SIMON CALLOW: Of all the people who ever lived,
only one can say, "I am Rik Mayall" -
creator of The Young Ones,
a pan-global phenomenon,
loved by millions.
On the day he was born, the gods cried,
"Let there be light entertainment."
And there was.
He dreamt the impossible dream.
And there will never be another.
With Rik's death, I think people remembered
just how golden he was in his youth.
He was a golden youth.
He was very beautiful. An extremely handsome man.
LAUGHTER What is it?
LAUGHTER
Right on.
He did more wonderful stuff than most
and when it was wonderful, it was very, very wonderful.
HE LAUGHS
GRUNTS PASSIONATELY
If there's been a funnier person, I don't know who it is.
I...you know, I couldn't name anyone
who's made me laugh any more than that man did.
LAUGHTER
As the one person in The Young Ones who was both performer and writer,
you know, he was the central driving force of The Young Ones -
you know, he was the greatest of us all in that way.
MICHAEL PALIN: Rik seemed to be able to produce this stuff
and be fairly sane and normal,
which is great, you know?
And everybody... Action!
LAUGHTER
When you're Rik Mayall, why worry about being funny? He didn't have to worry about anything.
He was Rik. He just had to be Rick. That was that.
Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, Vyvyan!
Comedy weapon.
Joke machine! Gag apocalypse!
I pick my nose, women get pregnant.
If he was a mathematician, you'd go, "Genius."
If he was Einstein, he'd get a Nobel Prize.
That's how brilliant his brain was.
Not that many are beautiful and that funny.
CALLOW: We can't believe he's gone, because he's still here -
in interviews, films and photographs never seen before.
Some things last forever,
like the legend of Rik Mayall.
Why isn't Rik Mayall in a three-hour program?
Why is he only in a 40-minute program,
with other actors in it, for God's sake?!
Surely, it should just be Rik talking about himself, on his own...
..for...ever.
BRASS FANFARE PLAYS
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Rik, from the first second I met him,
I knew that I was in the presence
of a great and extraordinary comic spirit.
I can remember, absolutely, the moment I first laid eyes on him.
It was at a freshers entertainment. I was a first-year.
He and Ade were third-years at Manchester University
and he just said, "Hi. I'm Rik Mayall."
And he said it with such... HE LAUGHS
..utter confidence, such utter joy in himself.
I mean, he had some quite good lines.
He said something about the first rule you have to do if you're a first-year
is, if you're a girl, you have to shag Rik Mayall
and if you're a guy, you have to introduce Rik Mayall to a girl that he can shag, or something like that.
But it was the wonderful comedic confidence.
He enjoyed being Rik Mayall enormously and hilariously.
He certainly wasn't shy in proclaiming that he was the best.
But you can do that if you are the best, can't you?
SIMON PEGG: His kind of shtick
was these layers of fake modesty
and fake arrogance.
You know, you never could tell which was which,
but you knew, ultimately,
that he was a big-hearted and warm person
and he didn't, you know...
As much as he kind of grandstanded
this insane sort of boasty personality,
he had a huge amount of humility.
Am I pleased to see you or did I just put a canoe in my pocket?!
LAUGHTER Down, boy! Down!
I have always been known as
the man with the largest penis on the planet.
I've always kept quiet about that.
What does a man with a two-foot cock have for breakfast?
This morning, I had a boiled egg.
LAUGHTER
HE LAUGHS
Oh, Rik's penis. Good times.
It wasn't two-foot. He claims it was. It wasn't.
Um, but in Rik's world,
you know, it is that big
and in Rik's world, you know, anything goes.
No, no, he did have the biggest knob in show business.
CALLOW: Rik Mayall was born on the 7th of March, 1958.
A Pisces -
the poet of the zodiac,
destined to fill the world with love, anarchy
and wonderful violence.
METAL CLANGS
RHYTHMIC THUMPING AND CLANGING
THUMPING CONTINUES
LAUGHTER
CLANGING
THUMPING AND CLANGING
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Aaaah! Brrrrrlllll! Ha-ha!
When comedy is at its purest, at its most sublime,
is when it comes out as nothing.
It's not a clever line, it's not some observation,
and that's what was really sublime about Rick -
that he could make you laugh just without...with saying nothing.
What?
LAUGHTER
What is it? What's going on?
DAVIES: It was the first time it felt like,
"These characters are for ME to laugh at."
Not having to struggle to work out why he's funny. He just is funny.
You know, my grandparents disapproved of him,
which was perfect.
You know, it was like, "Brilliant.
"I'm glad you don't like him cos he's not FOR you."
Yeah.
CALLOW: Rik Mayall's words were his weapons
and he was armed to the teeth.
He was young, he was angry,
he was the voice of a generation.
APPLAUSE
My name's Rik, OK?
And, uh...
I've got a couple of, uh...
This...this is probably a waste of time.
LAUGHTER I've got...
Right.
I've got a couple of poems here.
Uh, I don't know if any of you are into poetry at all.
LAUGHTER Shut up!
I've always liked being crap.
Um...
..playing people who are really crap at doing things.
"Perhaps I should ask Vanessa Redgrave."
LAUGHTER
"But I don't know Vanessa Redgrave."
LAUGHTER
"And neither do you, theatre."
RUBY WAX: First of all, he was so beautiful, your eyes hurt.
And then, uh, he did that poem about Vanessa Redgrave
and I've never had that experience since,
is that you saw the total star.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Shut up!
CALLOW: The Mayall family was Rik and his brother and two sisters.
His parents were teachers...
..of drama.
Rik's dad was a very funny guy
and, you know, used to...you know...
They'd do bits of amateur drama and everything,
but he would, you know, do, you know...
You'd suddenly see him walking behind you on the pavement,
you know, pretending to have a limp
or...or, you know, making a silly face or something.
And a lot of...you know, a lot of Rik came from that.
# All things bright and... #
There would never be anything ordinary about Rik Mayall.
And the sign of things to come happened at his school
in Droitwich, Worcestershire.
The children were there to praise the Lord,
but they found the Rik Mayall.
My teacher said to me, "Now, Richard,
"I don't want you to sing at all because your voice is horrible!
"You have got a horrible voice, Richard.
"Now, I'm quite serious about this,
so I want you to move your mouth as if you are singing the hymns
"but I don't want you to make any sound at all
"with that horrible voice of yours.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes, Miss."
THEY CONTINUE SINGING
So, up we stood, in front of the teachers,
and I was going...
..and pulling all sorts of faces.
And I started getting laughs, which was fantastic.
I was getting laughs off the audience, during the hymns,
and pulling all sorts of grotesque faces
and moving my mouth out of time with the music.
And occasionally going kind of, "Nah, nah, nah, nah!"
Big laughs, and I liked that a lot.
So, I thought, "Oh, I like this.
"I like these laughs."
The young Rik lived for kicks.
It was 1975 -
time to follow his star to the English north,
to Manchester,
to change his life forever.
There was a load of us got in
to Manchester University,
uh, who were kind of the sleazy, naughty boys.
That's from Ade, who's a very sleazy, naughty boy,
and, um...
..uh, God, a couple of my mates from school,
Mike Redfern, Mark Dewison.
And I met Lloyd Peters. He was an important person.
He's from Leeds.
We liked the physical.
We were very into, um, not just Python,
but Laurel & Hardy and the Marx Brothers.
And he could do this amazing party trick
where he bent the top of his ear into his earhole.
LAUGHTER
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
A very strange thing to be able to do, let's be honest.
And it was kind of just sort of weirdly funny.
There's quite a few talented young comedians doing some...
HIS VOICE FADES
LIVELY PIANO MUSIC
# Uh-oh... #
CALLOW: Destiny decided the University of Manchester
would be the start of it all.
Rik was amongst friends...
# Let's go... #
..and they called themselves 20th Century Coyote.
Blood, sugar, sex, magic.
Love and violence - Rik and Ade.
We thought, "We need someone bigger and louder and..."
HE EXHALES "..more dangerous."
And I'm saying, "What about that blond guy?"
And everybody was really scared of Ade.
He had this fantastic long blonde hair
and these John Lennon spectacles on.
But I do remember going up and saying, "Um, hi, Ade."
HE LAUGHS NERVOUSLY "Uh... Hi."
He's..."What do you want?"
HE LAUGHS
And immediately, the relationship was born.
MUSIC: "Pretty Vacant" by the Sex Pistols
Adrian Edmondson - the prince.
The one who knew what had to be done.
Together, they were everything -
intertwined and ascending to the stuff of legend.
# We're so pretty Oh, so pretty... #
Two stars colliding for a lifetime.
It was fate, and there were pubs.
I'm afraid we used to pass a hat round afterwards
and then, with the meagre money we got from that,
we'd, uh...we'd get drunk...
..which seemed, like..."Fantastic.
"Go to pub, make a load of people laugh, get drunk."
Where's the problem in that?
"Show off, make some people laugh, get drunk.
"Ask girls to come and see it,
"girls get impressed by the show, shag girls.
"Shag girls, get drunk, have good time."
That is...light entertainment.
Manchester was conquered and London was calling.
To the lawless underworld of Soho they came.
I'll do you, sunshine.
20th Century Coyote,
now just Rik and Ade,
aka The Dangerous Brothers.
I first saw Rik...
I didn't know it was Rik.
I just knew this wonderful, extraordinary double act
that he did with Adrian Edmondson.
And that's the first time I saw it.
And I marked them down at the time as being...
.."These are an extraordinary... This is something pretty extraordinary."
Yeah. "These guys are special."
BOTH SHOUT Once there was a French goose with a beret on,
pecking buttons in a lift with its beak.
And then it goes up and down. What's that?
LAUGHTER
We've got 'em. We've got 'em.
LAUGHTER
A gooseberry! A bloody gooseberry! Gooseberry! Gooseberry!
I'd never seen anybody that confident onstage...ever.
It just seemed like this is where he lived.
He was completely in control of that audience
and people like Jack Nicholson were going to see the show,
and Rik was just...
And Robin Williams was performing
and Rik was just...not even considering them as competition.
He was just onstage, loving it.
He would just stare at the audience
and he'd just start talking and would go... HE GIGGLES
He was just hilariously funny. You thought, "This guy can do anything he likes.
Yeah. HE SNORTS Have you got some, um...?
LAUGHTER
Yeah. It's all a bit wacky here, isn't it? Ha!
We're all a bit mad. We were up till midnight last night!
Ha! HE SNORTS
Eating biscuits, anything. We're crazy! We don't care.
LAUGHTER
The first time I met him, I was going to the Comic Strip to perform
and went into the dressing room
and Rik was sitting on the table, with his back to the mirrors,
with his legs crossed and his hair all spiky.
And he said, "Hello. I'm Rik and I'm a feminist."
And it was...he was so funny,
both in his work and outside his work.
He was hilarious
and there was that kind of glint of mischief and a bit of danger.
I...I adored him. I thought he was wonderful.
I can't get used to somebody that talented being that sweet,
but he always was.
# At the high-school hop last Saturday night
# The moon was out, the stars were bright
# I saw a girl with golden hair
# I asked her to dance and she said, "Yeah!" #
HE SNORTS
# We reeled and rocked and hopped and bopped
# And flipped and flopped, and then we stopped
# And then we started again and danced some more
# I bought a Coke and we shared the straw
# Dah, dah, dah, wop!
# Oh, gosh, I'm so lonely # Aah-aah-aah
# Oh, gosh, won't you help me?
# Aah-aah-aah # Why did you take her life
# When she... Wop!
# Was to be my wife? #
LAUGHTER
Yeah, as I watched them perform, I thought that there was something,
um...something I'd never seen before, really, you know.
Cripes!
# Oh, gosh, I'm so lonely # Aah-aah-aah
# Oh, gosh, won't you help me?
# Aah-aah-aah
# Why did you take her life
# When she... Wop!
# Was to be my wife? #
LAUGHTER
CALLOW: The brightest and the best were drawn to The Comic Strip club.
French and Saunders, Planer and Richardson,
Arnold Brown, Alexei and Rik and Ade.
Delirious, exuberant.
Next stop, television.
I like millions and millions of people
looking at me, just looking AT me.
Cos it's all in my eyes.
It's all in my eyes.
The eyes of the television audience lit up at the sight of Kevin Turvey,
and Rik Mayall became a star.
Do you know how much it costs to go to America?
96 quid - that's how much.
Where am I going to get that kind of money?!
I was mesmerised by Kevin Turvey.
Yes, Kevin Turv-AYE, from Birmingham.
Kevin Turvey - um, peerless.
One day, there was a knock at the door
and...so I answered it, like,
and, uh, it was the milkman and...
..I paid him and, uh, he went away
and I closed the door again and...
LAUGHTER ..came back inside and...
I mean, that's got nothing to do with the story, like, but...
I just wanted to make it clear
that I'm the kind of person who pays his debts!
It was almost like... it was almost like, uh...
..the comic diary of a serial killer, you know?
You thought, "God, this guy's weird.
"This is really weird. This is not normal."
So, I went down to the kitchen, right?
That's where I normally have my breakfast, you know?
It's got all the gear in there - all the forks and stuff.
Yeah, no, well, you know, there's a bin there. I've seen it.
So, that's where I went, like... You know, I went down the stairs.
Right? We've got these stairs in our house.
It attaches the first floor, like, to the bottom floor.
No, it's dead convenient, like.
It saves all the trouble of, like, getting out the window
and shinnying down the drainpipe, you know,
breaking into the kitchen window, going in and doing it all in there.
It's a waste of time.
So, I used the stairs, anyway.
LAUGHTER
As per usual.
MAYER: Kevin Turvey was so boring
and so precise.
He saw himself as an investigative reporter
and he would investigate lamp posts or something.
And he was in love with a girl called Theresa Kelly,
who wasn't interested in him.
So I went over to the phone and picked it up, right?
Dialled the number.
I won't actually, like, tell you what the number was, cos it's not important.
It would just waste time if we start talking about telephone numbers. LAUGHTER
And she answered, I got the number right, and she said, "Hello."
I said, "Theresa Kelly? This is Kevin Turvey.
"Would you like to come over and have supper with me?
"What we're having is potatoes and gravy and sausages,
"with nothing on it at all..."
LAUGHTER
"..and then have sex with me afterwards."
LAUGHTER
And she said, "Well, I'd like to, Kevin,
"but I've just been hit by a bus and I'll be in a coma until Wednesday."
LAUGHTER
It's always happening to her, that.
# No, no, no, no, no, no... #
There were other strange characters around in the 1980s,
and confrontation was everywhere.
# Juvenile delinquents... #
Britannia was ruled by fear,
and the kids, punks, skins and Rastas were on the street,
and the cities burned.
From the flames stepped the People's Poet.
LAUGHTER
# The juvenile delinquents... #
This is it! I've been waiting two hours for this!
It's a revolution! LAUGHTER
It was a revolution in the head of Rik Mayall.
A hippie and a poet in the same house -
inspired...explosive...beautiful!
Cos although to you lot,
I seem to have about as much importance as, um...
..uh...as, um...
A hippie. ..a hippie...
..it does happen to be me that does all the cleaning round here.
Moan, moan, moan! Bo-RING!
JUST be-CAUSE you DO a little BIT of HOUSE-work!
"Oh, Neil, Neil, orange peel,
"if only I could see you again!"
Into the student house came Ade Edmondson's psychotic Vyvyan...
..Chris Ryan as the cool guy, Mike,
and all kinds of Alexei Sale.
At just 24 years old,
the sexy genius Rik Mayall
gave the people The Young Ones.
MUSIC: "The Young Ones" theme plays
# Once in every lifetime
# Comes a love like this
# Whoa, I need you
# You need me
# Oh, my darling, can't you see?
# Young ones Darling, we're the... #
SALE: The Young Ones was absolutely a revolutionary series.
It's one of the greatest TV shows of all time, really,
of British...you know, British comedy,
and it was also...it was the...
..it really was the launching pad for all our careers.
JOHN LLOYD: I definitely thought, "I'm in the presence of greatness here.
"This is...this is terrifically good."
Part of the reason it's so good, it's innocent, you know?
It's unstructured, it doesn't...
It just ignores any of the rules
cos they didn't know what the rules were.
JON PLOWMAN: Young Ones was a hit from the first episode,
and Rik was clearly the star
from the first episode.
And that's rare. That doesn't happen very often.
CHRISTOPHER RYAN: I certainly didn't know whether anything would happen with it, but it did.
And it was amazing, when it took off.
You know, almost immediately, it was responded to.
JOOLS HOLLAND: I thought the Young Ones was one of the best things I'd seen
cos it was different to all the other stuff - it had a different sensibility to it.
It was a moment where the lunatics had taken over the asylum
and it was great.
I was in the audience at a lot of those shows and, uh...
HE LAUGHS
Rik and Ade...I think Rik was... Ade was...
As Vyvyan was chanting, "Virgin! You're a virgin! Virgin!"
They have this big sort of slappy, girly fight, slapping at each other.
Virgin! I'm not!
I'm not! I'm not a virgin! Virgin! Virgin! I am not a...
Virgin!
LAUGHTER
And they went upstairs and you could hear them shouting
and there's...another scene carries on
and then the bed and the roof falls down.
LAUGHTER
I am not a virgin! I am not a virgin!
Virgin! Virgin!
And they continue on fighting.
It was one of the greatest stunts
I've ever seen done in a TV studio, ever!
Honest to God, you just thought, "That is... Who ARE these guys?
"And how are they allowed to do this?"
It was just brilliant.
Nobody had done it like this.
People tried to put them down.
But The Young Ones were talking about their generation.
This wasn't just comedy.
This was comedy for "the kids".
Well, I'm going to tell Thatcher that we've got a bomb,
and that if she doesn't do something to help the kids
by this afternoon...
LAUGHTER ..we're going to blow up England!
Suddenly, there was a strain of comedy
that was directed specifically at young people
and went completely over the heads of the grown-ups
who sort of thought it was crude and stupid.
You know, and it was blisteringly smart and incredibly funny
and so relevant.
God, I'm bored!
Might as well be listening to Genesis.
DAVIES: My friends and I
were disciples of The Young Ones, you know?
As I recall, it was the only thing we thought about.
I just remember running in to school
so I could meet my stupid little gang of mates
at the bottom of the stairs
and we could quote every line of The Young Ones.
And we were all huge Madness fans as well,
so when Madness were on,
our little heads almost exploded.
Do, uh...do any of you lot know Summer Holiday by Cliff Richard?
You hum it, I'll smash your face in.
LAUGHTER I'll go sit over there.
The Young Ones came along and Mum and Dad were going,
"What the hell's this?!"
And kids were going, "Get away. This is ours.
"This is for me. This is not for you."
RIK SNEEZES LOUDLY
PEGG: It was punk for comedy.
I mean, even to the point of Ade Edmondson
tearing down The Good Life, literally, on the screen.
It was kind of like... it was such a statement.
No! No way!
We are not watching The bloody Good Life!
Bloody, bloody...bloody!
I hate it! It's so bloody nice!
The Young Ones was...was sort of...
..sort of doing with humour
what the Sex Pistols were doing with music and all that, you know?
Saying, "The '80s are a dreadful time.
"You know, we've got all these problems with Thatcher,"
and all that sort of thing.
So, it was quite sort of "Destroy and rebuild."
Did you see that?! Did you?!
They did start a revolution,
but when you're doing that, you don't think you are.
It's just that they... this was healthy.
The success of The Young Ones was a huge thrill for everybody.
I mean, you know...
And Rik, in particular, came out of it the most...
..I think the most successful and loved comic in Britain at that time.
Will you lend it to me if I promise to be your slave all day tomorrow?
LAUGHTER
Yeah, that sounds like a good deal. Yeah.
Tough luck, buster!
LAUGHTER
I had my fingers crossed behind my back all along!
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Rik and The Young Ones was just...breathtaking.
I just thought it was a fantastic comic creation.
I'll probably be disfigured for life, Vyvyan,
and you'll have to pay.
Yeah, and then who'll be laughing? Ha!
Not you, matey. That's for sure.
Yeah, well, just don't break the glass when you tear your face off. That's all.
I won't... I won't because...
LAUGHTER ..it's not true.
It was a joke I made up,
and you fell for it like the fascists you are.
You felt like you were in on a joke.
You were sort of laughing with him and laughing at him.
It was just so...so exciting.
Occupying the refectory! So what?!
This is the real stuff!
LAUGHTER I'm a fugitive!
A desperado!
I'm going to form a new Union society, right?
With me as president.
People Who Don't Pay Their TV Licences Against The Nazis.
LAUGHTER This is only the beginning!
I just loved the kind of weird magical realism of the show.
I used to love the fact that the vermin and the vegetables spoke, in the house,
and it existed in this weird surrealist bubble.
It was...there was something... It was like Narnia.
Fuelling Rik's fire with jokes
were Lise Mayer and Ben Elton,
comrades writing lurid tales of student life in Manchester.
When you were all at university, did you meet people like the people you play?
We were people like the people we... Yes.
You were, were you? They were. I was...
Ben and I both lived in a house, at different times,
that was basically exactly the same, if not a bit worse,
than the house that they live in, in the show.
Inspired by their life in Manchester,
Rik, Ben and Lise had created a completely new flavour of comedy,
and it was a portrait of student life
a million miles away from Oxbridge.
No "dreaming spires", no Footlights.
It was Scumbag College, all day long.
If you went to Oxbridge, you had
a particular kind of sense of entitlement, you know?
And, obviously, Rik and Ade and Nigel and the rest of the gang
didn't have that, you know?
It was central that they hadn't been through Oxford or Cambridge
and they weren't polluted with
that particular kind of... way of doing things.
LAUGHTER
Hello, and welcome to another edition of University Challenge.
It felt more like it belonged to us
than it was us watching some very, very clever people be very, very funny,
which is what Python could often be, you know?
You'd see Python do sketches about philosophers and stuff
and you'd marvel at the brilliance of it, but you didn't feel like...
"I don't know anything about that."
Whereas I knew everything about, you know, bogeys
and Toxteth O'Grady and all that stuff.
That felt..."Yeah, that's definitely in my wheelhouse."
There was something clearly in Ben,
and I suspect in Rik as well,
there was something of Manchester looking out at the rest of the world
and saying, "Come on, we're as good as you.
"We're going to take you on."
CALLOW: The beautiful Young Ones were on a high
and couldn't get much higher.
RIK: I met Little Richard once and we talked about how to give the audience a good time.
He said, "Get the band on the stage and get the audience high."
"When they is high, you get on the stage yourself, then you take 'em higher!
"Take 'em higher till they can't get no higher!
"And when they can't get no higher, you get off that stage."
It was all over for this revolutionary sitcom.
After 12 episodes of anarchy,
The Young Ones crashed and burned.
RIK: That's why we finished The Young Ones after two series.
I could think, "We've done really, really, really well.
"We've always tried to keep the jokes original.
"We can't think of any more originality
"cos their brains are just exhausted.
"They've had a really good shagging. OK? Kill the students."
Drive the bus off the cliff.
Finish. Walk away.
Next one.
Resistance was futile.
The boy from Droitwich was now king of comedy.
And before him lay the corrupt wasteland of showbiz,
in Filthy, Rich & Catflap.
Two, three, four...
HE SINGS BADLY # Happiness, happiness... #
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. God bless you, one and all. MAN: Shut up and get off!
# The greatest feeling that I possess... #
The smile of a child, a beautiful woman,
just simply being...
..British.
Oh! Oh!
Ah!
DE LA TOUR: Rik was a very, very handsome man.
In all his comedy, he made himself ugly.
He would give himself this supercilious sneer.
And he discovered that very early on,
literally looking down his nose
and literally sneering and snorting at
what the character would consider to be his inferiors.
Well, well, well, wonders will never cease!
Eddie Catflap's been thinking!
Put out some bunting!
Organise a street party! Let off some fireworks!
Telephone the Queen!
Give everyone a week's holiday!
The Man With No Brain's been thinking!
Everybody go to the lavatory in amazement!
One series was all we saw of Richie Rich.
The young and the restless Rik Mayall
had films to make.
Comic Strip films.
VIM FUEGO: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
SUSTAINED ELECTRIC GUITAR CHORD PLAYS
# Bad news!
# For you and you and you and you and you... #
One of the best Comic Strips, I think...
Well, God, I mean, if there had been 30 or 40...
But a very good one was Bad News.
# Bad news For you and you... #
RIK: You have British heavy metal
and British documentary-making being ridiculed.
HE GRUNTS
Yeah, I feel a bit wrecked, you know?
Did you see The Whistle Test last night?
Sort of, yeah, but I...I was really stoned,
you know, and I drank a bottle of brandy and...
Yeah? Yeah, I was with this chick.
And we were just about to get down to it.
HE CHUCKLES I went and put my foot through the television set.
VIM: Oh, no! Yeah.
So, it sort of blew up a bit, you know, and set fire to the curtains
and, uh...
..I missed the second half of the show, so...
I bet your mum was really angry.
Well, she...she wasn't there, was she, Den?
Yeah, but I mean, when she gets back... Den, no...
Den, she won't be getting back.
How come?
Cos...cos she's dead.
Eh? VIM: She's dead, Den.
Oh, I get it.
Alan's called Vim and your mum's dead.
HEAVY METAL MUSIC PLAYS
Bad News was one of those things
that everybody thinks is a copy of Spinal Tap,
but was actually, you know,
just two people having the same idea simultaneously.
HEAVY METAL MUSIC PLAYS
RIVRON: Rik was so in love with himself.
He was the centre of the world. He was the centre of attention.
Um, so, whatever was happening,
whatever Rik was doing, that was the best, you know?
And he wasn't afraid to say that.
Those big eyes fix you
with kind of..."Come on, then, we're going to have fun.
"Whether you like it or not."
HE PLAYS BASS NOTES
Just take me up a bit.
HE PLAYS BASS NOTE Yeah? Up a bit more.
HE CONTINUES PLAYING BASS NOTE
Just a touch more.
HE BANGS DRUMS LOUDLY Shut up. Shh.
It can go up a little bit higher, can't it? I know.
PLAYS BASS NOTE THROUGHOUT All right, just another two or three notches.
Good. Yes. Put... Well, just a little bit more.
OK.
Up a touch. Up just a touch.
PLAYS BASS NOTE REPEATEDLY Lovely.
OK, we'll try it there.
LOUD FEEDBACK Ow! Oh! Ow! Ow!
HEAVY METAL MUSIC PLAYS
# Bad news!
# Bad news! #
The only good news for Bad News
was the invite from The Tube,
presented by Rik's friend and neighbour, Jools Holland.
You're a very visual band indeed.
You still want to do an interview? Yes. Yes, please. Yes.
Do you want...? I think... It's probably just me.
Well, no, we can have all the band in. Uh, whatever.
I remember when they came up and were doing the Bad News on The Tube,
and they said, "Right, OK, so you do this."
And I was suddenly having to remember...
And it was like, you know, I said, "You'll have to guide me through this cos I haven't really..."
But they assumed, like them, I could do acting.
But that wasn't really my speciality.
And what are you saying to the kids?
What I'm trying to say...
I mean, when I'm writing a song, I look around, right?
And I see everything in the world that's happening
and, uh, I'm just asking for vengeance, that's all.
MUSIC: "Tequila" by The Champs
Mad on mescaline, Rik and the Comic Strip gang
poured ideas onto a vast canvas,
from Dorset to Planet Sex.
Aaagh!
On the way, great minds met.
In Mr Jolly Lives Next Door,
in the same time and the same place,
Rik Mayall and Peter Cook.
BOTH: Come in if you're saucy!
Can I, uh, borrow some Fairy liquid?
What?! A...Again?! Shut up, shut it!
Of course you can, Ralphie.
Ooh. You all right, Ralph? Have you cut yourself shaving?
I'll bring it back!
The films journeyed to the outer limits of Spain
for the guns and poses of the spaghetti western incident.
You start the row.
I went first last time.
No, you didn't.
Did.
Didn't.
Did.
Didn't.
Did!
A Fistful Of Travellers Cheques was absolutely brilliant,
because I just like dressing up
I wonder if...
..comedy was slightly more...proud in those days.
You could make a larger, prouder twat of yourself.
SPITS
Yes.
The Comic Strip Presents,
the Fistful Of Travellers Cheques,
just knocked my socks off - I mean, totally and utterly changed me
as a fan of comedy and as a person, I think.
MAYER: It was just incredibly good fun.
It was like a holiday of massive drinking, gambling,
getting sunburnt
and making a film at the same time.
The swagger within Rik Mayall was straining at the leash
when along came the biggest of big characters -
Lord Flashheart...
I really did think old Flash would have turned up.
..best man for Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder.
I remember when he first entered in front of the audience, there was an audible gasp.
It's me.
And he burst onto the set
and the audience just went, "Ohh! Who's that?"
Flash by name, Flash by nature.
Hooray! ALL: Hooray!
MCINNERNY: We were all into our characters and, uh...
..and letting the comedy take care of itself.
And then...and then this force of nature erupts on the set, you know?
And you kind of get carried along in its wake.
I mean, including Rowan.
You know, you're just kind of hanging onto Rik's shirt-tails, really.
Thanks, bridesmaid! Like the beard!
LAUGHTER
Gives me something to hang onto!
LAUGHTER
Nobody knew it was Rik
cos he was wearing this extraordinary blonde wig
that he'd had commissioned secretly from the make-up ladies,
which was adorned with tiny seashells, which was his idea,
which nobody could possibly have seen.
But he was a kind of mad perfectionist as well.
LAUGHTER I've got a plan!
And it's as hot as my pants!
LAUGHTER
When I joined Blackadder and started writing Blackadder II,
I was determined that there should...Rik should be in it.
He could not be a regular - he wouldn't have wanted to be
and they certainly probably wouldn't have had him.
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Flashheart is a great character. It's well-written.
That was what Rik could do - inspire you to write good stuff for him.
So long, suckers! Next time you get bored with your lives, give me a call.
And I'll come round and kill you!
Bye, Edmund, and thanks for everything! Hooray!
The scene-stealing Flashheart came twice,
returning to make life in the First World War trenches
even worse for Captain Blackadder.
Ha!
Eat knuckle, Fritz!
LAUGHTER
The First World War, you don't really kind of think of it as sex,
but Flashheart comes on and his gear is so sex!
I mean, it's such total, 200% sex.
Mmm! And it just made me moved to be... It was great.
I've got my pistol, I've got my lariat.
I've got everything I need. It's just...I am a living penis!
LAUGHTER Mind if I use your phone?
If word gets out that I'm missing, 500 girls will kill themselves.
LAUGHTER I wouldn't want them on my conscience.
Not when they want to be on my face!
LAUGHTER
He pretty much stole everything he was ever in.
Flash is not dead!
I simply ran out of juice!
LAUGHTER Yeah.
And before all the girls start saying, "What's the point of living any more?" I'm talking about petrol.
Woof, woof!
He made no secret of it - he'd walk in and say,
"Right, I'm going to steal it."
You know, and then he would.
And I think nobody ever minded because...
..Rik's greatness was so unique to him
that even if he did steal something,
in a way, he didn't detract from anybody else
because he was like this sort of firework in the middle of it.
Rowan was sort of blown out of the water by Rik.
You know, it's like he's playing...
He's not playing by the rules.
He's actually come on and just ripped through the whole episode
and stolen it, lock, stock and barrel.
Iiiiit's me!
Hooray! Hooray!
The UK was now ruled by a new breed of politician,
and Rik wanted to fight back.
He met the writers, Marks and Gran,
to plot his revenge on the government.
I said, "I want a real bastard, a real bastard who's in the..."
And we were talking about how much we hated the Conservative Government
because of the unhappiness that they'd caused.
I mean, real pain and hardship and unemployment and...
They'd...destabilised the only kind of defence that they had -
the union movement.
But, really, we just want to get some laughs.
And I need a target, I need someone I hate, to be.
And, uh...so I said, "bastard",
and someone probably - Laurence or Maurice -
said, "Well, we'll call him B'Stard. Yeah, that's good."
Conservative MP Alan B'Stard
was the super-villain Rik was born to play.
Hello. Alan B'Stard. Biggest majority in the House of Commons. LAUGHTER
He beautifully embodied the evilness of that regime.
Remember the Falklands, guv.
Indeed, I do. I made a fortune.
LAUGHTER
To carry that kind of arrogance and sneer and snobbery and bigotry,
without making it too horrible to watch,
was...was...it's really, really clever.
PALIN: He just...I think Rik had a power to what he did,
which made him always watchable.
I mean, he does Alan B'Stard and all that - nasty, nasty character.
But there was something kind of terribly watchable about him.
I'm your new French mistress.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER
Sex, violence, cash.
And more sex.
It's very sexy, that show.
Very sort of...se...
I mean, it was. It was quite a horny show.
I told you what would happen
if you failed your French oral again.
What?
Ooh!
LAUGHTER
Ow! Ow!
That hurts! I know!
It's supposed to hurt.
Get off!
You wicked boy! Stupid trollop!
I'm not a masochist, I'm a sadist! I pay to beat people.
Fizzing with energy, that performance.
Even though he's playing a Tory Cabinet Minister, I mean...
"Tory Cabinet Minister" and "fizzing with energy"
don't normally sit together in a sentence, do they?
And so to the USA,
to wreak havoc with the big movie,
with Drop Dead Fred.
Some Americans presented me with a script about Drop Dead Fred,
who's an imaginary friend,
which, in 1990, I went over to make in America.
These are good New York writers and it was a huge success.
Bleh! Aaagh! Hello, Snotface!
Yuck! What happened to you?!
Look at you! You're all older!
You're even uglier!
Eugh! I'm sorry. I'm going to have to be sick all over you immediately. Lie down.
After all his adventures,
Rik now returned to his other half,
Ade Edmondson.
They were about to hit the sweet spot.
The only way was up.
Bottom.
The Young Ones was your teens.
Then they say Filthy was about your, uh, 20s.
Let's say that Bottom was about your 30s, where there's just...
Youth has gone, it's just, like, shit now
and life is fucking nothing.
ELTON: When Rik and Ade invented these two absurd, endlessly bickering characters,
living this half-submerged life
in a sort of sleazy world of nothingness,
it was Rik and Ade at their best.
OK. OK, OK.
Let's sort this out.
Now, we're good friends, Eddie.
We've known each other for a long time.
We can talk.
And there is something I have been meaning to say to you for the last 25 years.
LAUGHTER Oh! What's that?
I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!
Go away and crawl away and die in a ditch somewhere, you bastard!
Bottom was fantastic.
It was two people that shouldn't be together, but are,
uh, that just...constantly at...going at each other.
# Someday, I'm gonna smack your face
# Someday, I'm gonna smack your face... #
They were an unbeatable combination of physicality and violence.
They're like a real-life Tom and Jerry, you know?
LAUGHTER
SQUELCHING Aaaagh!
Ade and Rik really spent a lot of time
working out exactly where the camera should be
so that...it really looks like
you've hit somebody properly with a frying pan.
It takes a lot to do.
They were capable of really, really smart, blistering satire,
fantastic sort of politically skewed, you know, contemporary comedy.
And, yet, you could see what they loved doing
was punching each other in the face, you know?
LAUGHTER Right.
Yes, it was crass and, yes, it was stupid.
It was REALLY stupid. But it wasn't half funny.
I mean, I'm laughing now, remembering it.
But him and Ade were... It was priceless, you know?
No-one did...uh, crude comedy so poetically, I don't think.
It had an unreality.
That was absolutely what Rik and Ade were about.
Yeah!
An absurd unreality of two idiots
who could never really compete in the real world.
RIVRON: People sort of fell for him and were worried for him, you know?
Because he was this sort of... just complete idiot,
but trying to...trying to mean well, but getting it wrong.
And it was like, "Oh!"
You know, they just wanted to cuddle him
and sort of, you know, befriend him and take him under their wing.
The whole soliloquies about life and not having a bird,
living with each other and being miserable.
I love that.
It's Friday night,
and everywhere you look, there's buildings full of people,
all doing it.
LAUGHTER
They're all doing it and doing it and then stopping and having a fag
and then doing it a bit more.
There's not a single one of them saying,
"Hang on a minute, this really isn't fair.
"I mean, here's us, doing it and doing it and doing it,
"and there's poor old Richie and he hasn't done it...ever.
"He hasn't got anyone to do it TO.
"I'll tell you what - I'll pop down and do it to him for a bit and then pop back up.
"Would that be all right?"
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Bottom was the Rik and Ade masterpiece -
men leading lives of noisy desperation
had never been so spectacularly funny.
And Rik's adoring fans loved every minute.
APPLAUSE CONTINUES Thank you!
Thank you.
APPLAUSE STOPS
Ohhh!
I mean, as soon as he comes on...
I mean, Rik would, you know...
Immediate...rapport with the audience.
Immediate. That's who he's...that's who he's relating to, really.
He was a big show-off, you know?
He...he loved...he loved performing.
He loved showing off.
He didn't really mind people looking at him, you know?
"Hey, look, everyone. Yes, it's me."
LLOYD: Rik's public loved him, adored him, even,
in a way that...
Few comedians get that kind of love.
You respect Cleese mightily, or Peter Cook or...
But whether people love them as if they knew them,
I think is not quite the same as what Rik had.
There's something that came through the persona
which made a direct connection with people, which is very unusual.
In 1998, in the fields around his home in Devon,
Rik Mayall had an accident which changed his life.
The comedian Rik Mayall is in hospital with serious head injuries
after an accident at his country home in Devon.
He fell while riding a four-wheel motorbike
and was taken by air ambulance to hospital in Plymouth.
Doctors say his condition is stable.
I was technically dead for five days.
What's fantastic about that
is that, um...
..it happened on what my kids call "Crap Thursday",
because it was the day before Good Friday.
Easter '98.
And I died that Thursday
and then, uh, I came back on the Monday,
which is the day after Easter day.
Lord knows I'm a modest man,
but I beat Jesus by two days.
SALE: The accident seemed to have stripped him back down
to his essence, really,
of this very sweet, slightly vulnerable, um...
..rather kind, gentle man, really.
HE LAUGHS Oh! Ha-ha-ha!
Rik and Ade resumed their partnership
with the mayhem of Guest House Paradiso.
We were wondering if you had any rooms.
Yes, we'd like two rooms, adjoining.
Yes, with a sea view, please.
Gosh.
You're quite forthright, aren't you, in your demands?
My word, Eddie. Important people here.
Well, first things first,
you got any valuables...
..that you'd like me to put in the safe?
PEGG: Working with Rik was...
You know, I was starstruck, you know?
And we'd sit and talk about The Young Ones
and Rik...he'd not long had his accident
and he was kind of...he was a self-confessed scatterbrain,
so I would know more about the show
and remember more about it than he did.
But it was so fun to be around him
and see how he interacted with the crew.
You know, everyone seemed to love him
and he was...he was quite openly insecure
about, um, stuff.
You know, like, he'd do a take and if the crew didn't giggle,
he'd want to know why, you know?
And it was like, "Cos they're being professional, Rik.
"They're trying not to ruin the take by snorting over the sound."
Rik Mayall's return to television in Jonathan Creek
was another triumph.
Marella Carney had already departed this world
by 12 noon yesterday,
a good four hours before she shot herself.
If you can come up with a better trick than that, Mr Creek,
I'd like to see it some time.
There would be countless more television series and films.
We always got maximum Rik.
And the Bottom tours
brought the house down every night...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
..in every city across the United Kingdom of Rik Mayall.
Come on!
You fat prick! Aaah!
Like good whiskey, Rik Mayall got better with age.
The devilment deepening...
HORN BLARES
..the behaviour unhinged.
And as Greg Davies's father in Man Down,
a performance as good as it gets.
THEY BOTH LAUGH
But I wanted to show her how much I cared.
So, every night, at 7.30,
I'd walk here and wait for her to come to that very bedroom window.
And I'd wave at her and blow her a kiss.
And she'd blow me a kiss.
And I'd walk home again.
Every night? Every night.
18 months and 11 days.
That is one of the most romantic stories I've ever heard.
HE CHUCKLES
Yeah, well...
Anyway, all's well that ends well.
Eventually, I fucked her against that wall.
What? Yeah. That very wall.
Certainly since my late 20s,
people have been telling me that I look like him and, uh...
So, when I knew I had a sitcom,
he was the fantasy casting to play my dad.
Right! Thank you! Goodbye!
Right here.
Like this.
HE GRUNTS
It just is funny, to see someone, uh...
..shagging a wall.
If it's done properly, it just is.
Him as a performer is...
He held nothing back.
He threw caution to the wind. He would throw himself...
He threw himself over a car in a bear suit.
Aaaaagh!
There was a really great atmosphere on set.
I had a hug every morning from Rik Mayall.
Yeah. Every morning, on set, I was greeted with a hug.
Does he need a hug from the bear?
Come and have a hug from the bear! No!
And he'd put his arms around me
and he whispered, "Comrade," in my ear.
And I thought, "Yeah.
"I won't be forgetting this moment in a hurry."
Rik Mayall died on the 9th of June 2014.
LLOYD: He was on all the front pages.
I mean, all of them, across the whole range of...
You know, red-tops to broadsheets,
which I can't really think of another person in recent years
that the same was quite true of.
There was one wonderful thing.
I think it was the front page of The Times.
And Michael Gove had been saying,
"We must, in schools,
"inculcate British values."
And next to it was a picture of Rik looking absolutely mad.
And I'm sure The Times must have done that on purpose.
It was a wonderful, wonderful front page.
SALE: When he died, there was this extraordinary outpouring of affection
that you...you know...which was...
In a way, you just saw how many people loved him, really.
I think there was that big outpouring when he died
because, um, he never offended anyone.
He liked everybody.
DAVIES: I wasn't surprised at all by the national reaction to him dying.
No, I wasn't surprised at all.
Quite right. I think that's what he would have said. "Quite right too."
MAYER: It's really wonderful for his family
and his kids and...
He would have been...he would have been very pleased, I think.
ELTON: What's great is that his children
will be able to look at what was said,
and it's all true,
about how very special their father was,
not just to them but to the world.
Rik, the student from Scumbag College,
failed his degree.
But 20 years later, Rik Mayall, the man,
was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Exeter.
Older, wiser,
Dr Rik Mayall knew the secret of life.
Let me give you youngsters a present.
Five mantras to carry with you through your lives.
These are mine.
Number one - all men are equal.
Therefore, no-one can ever be your genuine superior.
Number two - your future is as bright as you make it.
Number three - change is a constant of life,
so you must never, ever lose your wisdom.
Number four - if you want to live a full and complete human life,
you have to be free.
And number five -
love is the answer.
Love is the answer. Bon voyage!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
MAYER: He was unique.
People like Rik don't come along very often.
Blimey - 56, you know?
That's...that's...that's too young.
Yeah.
MCINNERNY: It does seem impossible that that amount of energy
can be extinguished, you know.
It's where you find yourself, you know,
wishing you were a Buddhist or something and...
"Well, it must go somewhere else, then. It must go into somebody else."
You know?
That moment, somebody's been born with Rik's energy and talent.
That would be...that would be... you know, that would be something.
HENRY: The last time I saw him properly was a birthday party
and he was just very funny and very charming.
He wanted to work. He was pitching ideas.
You know, he wanted... LAUGHS
He wanted to do an interracial cop buddy movie
where everybody thought we were gay.
LAUGHS
RIVRON: He loved the business.
He loved that everyone else was doing it.
He loved the fact that, you know, it was a means of making money.
It was just like...he was in this sort of complete heaven
where he could express himself so faultlessly and so naturally,
and just be very, very successful at it.
He was just like... every day was a joy when he woke up.
It was amazing.
His incredible generosity of spirit, love of his friends
and endless optimism
was with him all his life.
And I miss him very, very much.
"Once in every lifetime comes a love like this.
"I need you.
"You need me.
"Oh, my darling, can't you see?
"Young ones.
"Darling, we're the young ones.
"The young ones shouldn't be afraid
"To live...love.
"There's a song to be sung.
"Cos we may not be the young ones...
"..very long."
APPLAUSE
BLUES MUSIC PLAYS
# If you're looking for trouble
# You've come to the right place
# If you're looking for trouble
# Just look right in my face
# I was born standing up
# And talking back
# My daddy was a piece of railroad track
# Because I'm evil
# My middle name is Misery
# Yes, I am evil
# So, don't you mess around with me
# I don't wipe my bottom
# When I go to the loo
# I'm rude to policemen
# And I pick my nose too
# There's no stopping me
# I'm bloody mad!
# I smoke marijuana and I don't go to lectures
# Cos I'm evil
# My middle name is Jeremy
# Yes, I'm evil
# So don't you mess around with me! #
Mess around, everybody!
Guitar!
HE STRUMS DISCORDANTLY
# I live with my mum
# But she gets on my wick
# And when I'm told off
# I'm deliberately sick
# So look out, you squares
# I'm an angry young man
# I once showed my willy to Princess Anne
# Because I'm evil
# My middle name is Jeremy
# Yes, I am evil... #
Rock!
So...don't...you...
..mess...a...
..round...with...
# Meeeeee! #
Bloody hell!