Characters found in My Mad Fat Diary.
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The Pub Gang
Rachel "Rae" Earl
Portrayed by: Sharon Rooney
Aged 16. The main character and narrator/writer of the diary. An overweight, homely girl who has spent time in a mental hospital and is learning to live a normal life again.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Her behaviour often slides into this when she's around her mum.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Rae dislikes being called by her full name of Rachel.
- Driven to Suicide: before the start of the show and at the end of season 1.
- First Kiss: With Archie.
- Green-Eyed Monster: to Chloe. Funnily enough, Chloe also feels jealous of Rae.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: A perpetual goal for Rae throughout the show.
- Kavorka Woman: A rare female example. Despite being overweight and plain, Rae has dated Archie and Finn, been hit on by Kendo and is also attractive to Mrs. Dewhurst, arguably because despite her issues with mental illness, she's charismatic, strong and fun to be around.
- Practically Different Generations: Rae was 16 or 17 when Linda and Karim have their baby daughter, her half-sister.
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: season 2 deals with (among other things) Rae's quest to lose her virginity which she eventually does with Liam.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: whenever she dresses up for special occasions like her mom's wedding.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Rae is tomboy and Chloe is girly girl.
- Weight Woe: Her weight makes her a target for bullies.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Repeatedly. To the point where her darker thoughts and actions seem perfectly reasonable.
Chloe Gemell
Portrayed by: Jodie Comer
Aged 16. Rae's attractive and popular best friend since childhood and the one who introduces Rae to the rest of the gang.
- Abusive Parents: Her parents are reasonably wealthy (as evidenced in the size of their house and the fact that they have an indoor pool) but are haughty, arrogant and don't like that Chloe hangs around with Rae. Her mother also only feeds her tiny portions of food while giving her husband/Chloe's dad huge portions — example being that she gives Chloe a boiled egg and a huge plate of fry up to her husband.
- They also don't seem to care much when their only daughter goes missing, only remarking that she does it often and calling her selfish for doing so.
- Fanservice: She is often seen in tight, revealing outfits that show off her 'slender yet curvy' figure.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: averted.
- Green-Eyed Monster: to Rae.
- Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: She can come off as one sometimes. Though in 'Not I', we find out that all of the below actions were not what we thought they were originally and everything Chloe did was out of a desire to be more interesting, to have Finn like her or to make herself feel less worthless.
- When she walked out on Rae to talk with her boyfriend. Made especially egregious by the fact that Rae was only with her to support her during her abortion and had skipped out on a concert with her friends so that Chloe wouldn't be alone. Made even worse by the fact that her boyfriend is actually one of their teachers that had dumped Chloe when she became pregnant. Even worse? Rae was in the middle of confessing the truth of her mental illness and suicide attempt and it's the beginning of Rae's downward mental and emotional backslide.
- Although in her own recollections, she treated Rae a little kinder than that so it's a toss up on whether we believe Rae or Chloe's version of events.
- When she read Rae's diary and told her not to talk to her or the gang again, simply because she found our Rae fancied Finn.
- It turns out she was probably crying more because Finn had told her he was sorry he kissed her and it didn't mean anything than because Rae said she didn't deserve him.
- When she smoked in the changing rooms, setting off the alarm and forcing Rae out onto the busy street in her bra.
- Any time she told Rae not to be honest about her condition or that people would think she was weird.
- When she walked out on Rae to talk with her boyfriend. Made especially egregious by the fact that Rae was only with her to support her during her abortion and had skipped out on a concert with her friends so that Chloe wouldn't be alone. Made even worse by the fact that her boyfriend is actually one of their teachers that had dumped Chloe when she became pregnant. Even worse? Rae was in the middle of confessing the truth of her mental illness and suicide attempt and it's the beginning of Rae's downward mental and emotional backslide.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: She can seem like an Alpha Bitch sometimes, especially to Rae, but she is a good girl at heart and cares deeply about Rae's well-being.
- Rich Bitch: Not Chloe herself, but her mother and father especially qualify.
- Surprise Pregnancy: In Series 1, by her PE teacher.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Rae is tomboy and Chloe is girly girl.
Finn Nelson
Portrayed by: Nico Mirallegro
Aged 17. Broody music lover who, although initially cold, warms to Rae.
- Fanservice: He's a dark, brooding pretty boy who is shown shirtless while playing football in the park.
- We are treated to a long shot of his naked behind in the shower in 'Alarm'.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He was just a jerkass to Rae, before he got to know her better.
- Second Love: He's Rae's second love after she finds out that Archie is gay.
Archie
Portrayed by: Dan Cohen
Aged 16-17. Another music lover in the group who enjoys playing guitar and quoting historical figures.
- Deadpan Snarker
- Incompatible Orientation: Rae has a crush on him but he later turns out to be gay. They instead become incredibly close friends.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Well he's more of a geek than a nerd really, but Rae fancied him, and she seems to consider his geek side part of his charm.
- Straight Gay: Rae finds this out by catching him spying on nude men in the changing rooms of the leisure center he works in.
Arnold "Chop" Peters
Portrayed by: Jordan Murphy
Aged 17-18. The eldest boy in the group and the only one not in school — he works as a mechanic.
- British Teeth: He has a distinctive gap between his two front teeth. The rest of the gang have normal teeth.
- The Ditz: He isn’t that far off The Ditz status.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Until "It's A Wonderful Rae: Part 2".
Isabelle "Izzy"
Portrayed by: Ciara Baxendale
Aged 16-17. The perpetually happy cute girl of the group who introduced Chloe to the gang first.
- The Cutie: Rae describes her as perpetually happy and sweet.
- The Ditz: She sometimes lacks tact. Particularly prominent in 'It's a Wonderful Rae: Part 1', where she blurted out that Rae and her friends are going to a rave in front of Linda after being told explicitly not to.
- Fiery Redhead: Averted, as she is perpetually happy and calm.
Psychiatric Hospital Residents and Attendees
Tix
Portrayed by: Sophie Wright
Aged 15-16. A vulnerable teenage girl who was best friends with Rae while she was hospitalized. Dies of a heart attack between Series 1 and 2.
- A Day in the Limelight: The penultimate episode of Series 1, 'It's a Wonderful Rae: Part 1' focuses on her quite a bit and is partially narrated from her point of view.
- Fitness Nut: Tix is a small and underweight 15-year-old girl and Rae's closest friend at the psychiatric hospital. Due to an unspecified mental illness related to Weight Woe, Tix is constantly working out, doing cardio, and self-starving, especially when she feels stressed. She spends most of the first series struggling to deal with her compulsive need to work out, eventually collapsing and being admitted into the hospital at the end of series 1. At the start of series 2, it's revealed Tix suffered a heart attack while in the hospital and died.
- Hates Being Touched: To the point of attacking Danny when he innocently touched her arm in the canteen.
- Killed Offscreen: Between Series 1 and 2.
- Sacrificial Lion: She dies before the events of 'Alarm'.
- Weight Woe: She is obsessed with burning calories and has issues with eating the food at the hospital. This eventually leads to her death.
Danny
Portrayed by: Darren Evans
Aged 16-19. A Welsh teenage boy who was friends with Rae while she was hospitalised. Used to wear Two Hats at all times.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Though not always Played for Laughs.
- Freudian Excuse: His grief over the death of his mother when he was little is implied to be part of the reason he is 'mad'.
Liam Owen
Portrayed by: Turlough Convery
Aged 16-17. A Northern Irish boy who is attending the same college and group therapy sessions as Rae.
Psychiatric Hospital Staff
Dr Kester Gill
Portrayed by: Ian Hart
Aged 40s or 50s. The resident therapist that treats Rae and many of the other residents.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He isn't averse to discussing his own private life or throwing portraits in his office out the window (and nearly causing a car accident outside) in order to get Rae to trust him/bond with him.
- The Sponsor: For Rae and Tix. Rae even comments that she likes him because his life is as messed up as hers.
Dr Nick Kassar
Portrayed by: Shazad Latif
Aged 20s or early 30s. The resident doctor that treats Rae and many of the other residents.
Other Stamford Residents
Linda Bouchtat
Portrayed by: Claire Rushbrook
Aged 40s. Rae's mum, who is always making her daughter's life a misery.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In 'Alarm', she begins tearily discussing her 'change of life' with Rae and Finn.
- Because I Said So: Used by her to justify her decisions regarding Rae.
- Citizenship Marriage: She marries Karim Bouchtat in order for him to be allowed to stay in the UK.
- Jerkass: At times.
- Mrs. Robinson: Her husband Karim is twelve years younger than her.
- It's also implied she had an affair with Dr Kassar, Rae's (young) physician at the hospital.
- No Name Given: The Channel 4 Website of the show confirms her name is Linda.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Although she had thought she was going through the menopause in Series 2.
- Tranquil Fury: She is initially quiet and composed when she sits Rae down and talks about her spreading rumours around Stamford about her sex life, but gradually gets louder until at the end ("you threw away 35 pounds worth of confectionery!!") she is practically roaring.
- Weight Woe: She is sensitive about her weight and is often dieting.
Karim Bouchtat
Portrayed by: Bamshad Abedi-Amin
Aged early to mid 30s. Linda's Tunisian much younger (12 years younger) husband.
- Eloquent in My Native Tongue: In Arabic or French. He can barely string two sentences together in English.
- Trunk Shot: How he is introduced in 'Big Wide World'.
Mrs Dewhurst
Portrayed by: Patricia England
Aged 76. Rae's neighbour.
- Abhorrent Admirer: She is implied to have a crush on Rae, even though she is old enough to be her grandmother.
- Dirty Old Woman: She is shown to have a creepy obsession with Rae in the alternative future.
- Stalker with a Crush: Rae accidentally sees her breasts through the window in 'Touched'. It's a 'blink and you'll miss it' moment, but when Rae is being shown what would happen if she died, one of the scenes is of Mrs Dewhurst crying close to a shrine made up of Rae's pictures. Rae's reaction (and rightly so) is "What the fuck!?"
"Big G"
Portrayed by: Eliot Otis Brown Walters
Aged 17. The head bully that torments Rae when she is out and about in Stamford. Doesn't appear in Series 2.
- The Atoner: After he hits Rae with his car and brings her to the hospital and he apologises for calling her 'Jabba'. When the other two see Rae later on in the episode and start again, he stops them.
