Rik Mayall(1958-2014)
- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
Rik Mayall, one of the first and foremost alternative comedians in the
UK, was born in a village called Matching Tye, just outside Harlow in
Essex. His parents, John and Gillian were both drama teachers. His
acting debut was at the age of seven when he appeared in one of his
father's stage plays. He met his comedy partner and best friend Adrian
"Ade" Edmondson at Manchester University in 1975. Soon he and Ade began
performing together as a comedy act called "Twentieth Century Coyote"
at the now legendary Comedy Store in London. They later moved their act
to a venue called "The Comic Strip" and it was there that they were
discovered by producer
Paul Jackson. Rik and his friends
such as Adrian Edmondson,
Jennifer Saunders,
Dawn French,
Alexei Sayle,
Peter Richardson and
Nigel Planer were boomed onto television
screens with immense success. He wrote
The Young Ones (1982) with
Ben Elton and
Lise Mayer. You loved it or you hated it, but
you can't deny the impact it had on British Sitcom. His career was
launched, and at only twenty-four years of age he became one of the
most popular comedians in Britain. He wrote and starred in various
other series and films over the years such as
The New Statesman (1987);
his role in it as Alan B'Stard earned him a BAFTA. He had his brief
touch of Hollywood in 1991 when he starred as the title role in
Drop Dead Fred (1991), but he soon
returned to the British TV screens with
Bottom (1991) a show which only ran
for 3 seasons from 1991 to 1995 but was so popular that he and his
co-star Adrian Edmondson toured with live shows based on the series
around Britain every two years or so up until 2014. In 1998 he had a
severe accident and ended up in a coma after he crashed with his
quad-bike at his farm in Devon. Luckily he recovered and starred in
films and shows such as
Guest House Paradiso (1999)
and Day of the Sirens (2002).
In 2002 he proved that he was back and ready for action in the comedy
series Believe Nothing (2002)
which reunited him with
Laurence Marks and
Maurice Gran, the writers of "The New
Statesman". In 2003 he toured the UK alongside Adrian Edmondson with
the fifth Bottom Live show.