Rik Mayall opened door for original comedy, producer says

Rik Mayall “opened the door for many of the young alternative comedians that are coming out today”, a producer who worked with the comedian and actor has said.

Mayall, who died a decade ago on Sunday, had various roles including in The Young Ones as attention-hungry Rick, The New Statesman as the ruthless and scheming Alan B’Stard MP and the fun and romantic Lord Flashheart in Blackadder.

He died from a heart attack in 2014 at the age of 56.

Mayall has been credited as a pioneer in British alternative comedy after his career took off in the 1980s, and he also lent his voice to a collection of animated fairy tales, using his aggressive and comedic tones, which were also honed during TV series Bottom and as a child’s imaginary friend in Drop Dead Fred.

It was during the recording of Rik Mayall’s Animated Fairy Tales, commissioned by One Media iP, that he met writer, musician and producer Mike Bennett, who wrote the stories and oversaw the recordings.

Their relationship grew, and Bennett has been sifting through the last ever recordings Mayall made to create a collection of his funniest and most interesting bits called Rik Mayall’s Famous! …(Last Words), which is available on Sunday from audiobook stores and Spotify.

Bennett told the PA news agency: “Rik Mayall’s inimitable style seeks and finds shelter from convenient categorisation, but it’s an anarchic punk rock n’ roll humour.

“And The Young Ones was the first of its kind, and it exploded into the rooms of my student flat, which looked exactly the same as the one that they had.

“They really touched a nerve and the so-called alternative comedy scene was bursting out and it was superb.

“And it coincided with a lot of great music and he was obviously a major player on the scriptwriting side of The Young Ones, and indeed Bottom, and I would say that, in some ways, he opened the door for many of the young alternative comedians that are coming out today because he opened the door for originality, there was a lot of originality there.

“And I actually think that Rik Mayall launched the careers of a lot of his peers, because I think that he was the one that really shone, I shouldn’t really say that because they were all brilliant, but he was certainly my favourite.

“And he was the most interesting comedian I’ve ever had the privilege of writing for, that’s for sure.”

Bennett, who performs lead vocals for rock band The Blockheads, will also bring a stage show, It’s Grimms Up North: Rik Mayall’s Famous Last Words, to the Edinburgh Festival’s Voodoo Rooms from August 6 to 11.

“What’s being released now? It’s very interesting because (it is) outtakes, bloopers, burps, belches, it’s all in there,” he said.

“When you listen to these outtakes, you find that Rik Mayall was a really thoughtful guy and sort of when you put all of the expletives to one side… it’s not like a Derek and Clive presentation, it shows his humility, and his professionalism and it shows him playing an Australian sandwich which he had described as ‘the weirdest part that he’d ever played’. But it was his idea.”

Bennett said that though Mayall had creative control, he was “very generous, and didn’t really change the script”, but did recall that when they first spoke on the phone the comedian pretended to be a fascist dictator.

Mayall said he was “taking over the world of children’s animation” and he “didn’t realise who it was and he kept me going for probably about three quarters of an hour”, Bennett said.

The producer also called him a “fantastic methodical actor” who “lived, slept and breathed the characters”.

“You believe the character, he wasn’t just doing a caricature,” Bennett added.

“He was very, very versatile as an actor and the comic edge was great, but actually, tragicomedy, that’s what he was about, tragicomedy, all his nasty characters… had a very likeable side.

“And all his likeable characters had a little bit of an edgy side as well.”

Rik Mayall’s Animated Fairy Tales can be found on YouTube channel Kids Clubhouse.