Quite often when someone in the public eye dies suddenly, the obituaries don’t appear until up to a month later, whereas elderly people appear the next day as a lot of newspapers plan ahead in a journalistic version of the New Year’s Day sweepstake we all do (the Queen Mother’s was written when she was ninety and had to be updated every year until she finally died at one hundred and one years old). This evening as obituaries were appearing with indecent haste on the online editions, I wished that some time and attention had been used. The treatment of Rik Mayall by the early edition obituaries was almost as shameful as his treatment at the hands of television casting people in his later years.

I was genuinely shocked when I read the news that Rik Mayall had died suddenly at the age of fifty-six, at the time of writing the cause is unknown. As sad as I was when Ronnie Barker and Eric Sykes passed away (I remember crying when I heard about Eric Sykes), this one was different. Barker and Sykes belonged to our parents and grandparents, Rik Mayall was ours.

It is of course inevitable that The Young Ones and Bottom get top billing in the list of his achievements. The truth is that Mr. Mayall’s body of work goes far beyond that, which is what I’ll try and write about here. The Young Ones changed sitcom by blowing a hole through the comfy middle class world where the boss scheduled his visits for dinner at the most comically bad time and helped to reshape the television comedy agenda. It was at the Comic Strip and the Comedy Store that the majority of the new wave of comedians first attracted the attention for their (at the time) fresh and unusual approach to live comedy. Television soon came knocking and shows such as Boom Boom Out Go The Lights and A Kick Up The Eighties introduced the public to the new order, admittedly not as much of the public as will have witnessed Mike Reid, Frank Carson, and Bernard Manning among others leaning on the microphone stand in a dinner suit telling jokes about their Pakistani mother-in-law walking into a pub. That is why this movement in comedy was so vital; the comedians on The Comedians wouldn’t know what had hit them.

It isn’t meant as an insult to point out the similarities between The Dangerous Brothers and Richie and Eddie, Kevin Turvey with Rik, or Rik and Richie, and so on. Such was Mr. Mayall’s ability to portray the comically grotesque, (he would have played a brilliant Richard 3rd) each character had a life of its own.

Filthy Rich & Catflap, about a desperate fame hungry celebrity wannabee, doesn’t get the recognition it deserves and only ran for one series. The subject matter, the ‘sit’ if you will, is more relevant in this day and age of undeserved fame and fortune heaped upon the criminally deranged souls who queue up to appear on Britain’s Got Talent than it possibly was when it was first written. Colin from Bad News (incidentally released a year before This Is Spinal Tap) could easily be the father of Donny Tourette from mock punk (munk?) band Towers of London, and Alan B’Stard could be any fucker in parliament.

Let us also not forget that he made a smooth transition into children’s entertainment. His stint on Jackanory led to some of his best work as the presenter of Grim Tales, in which he told the stories of the Brothers Grimm in his own manic styling. During the broadcast of the first series of Bottom not only was he appearing in Waiting for Godot on stage, he also had a starring role in family film Drop Dead Fred, stealing every scene he was in. His other big film role was as failing music manager Marty Starr in Bring Me The Head Of Mavis Davis, a film that didn’t do a great deal of business on its release but retrospective viewing reveals it to be one of the best satires written about the darker side of the music industry. As a dramatic actor he triumphed in the mostly forgotten series of standalone stories under the umbrella title Rik Mayall Presents and carried the gentle ITV comedy drama All About George; presumably Martin Clunes and Robson Green were both off sick that day as it was a bizarre casting decision but Mr. Mayall made it work.

It is sad how underused he was in the last few years of his life; Man Down was his last major role of course but before then (apart from an excellent Radio 4 series Rik Mayall’s Bedside Tales and the podcast The Last Hurrah) he was reduced to gurning next to Adrian Edmondson on Let’s Dance For Comic Relief and reimagining his brilliant Flashheart character in a series of programme sponsor wrap-arounds for Bombardier. Incidentally, that same promotional wrap-around was once used during a repeat of The Young Ones on GOLD, and although he was still alive at the time it was poignant to see such a talented comedy actor representing the beginning and the end of his career.

The Young Ones was slightly before my time and I first became aware of it when the actors teamed up with Cliff Richard for the first Comic Relief single ‘Living Doll’. I knew that they appeared on stage at a Comic Relief show at the Shaftsbury Theatre (a forerunner to the Red Nose Day telethons) and that the show was released as a vinyl LP. My mother said I couldn’t buy it because of the language content (I was nine or ten at the time I reckon) even though I had my heart set on it. At that age I was into comedy far more than music, (these days it is a photo finish to be honest) and I was gutted. It wasn’t until I found a pristine copy at a record fair when I was in my twenties that I finally fulfilled that simple wish to own this record.  The first thing I did was text my mum to tell her I had bought it.

Although The Young Ones was before my time I soon got wise to it during a repeat run on BBC2 in the late 1980s when I was in my second year of senior school (back when we had senior schools instead of academies and second years instead of whatever the fuck they are now) and I fell in love with it. At college we would sit around watching it on shop bought VHS and recite it word for word as you would sing along to an album of the best songs ever. For my school age group though, it was all about Rik’s Bottom (ooer sounds a bit rude). Bottom was the Fred Quimbey produced (better) Tom & Jerry cartoons brought to life and we loved it. We would spend the next day at school shouting out “gasman”. Bottom followed me to college and hasn’t left me since; again I pretty much know all the words. When you consider that a music lover such as I has yet to learn all the words to any song in the world, this is quite an achievement.

Rik Mayall was a hero to me and to millions and his death has left a cultural hole in our lives. I was in tears when I heard and wanted to convey this in a far better way than simply tweeting RIP Rik (which I’m sure he would have loved as it looks a little bit like ‘prick’) so I hit the send button on this:

Rest in peace Rik Mayall, long live the people's poet!
— Steve Oliver (@SteveOliver76) June 9, 2014

Had there been room on Twitter I would have done the whole ‘This house will become a shrine’ speech from Bambi.

Facebook and Twitter were full of tributes and not one nasty comment which goes to show how loved he was. My mum once told me she cried when Eric Morecambe died, and only today when I saw how social media came together did I understand the full extent that the death of someone you don’t know but has had an effect on you. Seeing people sharing clips and photos, and many changing their profile pictures in tribute means that although he is no longer with us, he will never be forgotten; “How can Rik be dead when we still have his poems?”

It’s the zeroes and nobodies I feel sorry for! Rest in peace you complete and utter brilliant bastard.

===

My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please consider showing your appreciation by way of a donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to create free online content. There are currently plans for a comedy sketch series, an online cookery and music show, a video version of The Sunday Alternative and plenty more including documentaries, short films and podcasts.

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here.