On Adrian Edmondson: |
I feel really good working with him: having been together for five years we're very mutually supportive. If I shit out he can cover me with an ad-libbed line.
The Face, January, 1982 |
| We sat down and had a long long talk about careers a couple of years ago when we did a student drama festival in Durham and got a slagging from The Guardian. We had a long chat about our responsibility to each other and decided that we should work together because we do work well together. But, we'd never hold each other back.
The Face, January, 1982 | |
| I suppose our relationship is like a kind of marriage. It's the longest relationship I've had with anyone apart from my parents. He is my closest friend.
The Independent on Sunday, February 20, 1994 | |
| We have established a pattern of writing now. I pace the room and call out gags, Ade sits at the computer calling out his, and if we both crack up, he types it. It takes us eight days to write half an hour -- we get about three minutes a day. There is a stock of gags, too.
The Times (London), May 3, 1996 | |
| Ade and I understand each other perfectly after 20 years -- his knowledge and sympathy for me are sometimes heartbreaking. Yeah -- we're like brothers.
The Times (London), May 3, 1996 | |
| We trained together, grew up together and when we work together, we spend 90 percent of our time laughing. Ade and I can hurt each other without meaning to, but we are very sensitive to the fact that we really need each other, as well as love each other. And we won't ever let each other down.
The Telegraph, July 26, 1997 | |
| We only try to do what we think is funny, not what we think we can get away with. Ade and I feed off each other. Combined with all of that is this "us against the world" thing, which is why any criticism is good for us. It inspires us. Anyone who slags us off gets mentioned in the next show.
The Independent, January 14, 1998 | |
On Bottom |
There's an irony to the tide, though. The joke is about being stupid. It's not just being stupid, it's not saying faintly rude words to get a faint laugh. It's the desperation.
The Sunday Times (London), February 12, 1995 |
| I do understand that the media generally don't like it and are embarrassed about enjoying it. That occasionally hurts but doesn't really bother me because the ratings are so good. The bottom line is that it makes me and Ade and an awful lot of people laugh.
The Sunday Times (London), February 12, 1995 | |
| With the scripts, all we try and do is shake the audience up. Once they think one thing is happening, make something else happen. It's always excitement excitement, excitement. I know it sounds silly, some old fart sitting on this stage in a leather jacket saying it, but the through-line is excitement. It's all in the moment.
The Sunday Times (London), February 12, 1995 | |
| I think now that Richie and Eddie in Bottom are seen as just Rik and Ade -- the same with Rick and Vyvyan in The Young Ones. We aren't in the business of the titter -- we go for the... The vomit laugh -- Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer make me laugh like that.
The Times (London), May 3, 1996 | |
| People who don't understand Bottom, who don't get it, are like people who don't understand jazz. They are wrong. To dismiss it as farty-bottom humor is like dismissing Dizzy Gillespie's music as noise.
The Telegraph, July 26, 1997 | |
| In order to enjoy Bottom, you have to completely let go and swim in it. If you don't let go, it just looks like a collection of fart jokes -- like jazz might look like a collection of notes. But if you immerse yourself in it and just go with the rhythm of it, it's there for your pleasure.
The Independent, January 14, 1998 | |
On Bring Me the |
There is a sense of lonliness about him (Marty Starr), he's a man on his own who doesn't have a confidant. Maybe the audience becomes that. Alan B'Stard (from The New Statesman), Rick (from The Young Ones) and Richie (from Bottom) are all like that, people who have things that can't be communicated. Those roles attract me.
The Independent, January 14, 1998 |
| There is this nagging thought that the audience will be saying to themselves, "why isn't he being funny? Why has he gone all Steve Martin on us?" But playing a straight part, there's a seduction thing even when you're reading the script. It's like starting a new relationship. You get entirely consumed by playing this new instrument. Perhaps I'm going through a heavy metal phase of straight acting, like David Bowie with Tin Machine -- "here's three chords, now go out and form a band." Maybe later I'll learn to be more delicate and have an unplugged phase.
The Independent, January 14, 1998 | |
On the Cell Mates/Stephen Fry incident |
My policy was not to take sides. I was caught in the middle. Simon (Gray) and Stephen were -- are-- both very good friends. I didn't really expect it all to be such big news, so I was rather thrown. I tell you what I do mourn, though -- the character, my character, Sean Bourke. I had a great feeling of loss that I couldn't keep the character alive: that hurt. I loved that part, too, because there was no pressure to be funny.
The Times (London), May 3, 1996 |
| Stephen is still a great friend. I'd work with him again tomorrow -- this afternoon. He did what he had to, and by publishing Fat Chance, Simon (Gray) did too.
The Times (London), May 3, 1996 | |
| It was terrible for me. My greatest regret was that it was a good role for me, but so long as Stephen was okay, as long as Simon was okay, that was what really mattered. Stephen had to do what he had to do and I was piggy in the middle. What could I do? I had to stick it out. I couldn't go off as well, you know. I threw up every night before going on stage. Still, I did get a nice letter from Dame Maggie Smith saying, "Good on you, for staying in the trench." Which was nice. But then, I am a very good boy.
The Telegraph, July 26, 1997 | |
| When I walked into our (Rik and Adrian Edmondson's) office, Ade said, "I told you not to muck about with those Cambridge bastards. Come back here, be a good boy and shut up."
The Independent, January 14, 1998 | |
On the Comic Strip |
It's not a new wave, it's not presenting one kind of comedy at all; the presentation is the point. It's cabaret. Cabaret at the moment is comedy. That's why the Comic Strip isn't the follow-on to The Goons or Python. We're not a team.
The Face, January, 1982 |
On Drop Dead Fred |
I told the writers about the reservations I had about film. I felt I was a telly and theatre man really, because I pull big faces and shout a lot of the time.
Film Review, October 1991 |
| It was a whole new experience for me, and I just wanted to keep my head down and work out what I was doing. I mean, just look at the line-up of actresses I was working with. Carrie Fisher, Marsha Mason. Even little Ashley (playing Phoebe Cates' character as a little girl) was brilliant - and she's only six!
She'd say: "You've got to stand there. That's your mark". I'd say: "No, no, Ashley, I was here". And she'd tell me: "No, you stood there on the other angle". I'd ask the crew, and they'd say: "She's right, Rik". Thanks, Ashley (whack). Film Review, October 1991 | |
| Mums complained that I had corrupted their songs and taught them to wipe bogeys on the furniture.
Time Out, July 16--23, 1997 | |
On Filthy Rich and Catflap |
I had this basic idea that I wanted to live in a flat with Ade Edmondson, so I went to ben Elton and said, let's write it together. Ben being the kind of writer that he is, wrote ninety-five percent of it, so I had my name taken off the front. It was rushed -- we went into the studio too early -- Ben had a hernia when he was writing them so he was in hospital for a lot of the time.
Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law? (1989?) |
| I'm still very proud of it -- I think it's as funny and probably more useful than The Young Ones -- particularly the last three programs. I think it's the most neolistic piece of telly we've ever done -- it's completely anti-television, it's anti-fame, it's anti the media generally, and anti-privilege; whereas The Young Ones was anti rock-and-roll and anti complacent youth -- my feeling was that it was trying to destroy the stranglehold that rock-and-roll had on kids -- because in the 1920s, there was no rock-and-roll, there was politics, and kids used to go out and talk to each other at meetings, and things like that. Now it's not only rock-and-roll that does that to kids but television itself -- bland entertainment itself -- and Filthy Rich and Catflap was trying to attack that. And we wanted to be as ugly and unpleasant as possible, which we did in The Young Ones, and Filthy... was having a proper grown-up crack at that. It looked more like grown-ups being unpleasant on television -- I think maybe the calculation backfired a little bit... you write something ironically, assuming that everyone feels the same as you do, and they don't see the irony because they see things differently from you.
Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law? (1989?) | |
On His Career |
I'd like to see more people trying to do what we're doing and keep entertainment live. TV belongs to someone else. It belongs to the BBC, Oxbridge. It's people like that who tell us what to watch -- whereas live, it's the audience who is boss. If you're doing a gag the audience don't like, you're going to stop half way through and tell them something they do like."
Soundcheck, Issue 7 (1982?) |
| I just do what I think is funny. I hope I'm going to be carrying on doing this until I'm quite old but of course it'll go through phases. In a couple of years I'll be unfashionable but then a couple of years later I'll be in fashion again. That doesn't really matter. What really matters is that people who come to see it have a good laugh.
Soundcheck, Issue 7 (1982?) | |
| I'm a very cautious performer. Although this sounds very wanky and celeby, I don't want to let my audience down, because there's a certain thing they expect and want from me.
Film Review, October 1991 | |
| Theatre and TV are performance mediums, and I'm a performer. Whereas film is a director's and an editor's medium, and I think that lack of control did scare me. But you can gain that control if you know what you're doing.
Film Review, October 1991 | |
| Ten years ago, I was looking for people to follow, people who'd survived. Because I can only do this, want to do this, have to do this, there's nothing else I can do. So I have to look for systems of longevity. I looked at Bowie because he kept on inventing himself in different characters, which I guess is what I did with Kevin Turvey and Rick. If you're going to make a change, make it a big one. So go on stage as Sean Burke, don't go on stage as Rick again.
The Sunday Times (London), February 12, 1995 | |
| I don't want to define myself as a comic or as an actor. I just know I enjoy being in front of an audience more than anything else.
The Sunday Times (London), February 12, 1995 | |
| At the gigs in the 1980s the audience was very excited. The joy of it was that they didn't know what they were going to see. I used to start by doing some stuff offstage and whipping them up. Then I used to run down from the back and do a bit of spazzing... dancing. "Rick" is a desperate man, desperately trying to entertain and not doing it very well. I never really remember those first couple of minutes. Engaging them completely, like some kind of shaman.
The Sunday Times (London), February 12, 1995 | |
| I don't actually think of my "career", as such, but I am aware of the need for longevity. So there have been stages.
The Times (London), May 3, 1996 | |
| It is hard for me because so much of my success has been based on being young or on playing people who are young. I have been living a schizoid existence, pretending to be a wild man when I am really Mr. Mortgage. I get up, see my children, make the sandwiches and feed the cats, and then I go round to Ade's house and we write filthy juvenile jokes for a living.
The Telegraph, May 14, 1997 | |
| Critics shouldn't fuck with me. I'm a national institution.
The Telegraph, July 26, 1997 | |
| People either like my comedy or they don't. And I don't like the people who don't like it because they don't laugh at the same things as me.
The Telegraph, July 26, 1997 | |
| Acting is a life sentence for me. That's a bravado way of saying it, but I want to be doing this till the day I drop.
The Independent, January 14, 1998 | |
On His Childhood |
I obviously always wanted to be looked at as a kid, very, very much so. Really embarrassing, ugly things I used to do. If it was my brother or sister's birthday I'd sulk all day. I remember being six and having my birthday party. A kid called Sid Prior was talking a lot and gaining all the attention, so I hit him over the head with the hammer from the children's toolkit I'd just been given. He got taken home screaming, I was sent upstairs and the party was over.
The Face, January, 1982 |
| I used to do shows after school with mates -- it was also a way of getting off games. We used to do absurdist drama, mainly -- Waiting for Godot, a bit of Pinter, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Endgame, The Real Inspector Hound -- good fun to perform, and would have quite a bit of an impact on the teachers and the parents. Those plays are quite significant because you can be very serious by being funny... that was mainly where I developed my distaste for being serious.
Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law? (1989?) | |
On Kevin Turvey |
I was doing a pilot that Granada TV wanted to make and Alexei (Sayle) and I went for a meeting. We were supposed to go back in a week with lots of material, but I thought it was in two weeks. I phoned Alexei one night and
he said he'd written loads. I asked what time we ought to meet and then discovered the next day. We went on the train and I still didn't have anything so I thought, "I'll just talk for as long as I can and be as boring as I can so they don't realise I've got nothing to say!" Because I come from near Birmingham and I know someone called Turvey, Kevin was born. The programme was never made but Kevin went down well, so I kept him and eventually he appeared on Kick Up The Eighties.
Soundcheck, Issue 7 (1982?) |
| I wanted to do a character on the telly which would just waste television time, and be incompetent. I had my name taken off the credits because I was addicted to this form of performance where the audience thought it was genuinely happening. So Colin Gilbert and I wrote the monologues, and the credits just said, "Kevin Turvey" -- and the key to its success was that fifty percent of the audience thought he really existed.
Didn't You Kill My Mother-in-Law? (1989?) | |
On The New Statesman |
I'm really addicted to the character. When I put on that awful Savile Row suit -- I really hate those clothes -- and the pinkish makeup is applied, I just become him. It's crazy -- I sit in rollers waiting for my terrible perm to be done and suddenly I'm Alan B'stard. I think people saw me differently, then -- The Sunday Times said that quite a few saw the first one or two episodes and said for the first time, "Isn't Rik Mayall good looking?" but by the end of the series they were saying, "Isn't he a good actor?" -- and that's all I wanted, really.
The Times (London), May 3, 1996 |
On Northern Lights |
I misread the script and said "Yes".
The Face, January, 1982 |
On Remember Me? |
I got a feeling inside myself that I wanted to be Ian for a while; there was a piece of me that connected with him. You've got to laugh at someone as selfish and self obsessed as Ian.
The Telegraph, July 26, 1997 |
| He (Ian) is a rather sad and lonely man and feels extremely sorry for himself, in fact he is a bit of a git really. He thinks everyone in the house is having sex except him... and they're not. He's a joy to play. I very much enjoy playing trapped characters and people who find it hard to communicate. Don't ask me why. Ian is very much in the lexicon of Rik Mayall charracters. I also found Ian a very filmic character in that so much of what he does in internalized. The viewers have to get inside his head.
Remember Me Video Box, 1997 | |
On Rik Mayall Presents... |
I have to say, Lewis from The Big One is my favorite character, because of what he is. I love his strengths and weaknesses and the pure escapism of the plot. It is the ultimate fantasy.
Interesting, The Cult Comedy Zine, 1995 |
| I didn't set out to do a series with any particular ideas in mind. I was just looking at characters that I thought I could do and try to stretch myself a bit.
Interesting, The Cult Comedy Zine, 1995 | |
| (On his "Raymond" character in Dirty Old Town) I really frightened all the women...to the point where they wouldn't come close to me when I had all the make-up on and my hair messed up. And with a scraggy beard and filthy old clothes, fingerless gloves, old shoes and socks there was no chance of a snog with anyone.
Interesting, The Cult Comedy Zine, 1995 | |
On The Young Ones |
I was always the one who said: "Don't repeat it, don't repeat it." You see, in everyone's mind, it was this great, amazing show. But when you are actually confronted with it today, when you see these young, thin people with lots of hair running around shouting and screaming, you think, "is this what all the fuss was about?"
The Telegraph, July 26, 1997 |
| He (Rick) was a person I was terrified I might actually be; I was always scared that secretly I was a total wanker. To be honest, I still have that fear.
The Telegraph, July 26, 1997 |