele anymore than anything else upon learning of the Zombie Apocalypse, but once the reality of the situation sinks in she proves to be level-headed and pragmatic (if somewhat ruthless).

• Ms. Fanservice: This was her image on Big Brother. It's present in the story itself to some extent, but it's not really played up for the audience.

Pippa

Played By: Kathleen McDermott

• And Then John Was a Zombie: Dies offscreen and turns in the finale.
• Catchphrase: "I don't like it!". Davina even quotes her on it during her eviction.

• Dumb Blonde: Technically a redhead, but Patrick isn't exaggerating when he talks about how stupid she is.
• The Ditz: Both on the show and away from the cameras, Pippa is presented as the least intelligent of all the housemates.
• Hysterical Woman: Out of all the housemates, she comes to terms the least with what is happening around her, spending a lot of the time post-outbreak screaming or crying.
• Killed Offscreen: She is killed and turned off screen in the finale.
• Offing the Offspring: A deleted scene shows that she was killed by her zombified mother.

Joplin

Played By: Kevin Eldon

• And Then John Was a Zombie: Turns after being devoured by the horde in the finale.

• Deadpan Snarker: Although what he says falls flat on cleverness.
• Devoured by the Horde: Suffers this fate after opening the gates in the finale.
• Dirty Coward: When Veronica is attacked by a zombified Angel, she screams at him for help. He responds by closing and locking the door between them.
• Dirty Old Man: He's caught trying to spy on Veronica while she's showering.
• Fan Nickname: In-universe (although it's more of a Hater Nickname), it's Gollum.
• Hypocrite: He claims to hate reality TV but that still didn't stop him from going on the show (although he claims to be trying to change the system from within).

• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Everything that comes out of his mouth is bullshit, really.
• The Scrappy: In-Universe, pretty much everyone hates him, with many a sign found in the crowd making fun of him and his housemates insulting him behind his back.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Believes himself to be intelligent, witty and high-brow. In reality he is creepy, pretentious, cowardly and weak-willed. As a result, he is disliked by everyone inside the house and out.
• Unrequited Love: He appears to have a crush on Veronica. It's very much one-sided.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Discussion is up if he was unwitting or not.

Grayson

Played By: Raj Ghatak

• Adaptational Sexuality: Madonna, his counterpart on Reality Z, is a trans woman rather than Camp Gay.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: He's bitten in the neck by Angel after she reanimates and he fails to stab her. He then dies of blood loss and proceeds to turn within a few seconds.
• Camp Gay: He's introduced to viewers prancing around in women's underwear and speaking with a lisp. It's clear that he was cast on Big Brother to play this role for the amusement of the viewers.

• Hidden Depths: He may be a campy, flamboyantly gay man who works in a stereotypically female profession, but said profession is nursing, which means that he's the only one among the cast with any medical training. When tasked with keeping Angel alive (both for its own sake, and to prevent her from turning), he knows what forms of medicine the others need to look for in the nearby pharmacy. Unfortunately, it ends up being useless, as not only does Angel die and turn while they are away, but Grayson unties her shortly beforehand (at her request), which gets him bitten.

Angel

Played By: Chizzy Akudolu

• Boom, Headshot!: On the receiving end of this by Kelly.
• Black Dude Dies First: Out of the main cast, she's the first to get bitten and zombified.
• Zombie Infectee: She's bitten in the first episode, and slowly begins to die. Kelly tries to kill her before she turns, but Gray wouldn't let her, causing his death too.

Supporting Characters

Alex Bryson

Played By: Liz May Brice

• Broken Bird: All we know about her is that she killed her best friend. And has nightmares about it.
• Deadpan Snarker: Tells Riq she got her rifle from eBay.
• Mercy Kill: By Riq after getting bit by a zombie.
• Starting a New Life: The apocalypse is only a day old when she finds Riq. When they come upon a gated house she's more than happy to stay there with him, despite barely knowing him.

Danny

Played By: Elyes Gabel

• Really Gets Around: Kelly isn't the first production assistant he's had a fling with while working on a reality show.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He gets infected by a zombie and then killed by Kelly in the first episode.

The former Big Brother Housemates

Played By: Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace, Brian Belo, Imogen Thomas, Helen Adams, Paul "Bubble" Ferguson, Saskia Howard-Clarke, Kinga Karolczak, Eugene Sully, Makosi Musambasi and Ziggy Linchman

• As Himself: They play themselves.
• Chekhov's Gunman: One of them, Aisleyne, returns as a zombie in the finale to bite and infect Space.
• Death by Cameo: They are among the people in the completely unprotected production area. Obviously, they die very early on.]]

Davina

Played By: Davina McCall

• As Herself: Even does, using a genuine Eviction Crowd, most of a typical night's eviction presentation. As she is interviewing Pippa, the crowd is already turning, and, of the people in the interview area, only Pippa survives.