Bob

From ruining his chances of winning the coveted award for 'Wig Wearer of the Year' to putting his life at risk by inviting a crazed-Norwegian-trawler-woman over for his birthday, Bob's friends and neighbours never leave him in peace.

Everyone around him regularly smashes up his home, hold impromptu parties, ignore his instructions and warnings and generally ride roughshod over his life. Although somehow they always manage to come up smelling of roses by the end of each episode!

Vic

Vic Reeves is a long term and mostly unwanted guest in Bob's house, always treating the place like his own, with little regard for Bob's wishes.

Vic is the catalyst for almost all the mishaps that take place in the House Of Fools, always encouraging his side-kick Beef and ex-con brother Bosh to partake in his outlandish plans.

He also gets on well with Bob's son, Erik, much to the frustration of Bob, who is constantly trying to get on Erik's good side, and failing.

Vic has also captured the attraction of their next door neighbour, Julie, who is obsessed with playing 'sex' with Vic and constantly snapping photos of his groin.

Vic commands this mismatched group of fools at every turn with his ill thought out ideas, always managing to make Bob be the one who suffers.

Erik

Erik is the Norwegian son of Bob. He comes from a liaison with a trawler woman in Norway.

Erik hates living with his 'moron' father Bob and does his best to make his life a misery - by ignoring him, mocking him, berating him and, worst of all idolising, Vic. To Bob's continual frustration Erik thinks Vic is a 'really cool guy' and tries to spend time with 'just the two of them', deliberately excluding Bob.

Erik is an awkward boy who mostly shuts himself away in his bedroom - with multiple locks on the door to keep out his bothersome father. His hatred for Bob is expounded by the regular sexual situations Erik finds Bob in.

Despite them always being misunderstandings, Erik cannot see past the disgusting-ness of the situations, such as Bob declaring Vic is 'giving me the horn'. Bob sees it as futile to explain and once more misses a chance to gain respect from his son.

Julie

Julie is Vic and Bob's nymphomaniac neighbour - living in her own fantasy world, she is both overtly sexual and largely insane. Constantly trapping Vic and Bob in her imaginary worlds, she makes them play out ludicrous games with her and as a result they both fear her and her playful advances.

With her imaginary friend Martin by her side, she is an integral member of the cast, often helping Vic to realise his plans and thwarting Bob's in the process.

A successfully published erotic fiction writer, she is as randy as she is barmy, which makes her quite a handful. Unfortunately for Vic and Bob though, as their next door neighbour, there is no way the boys are getting away from her anytime soon.

Beef

Beef is the highly sexual, flamboyant and blindly confident friend of Vic and Bob. With a penchant for the ladies, in particular African ladies, he will seduce anything in a skirt.

With a strong self-assurance that masks his complete stupidity, he will always jump willingly into the action - deterred only by a female presence.

He has strong ties to both Vic and Bob, and unlike Bosh is devastated when he mistakenly learns Bob has died. However, this love for Bob does not stop him going full steam ahead with any of Vic's plans even at the total expense of Bob's feelings and with complete disregard for his well-kept house.

His array of ostentatious outfits is always a talking point, as is the bizarre places he got them and materials that they are made from. He is both integral to the show and yet never seems to quite be sure what is taking place, or where he is, and he is certainly never keen to be put in danger - choosing to run from a situation whenever it suits him.

Bosh

Bosh is Vic's dim-witted yet slightly threatening younger brother. Recently released from prison, Bosh is living in Bob's house uninvited and Bob's regular attempts to get him to leave are either dismissively swotted away or met with blunt refusal.

Clueless, but mostly well meaning, he willingly helps out with all of Vic's grand plans, whether it means breaking into an ex-cell mate's shop or being regressed into a past life as an ape.

He has little love for Bob, seeming to be almost entirely unaware of his existence, and has a mild wariness of both Beef and Julie.

As a rogue individual, he never aligns himself with anyone in particular, meaning he is free to mock and laugh at whichever individual is in the firing-line at that particular moment.

Rachel (Series 2)

Rachel is Erik's girlfriend. They're very well matched both in terms of appearance and personality.

Rachel doesn't like a lot of things - which she makes quite clear. For example, anything that isn't flat disgusts her.