Irreverent comedy is a British tradition. From the genre defining classics like Monty Python and Benny Hill to modern nutters like The League of Gentleman, the Brits have done it funnier and weirder than all the rest for some time.
Today, we've lost one of the greats in
the field, a comedian par excellence, as well as a writer, producer,
musician, father, husband, and award-winning star of stage and
screens large and small, Rik Mayall.
When I was nine, I went to hang out at
a friends house and watch TV, and he pulled out a videotape belonging
to his father, that we weren't supposed to watch. It was foul, it was
disgusting, and it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. It was
Bottom Live 3. This was my introduction to the inimitable
talents of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, the best comedy duo since
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
These two had a stage relationship
unlike any other. Two guys who knew each other so well, they can
finish each others unscripted jokes, and make the moments when it all
goes wrong funnier than anything written down could have been.
It was moments in Bottom Live 3,
like the seagull, the secret hatch that didn't work, and that heckler
so flawlessly dealt with, that made Rik Mayall my favorite comedian
for most of my childhood.
Ah, but it's all toilet humor and fart
jokes, you'd think I'd stop laughing at that kind of humor when I was
grown right? No sir! When I was in high school I delved back further
into the history of Rik and Ade, and found a wealth of funny to
enjoy. The Young Ones became my favorite show in the world.
Rik Mayall played Rick, the Cliff Richard obsessed Sociology student,
and Ade was the inexplicably violent punk prodigy Vyvian, in a house
full of failed college skivers. This was Ben Elton comedy at its
absolute best. It was a chunk of 80s British culture that showed the
opinions and concerns of 'The Kids' better than anything else, and
had farting midget demons and exploding bricks and punk hamsters to
boot.
The Young Ones was influential
in being a part of who I was. One time in high school, my best friend
and I spent weeks getting our costumes just right, so we could turn
up at school dressed as our closest facsimiles of Vyvian and Rick
respectively. He spent days sticking stars to a denim jacket and
spiking his red hair and I drew an anarchy symbol on the back of an
old blazer and stared at myself in the mirror trying to perfect the
right Rik Mayall sneer. He kicked the door to our class in when we
first arrived on that day and the entire class burst into laughter.
Worth every moment of effort.
Rik Mayall's career was more than just a partnership though. The man had an incredible list of comedy feats under his ever expanding belt.
You can't be a fan of the seminal
classic show Blackadder and
not love his performance as Mad Tom or the perpetual scene stealer
Flashheart. It's rare for anyone to steal the scene from comedy
greats like Stephen Fry
and Rowan
Atkinson
so thoroughly, but Mayall's Flash would manage it every time. (“Still
worshiping God? Last I heard he started worshiping me!”)
Most
well known of all his performances to American audiences, Mayall
starred
in the eponymous 90s comedy hit Drop Dead Fred.
This one was a bloody corker, with Mayall as the imaginary friend
every kid wanted. I personally found this film amongst a pile of old
VHS tapes at a car boot sale when I was 12, and loved every minute of
it. Mayall so energetically threw himself into this role that he drew
many comparisons to American funny man of the time Jim Carrey.
Working
with Ade again, their show
Bottom took over where
The Young Ones left
off, only wittier, grosser, naughtier, and even funnier. The
adventures of these two aging old bastards took us to new heights of
British gross out comedy. The episode 'Hole', which
found our protagonists Richie
and Eddie stuck atop a deactivated ferris wheel, is one of the single
funniest episodes of any comedy show I’ve ever seen. Cleverly
using nothing but the single set for the duration, it's virtually the
Samuel Beckett piece of gross-out comedy.
Bottom
would be a cultural hit for
over decade, lasting three
series and five spin off stage shows that were quoted endlessly in
colleges and universities around the country. Tailor-making
each set to fill in jokes for every venue and location performed in,
Rik and Ade worked the stage perhaps best of all. These were
performances to watch over
and over, the immense skill with
which these shows were performed hidden in the effortlessness at
which both of our boys did every little thing. Together, they battled
flawed stage design, the contents of the script, and, as always, the
crowd itself. Somehow, the two would always emerge triumphant. At
the time I watched Bottom, I was in drama school myself, and could
draw a lot of inspiration from the way any situation was handled by
Rik and Ade: drop character only when it's funny, and never give your
audience an inch on you.
Rik
would suffer a quad bike accident in '98,
leaving him in
a coma and the public on the edge of their seats. Immediately upon
regaining consciousness, our man allegedly accused the doctor: “So
you're the bastard who keeps sticking needles into me.”
Regaining
his strength from the accident in hospital, Rik would write the first
draft of the Bottom
movie: Guest House Paradiso,
that would take Richie and Eddie to new heights of depravity,
starring
the likes of Simon Pegg, Bill Nighy and Vincent Cassel. I
remember nights watching this towards the end of my time in high
school, how “Feeeeb hello?” became the catchphrase of the year,
and forever carrying the weight of knowing exactly what Rik Mayall
looks like wearing nothing but a pair of women's spiked rubber
underwear.
That
wasn't the end of Rik's varied world of appearances of course, with
roles in the likes of
films such as
British classic The Wind in the Willows,
and, although due to editing never appearing in the final product,
playing
Peeves the Poltergeist in Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone. His voice
was a focal part of all his performances, being instantly
recognizable almost anywhere. He read audiobooks with a flair only he
could manage, voiced every character in the hit Playstation game Hogs
of War, was the eponymous Sod in
How to be a Little Sod,
and even turned up in the strangest places like an episode of
SpongeBob Squarepants
or
getting eaten by Kirby in an old Nintendo ad. Mayall's presence in
British culture was truly staggering.
First
and foremost. He was one of us, one of the
dirty everyday slobs who made it to the big time and was proud to be
there. With a wife and three daughters, Mayall was the consummate
family man, won a primetime Emmy for Outstanding Voice-over
performance, and had his ugly mug in the Millennium Dome
for millions to see as we clocked over into the new millennium. As in
the name of his autobiography, 'Bigger than Hitler, Better than
Christ.'
He certainly was.
My
time as a fan of Rik Mayall's has lasted twenty years now. I go back
and watch the old greats all the time. I introduce The
Young Ones and Bottom
to hordes of new people. I remember sitting back after a long day
shooting a film in 2007, everyone on set exhausted, and putting on
Bottom Live 3 and
leaving everyone laughing. I wish I had gotten
the chance to thank him for all the laughs over the years.
However,
the last word on the man
himself, can only be given by
his comedy partner of so many years, Ade Edmondson:
“There were times when Rik and I were writing together that we almost died laughing. They were some of the most stupid, carefree days I ever had, and I feel privileged to have shared them with him. And now he's died for real. Without me. The selfish bastard.”
