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1994 to 1998 I suppose our relationship (Rik and Ade) 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.
It's all rubbish, that "let's write something to make people save the rainforest." I would rather do something that made people feel better and therefore feel more like saving the rainforest. I've been brought up to be very nice. I stamp on any kind of unpleasant qualites. They come out on stage - that's where I get rid of them. But if I don't work, I become unpleasant. I'm not interested in talking about myself because I don't want people to know who I am.
I'm the lazy one who justs wants to have a few lagers and watch TV. He's (Ade) far more passionate about his career. He's also the vain and horrible one. It may sound pretentious, but I think bringing another human being into the world is the most important thing you can do.
I'm a modern dad - I change nappies in the middle of the night, I attended the births. Ours is a modern household. I still go on the bus and walk to work and travel by tube because I like looking at people. I have known Stephen Fry for a long time, since he appeared as
Lord Snot in The Young Ones, and we seem to have the same rhythms
and timing. George Blake (Stephen's role in Cell Mates) was a tall
and pompous person who went to Cambridge and Stephen plays it brilliantly. I have known Stephen Fry for a long time, since he appeared as
Lord Snot in The Young Ones, and we seem to have the same rhythms
and timing. George Blake (Stephen's role in Cell Mates) was a tall
and pompous person who went to Cambridge and Stephen plays it brilliantly. I had never done a nudey love scene before (Rik Mayall
Presents The Big One) and we did it in three hours in one take. I'm
going to be 37 this year and I'm not a slim little thing anymore. I just made
sure the water level was pretty high. One of my hobbies is people-watching. I love to sit outside a cafe watching people go by. I use things that I see in different characters that I play. I look in the mirror and think, 'Oh, dear.' Some people go under
the knife to pretend to look 18. That's tragic. No one should do it. I'm 36,
which means some parts are impossible to play. Romeo would be difficult, but
Lear is over the horizon. The adventure shouldn't stop because you get to a
particular age. You carry on to the next bit and see what's coming. I like
anything that gives me variety, but television is my life's blood, even though
it's been declining ever since it gained respectability in the 70s and early
80s. That doesn't bother me. It means my stuff looks good as everything else
gets worse. The punters will accept me so long as I don't go on doing the same
thing. I was on the beach in Barbados and a magistrate from Stoke told me how
much he liked The New Statesman at the same time as some American
kids ran over shouting, 'Richie...Virgin'. There was no connection between the
two groups." Acting wasn't foisted on me. I was bright and passed the 11-plus
a year younger than other guys, so I couldn't shine in sports because they were
all bigger. Getting up on stage and making people laugh was the only thing I
could be good at. A friend and I wrote terribly serious plays about the nuclear
holocaust and other important schoolkid issues, but the audience just laughed.
I'd play up to them, show off, and I thought, 'I like this.' It's still a
thrill for me. It always will be. I'll keep going until I drop. I was famous at 22, which was fantastic. I've been lucky. But
although I put across this front that Ade and I just do entertainment, we both
have a degree in drama [a 2:2] and know what we're doing. We take our work very
seriously, without being too pretentious. Others are allowed to be 'artists'.
We're not, because we're considered to be just funny-men. Views come across anyway if your heart is in the right place.
When I'm lying under a skip being Raymond [in Dirty Old Town] I
think I'm saying something about homelessness without ramming it down the
audience's throat. I'm old enough and grown up enough to know that my opinion
is just an opinion, so all I try to do is tell an interesting story and give
the punters a good time. If they take anything back from it, that's OK. I just
keep my eye on the ball and make sure the product is good. You do that by
watching the ratings and being sensitive to what the punters want. You don't do
it by reading the critics. We've (Ade and Rik) had a very rough ride critically, so if
we're going to survive and feed our children we have to take a philosophical
view. I try to think the newspapers aren't worth bothering about, but it hurts
when the reviews aren't good. Ade is much more bullish, which is one of the
reasons I'm in love with him. He's tough. I'm the neurotic and sensitive one.
Although we both have our separate lives, I'll be working with him until I die,
doing our double act in different forms. There's a quality about me, I think, that you don't quite
trust... one of the things I can get laughs off is dissembling badly. I enjoy putting little bits in (Cell Mates) to say,
"look, I'm still here!" It's completely illegitimate, of course. Ade has always been a maniac and I've always been such a twat.
We were drawing the laughter onto ourselves. When we came to the Comedy Store
in London, certain people were already established, Alexei Sayle, Keith Allen,
Andy de la Tour and then Ade and I came along. They were all big grown-ups,
being really cool and very dangerous and telling jokes about Mrs. Thatcher. We
were the ones saying, "hello, we're arseholes." And Rick was my on stage
persona. Stephen sent me the script (for Cell Mates) and
said, Simon is thinking of doing this, and we're such great pals, you know. I
read it and I thought, this is just lovely, really sweet and an opportunity to
do lots of things... and part of the decision was me thinking, I'll do this
because I can see Stephen for a few months. Because Filthy, Rich and Catflap was slagged so
badly, I just had a couple of days where I didn't want to go out of the house
at all, in case I saw someone and they thought, there's that bloke who thinks
he's funny and, in fact, he's crap. We had such a mixed reaction to Bottom.
Intellectuals can't abide it. It embarrasses them, I think. (Regarding a Guardian article in which he was
called "the once-talented Rik Mayall) I don't know who wrote it, although I've
got his initials and the word, well, the contract, is out... There's an irony to the title (Bottom), 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. I do understand that the media generally don't like it
(Bottom) 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. 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. 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. 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. With the scripts (for Bottom), 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. It is a matter of not losing your grip (while performing in
Cell Mates). The temptation is to pull a few faces just to keep
them satisfied and let them know that Rik's still there. I have to make sure I
don't do that. There are possibly a couple of illegitimate moments in the play
where I do, one where I do a little dance and another when I take the piss out
of someone. I was always telling jokes at school and half of that was taking
the piss out of other people's crap ones. There are very few women in those shows, but I think the reason
for that is that I fulfil the woman's role. Adrian is the man and I am the
woman. If you look at The Young Ones, it was a nuclear family.
Mike was the dad, Neil was the mum, Vyv was the little boy and Rick was the
little girl, complete with pigtails. We didn't even realize it at the time. You laughed at us (in Bottom), not with us. We are
both sociopaths and you laugh at two people trying to survive in a world they
are incapable of surviving in because they have got their mores all wrong. I hope I am not typecasting myself, but there is that
through-line of loneliness. If you look at the current Granada films (Rik
Mayall Presents, and it is me who has the final say on the scripts, all
three men I play are loners: one's wife has died, one's an ex-doctor who is now
a down-and-out who hasn't any friends at all and one is a pathological liar.
I love the work. I live for the work and if I couldn't do the
work I would go mad. I know this is going to look so pretentious in print, but
I am an artist. It is like when they cut that girl's finger off in The
Piano. It is just unbearable. This isn't entertainment: she cannot play
the fucking piano again and it is what she lived for. He (Simon Gray) gave me a note saying it (Cell
Mates) got a big laugh in the second half, which I was very proud of,
and I was driving home and he said he did not think we should get that laugh
because it is Rik and not Sean. That is the problem I have that people
expect a laugh. Stephen (Fry) and I seem to have the same kind of rhythms and
same kind of timing. It works within the play (Cell Mates as well
because George Blake is a very kind of tall, pompous person who went to
Cambridge and Sean is a totally different sort of person. It was no big deal (the Cell Mates toy gun arrest
incident). The first I knew about it was when I was surrounded by police. It was just a toy gun. What happened was all a misunderstanding. The police were told it was real and so they arrested me. I am very sorry it distressed anybody. I was with Kirstin, my dresser for the theatre, when it all happened. We were looking for taxis. I just got the gun out as a joke. I think it frightened a couple who saw me and they called the police. A few minutes later four officers came towards me. They put me into handcuffs and took me to the
police station. They took the gun away. I think they knew who I was. I
explained it was a toy gun and I don't think I'm going to be charged. I'm sorry it happened. I really don't want to talk about this. I was just being silly. They took me away to the cells and took my toy gun away. I am sorry for any distress I have caused. I didn't know the couple and I didn't know I had scared them. I'm in a play about spies at the moment and it seemed a good idea. Look,
it was a toy and they have taken it away. It was just a silly thing. I don't
want to talk about this anymore. I get this feeling I'm expected to vomit over people, or at
least to pull a kitten out of my pocket and start eating it. Oh, if only I
dared to be like that in real life. It was just a toy gun. It was a bit silly. I want to apologize
very deeply. And I want to praise the police for being so nice. There aren't
going to be any charges. It was just a mistake, really. It was a toy gun and I was
messing about and got myself arrested. It was just a bit silly. I didn't know
the people at all. I want to say, for any distress I've caused them, I want to
apologize very deeply. I haven't even met them. And I want to praise the police
for being so nice. They weren't nice because my name is Rik Mayall, they were
nice because they are nice people. They were called Philip and David. I was in
the cell for five or six hours, and then I went off to do my matinee
performance. There aren't going to be any charges. I was taking all my stuff
home from the theatre, because the play I am in is closing down. I had my fan
mail and my prop guns, and I just pointed one of the guns at some people. It
was a spur of the moment thing. I'm sorry it happened. My mum Gillian gives wonderful advice. I ring her before I start
in any series, play or film. She reassures me by saying simply: "You can only
do your best." Of course, she's always right. I've been a total prat. I was lucky not to have been shot. I
could have been blown away. The police would have just been doing their job.
I've been unbelievable stupid, even by my standards. I would like to thank the
police for being so patient and have apologized for wasting their time. I advise people not to wave guns about. I was very lucky not to
be shot. I have been a total prat. I could have been blown away. The police are
there to protect us all from people like me. I don't know what to expect in
there (London's Holborn police station), hanging probably. I am very sorry
about it. I don't get fed up with the stage characters, only the other
actors. This time, Mr. Fry, I'm going to make sure Ade's handcuffed me for the
whole tour (Bottom Live: The Big Number 2 Tour). We had this idea
of getting the Spitting Image puppet of Stephen and having him pop his head
through the door occasionally. We'd go, "Who's that? Who's that? Lord Lucan?
Shergar?". We also thought of putting in the line: "Richie, Richie, where are
you going?" "Bruges." The video (Out of My Head with Rik Mayall) was made
straight off the back of Cell Mates, so I was looking for some
fun, a gas. I knew it was a worthwhile project although I'm not of that
culture. I don't go to raves, and I've never had any of that kind of stuff
and I won't now that I've seen all those poor sad people telling their stories.
When I heard them, I started to get a bit of pride in what I was doing gags
for good, as it were. There's something about the age I am. Things are beginning to
fall apart a little. I'm getting more paranoid about it. I've started going to
the gym and slimming. Ade and I are not as young as we were, and we've never
looked after ourselves, so it's becoming like the Rolling Stones. We have to go
to the gym for three months just to be able to get on stage. This September when we got out on tour is the 20th anniversary
of our friendship. We met in September 1975 at Manchester University. But it's
not being advertised as "Rik and Ade's Friendship Tour" forget that. Anyway,
they'd get us under the Trades Descriptions Act. You have to surrender to Bottom in order to enjoy
it. You have to say, "oh well, what the hell" and just dive in. It's just a
stupid, stupid cartoon full of stupid jokes, told with tremendous panache. It's
absolute bollocks in perfect rhythm. People have trouble with it because
comedy's been intellectualized about an awful lot during the last 15 years, but
when you get down to it, all you're doing is turning on the telly and watching
a couple of guys being stupid and hitting each other. The French love us, of
course. Its attraction is complete escapism. It's like, "Forget about the day's
work and just laugh your tits off. I don't go to raves and I've never taken anything like crack.
I'm nearly 40. My life's very straight. (Eight months after the Cell Mates incident) I feel
very sorry for Stephen and for Simon. I have still not seen Stephen and I have
not heard from him personally. I liked the play (Cell Mates) very
much and I don't think the criticism was as bad as he thought it was. In fact I
don't know many people who read the reviews and take much notice of them. I'm a theatre man. The four kids in our family used to snuggle up together in bed
and dad would read the story (The Wind in the Willows) to us.
Toad's very posh but he's also a maniac. I think that's what I like about him.
One of the reasons why I wanted to be in this film (The
Wind in the Willows) was because dad was such a super Toad. He used to
make us roar with laughter. Toad was my favourite character and I've always
wanted to play him. I hope there is something of my dad's rendition in my Toad.
I think his was funnier, but I've done my best. Even though I had a number one single with Cliff Richard
Living Doll), I'm not what you'd call a singer. So I was very
nervous (about singing in The Wind in the Willows). Then I thought
that if Rex Harrison got away with it by talking to music...then so could I.
One of the reasons I became a comedian was because of the Pythons. So when I
heard I would be working with Michael (Palin), I was absolutely terrified. I
hope I was able to hide it, but I was shaking in my boots. Toad (from The Wind in the Willows) is an enormous
git. He's posh, selfish, a windbag, but has this huge lust for life. I like him
very, very much. Vocally, Toad (from The Wind in the Willows) is
quite similar to Rick from The Young Ones. I've given him the
privilege of Alan B'Stard and the peevishness of Richie from
Bottom. In many ways he's rather like me vain, loud and
arrogant. But that's only in the characters I play, I mean normally I'm quite a
nice person! But we both share the same big, buggy eyes. I'd just be too intimidated (to record his The Wind in the
Willows vocals in the same room with Alan Bennett, Michael Palin and
Michael Gambon). Luckily, I wasn't around when they were so I had to do it by
myself a bit later. They're lovely guys but if I I'd recorded my part with them
I couldn't have run around the place flapping my arms which is what I did by
myself! I've never been allowed on TV on Christmas Day before. Usually
my stuff is too sick. It's been a strange old year. But Bonnie (his youngest daughter)
has turned it all around. I'm quite superstitious and have a pair of lucky pants which
I've had from 1978. They're so old and holey now that my bottom pokes through
but I wear them for every big, important event, especially first nights. On the
very first preview night of Cell Mates I forgot to take my lucky
pants with me. I was freaking out and rang my wife Barbara and said: "Bring my
lucky pants tonight and hurry." Ten minutes before I was due to go on
Barbara burst into my dressing room. I said, "where are they?" She looked at me
and said: "Rik, I've forgotten your lucky pants." I was just about to lunge for
her head in fury when she said: "But I'm pregnant." I just went "oooooh!" and
couldn't say anything else. It was fantastic news. I went out on stage and
wasn't nervous. The night Bonnie was born I'd gone down to Bristol for the first
night of the tour of Bottom, which I'm doing with Ade Edmondson.
We were planning to do some serious rehearsing because we hardly knew any of
the words and I was really worried about it. That night I went to bed just
after midnight and had a call from Barbara saying her water had broken. I ran
outside, got a cab and arrived in London at about 3am. Bonnie was born at 10am.
So I went and got the other kids, Rosie and Sydney, round to see her, took them
back and arrived in Bristol just in time for the first night. We remembered
some of the lines and the rest we made up. At one point we said to the
audience: "Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, but we need to get the script!" But
it was a brilliant first night. That's why I believe that Bonnie has become the
equivalent of my lucky pants now. Rosie saw the programme describing how they made Wind in
the Willows, and she's so proud of me. Most of the stuff I do on TV is
too rude or violent to let the children see. But Wind in the
Willows is perfect, even for Bonnie. 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. I didn't set out to do a series (Rik Mayall
Presents) 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. (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. 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. Ade and I understand each other perfectly after 20 years his
knowledge and sympathy for me are sometimes heartbreaking. Yeah we're like
brothers. |
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. My policy was not to take sides (in the Cell Mates
controversy). 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. 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 (about the Cell Mates controversy), Simon (Gray) did
too. I'm really addicted to the character (Alan B'Stard (from
The New Statesman). 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. I don't actually think of my "career", as such, but I am aware of the need for longevity. So there have been stages. Cell Mates was closing. For a joke, I presented
cast members with replica guns. On the way home, I pulled a shooter on someone
for a gag. He thought it was real, and within seconds police charged down the
street from both ends. I was a total prat and I was lucky not to be shot. I
didn't put up any resistance and apologised straightaway. But they arrested me.
I was handcuffed and whisked off to the cop shop where I was kept in a cell for
a couple of hours. I've been living a schizoid existence. I get up, see my children
and feed the cats. The I go round to Ade's house and we write filthy juvenile
jokes for a living! I won't give up things I enjoy. I'm planning to grow old
disgracefully! 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. My parents were drama teachers and as a boy they used to put me on stage with their students. I found I made people laugh and I enjoyed that feeling. I enjoy adulation, but I'm wary of it.
I want to be true to myself. But now I feel like doing something straight, and an awful lot of people are prepared to come down that path with me.
Mums complained that I had corrupted their songs and taught them
to wipe bogeys on the furniture (as the title character in Drop Dead
Fred). I only went to Manchester University because I screwed up my
exams. I was too busy snogging but don't tell my mother on the banks of
the River Severn. So I only got two Cs and an E from my A Levels, which wasn't
good enough for entrance to university. But luckily for me, everyone had messed
up their exams, it was a great summer back in 1975 and we were all at it. So
they had university places to fill and I was admitted to Manchester because I'd
done a good interview. Ade had long hair, John Lennon glasses and ripped jeans before
anyone else had thought of them. He had the girls queuing up and I reckoned he
was cool and I wanted to be his pal. All that I've done since then (college) is
because of meeting Ade. If he hadn't been there, there wouldn't have been any
Young Ones or Bottom. I probably wouldn't even have
gone into showbiz. Instead I would have been a teacher or a farmer.
Ade and I have been through so much together and we bring out
the best in each other. If we were to fall out I couldn't even think of how to
start another relationship like this one. Ade wants to write a film, but I don't think it should be a big
screen version of Bottom. I haven't seen a single successful
transfer of a British TV comedy to a film. So I reckon we should do a Rik and
Ade movie because there must be a way of getting our really upfront, violent,
sudden, joyful humour on to the big screen. Most of the people I grew up with are older than me, Ade turned
40 in January, so I have seen them all go through that birthday. I've been
going to 40th birthday parties for three or four years and, as you know, boys
do really Roman things at these parties. So I think that now I'm ready for 40. My kids went to the same school as Sinead O'Conner's son. And
when I went to the sports day I was just being ordinary Rik. I saw a
photographer and went over to have a word because I didn't want the day
spoiled. As I was asking him to go away he told me to move because he was
trying to take a picture of Sinead! 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. 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. Critics shouldn't fuck with me. I'm a national institution.
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. I was always the one who said (about The Young
Ones): "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?" He (Rick from The Young Ones) 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. It was terrible for me (the Cell Mates
controversy). 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. I got a feeling inside myself that I wanted to be Ian (from
Remember Me) 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. I did once get as far as applying to train as a teacher after some crushing reviews in the late eighties. Being blond did wonders for my libido. Made me feel extremely
sexy. I kept rushing home and attacking my wife Barbara. And she rather liked
that. She said it was like having a new man. I'm going gray now, just at the
temples, you understand. But you get used to looking at yourself in a certain
way, and thinking of yourself as getting slightly older. Then suddenly
"woomph!" there you are blond! It makes me feel just a whole lot funkier.
That's what I love about this job you can change yourself all the time and
you have an excuse. You don't have to own up to vanity. Barbara thinks it's
very funny when I think I'm gorgeous. It makes her laugh a lot. I've always liked characters with a sexy swagger because almost
anything they say becomes funny, they think they are so cool. The Very Reverend
Augustus Dampier (from The Canterville Ghost) is a great show-off,
a kind of sexy Bruce Willis type exorcist. My definition of a good photographer is when they make me look great. But I'm very interested in my face. I do spend time looking at it in the mirror.
For the film (Mavis Davis) they gave me a face-lift for the flashbacks. They put fish skin here and here (he pats his temples) and a big wedge of something sticky that really pulled everything. That's when I realised how much my face has fallen, or rather how much more there is of it than there used to be. I'm supposed to be 21 in the flashback, so everything's scrunched and tied up at the back. And of course I loved being a blond. It was Barbara's idea, my wife's. Being a blond, it makes you feel... well, I just felt good. I felt slightly embarrassed that I was too old to dye my hair blond, but Bruce Willis did it. I'm kind of plagued by my own vanity and the embarrassment of being vain.
It's much better for business if they're never repeated.
No matter how good the Pythons were, they still didn't look as good as in your memory.
I liked them (Rik Mayall Presents) a lot, because I was given the freedom to open out.
We (Rik and Ade) get tired of each other. I irritate
him more than he irritates me. When we finished the last tour, we didn't talk to each other for
two months. But then the time comes and you just know. It's usually me who phones, but he
knows I am going to. I don't know why it's always me that phones...
But there's another little story about my primary school, a very happy time for me. I
remember having this fantastic headmaster called Jack Pointer. The only time Jack and me
crossed swords was at the carol service. They reckoned I didn't have a good singing voice. So
they told me to just mouth the words and stand at the back. And all the parents were there, and
I was up at the back, getting bored, and I started pulling faces because I wasn't allowed to sing. It started getting bigger and bigger laughs off the mums and dads, so I pulled a bigger face and got bigger laughs. That's the first time I remember getting laughs in public, and then Jack Pointer came out of the audience and grabbed me by the ear and made me stand in the corner. I was mortified, I was ruining the carol concert, but that's the first time I remember that feeling of power.
If I'm on stage at half seven, it'll start about six o'clock. I sit smoking and pacing. Ade is completely the opposite. He'll come in on the half, play his guitar or his computer. I think I need to wind up the adrenaline. It's almost become a habit.
I do check everything twice because I'm paranoid the house is going to catch
fire. We have got this gas system and I never really struck it with gas. I was brought up with
electricity, not naked flame, so I do check the gas taps are off,
twice, before I leave the house and before I go to bed. That's a sensible thing, isn't it? That's being a daddy. Somebody has to take responsibility to check the gas taps, and it may as well be the most jumpy, paranoid person who's going to do it.
I got burgled once. I was asleep on the sofa - I hadn't made it to bed that night. He took all my wine, emptied my daughter's school bag, took the phones from my study and then must have
found me there. Now I check that all the doors are locked at night, because that's what a daddy
does, isn't it?
There are a lot of people doing comedy for other reasons than just to be funny to be
accepted, to make money, to be famous. I was just funny, and the rest came along.
When I heard I had to snog Ian on screen (for The
Canterville Ghost), I thought "Wow!" Ian told me that the last fellow he
kissed was Anthony Hopkins, so my lips have been where his have. But if Ian
knew where mine have been... I couldn't help but noticing that Ian brought his
wife with him just in case, I suppose! He (Ian from Remember Me) 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 characters. 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. 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. When I walked into our (Rik and Adrian Edmondson's) office
(after the Cell Mates controversy), Ade said, "I told you not to
muck about with those Cambridge bastards. Come back here, be a good boy and
shut up." 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. 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. There is a sense of loneliness about him (Marty Starr in On
Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis), 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. 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 (in Bring Me the Head of Mavis
Davis), 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. Prize winners had their passports taken away in San Remo to
ensure that they stuck around for the presentation. So when they took away mine
in Moscow, I was convinced I'd won something. The festival president started to
talk in glowing terms about the marvelous actor they were about to honor, and
I was very touched. I waited until he said: "And the award goes to...." and
started to walk jauntily towards the stage. Then I heard the name: "Robert
DeNiro". I wanted the ground to open. I had to duck down on the floor and
pretend I'd lost something. I read it (Closer) and it was just brilliant, but I
had a clash of dates. Perhaps if they transfer to the West End and need a celeb
actor I might get another chance. We didn't quite break even (with Waiting for Godot)
but, God, I was proud of it. We all wanted to be in bands (while in college). It was only the
guys like me who couldn't cut it who turned out as stand-up comedians or
actors. Ade is really good on guitar, Nigel (Planer) can do it and Peter
Richardson is a brilliant drummer. I was crap so they put me on bass guitar (in
Bad News). ...the more decrepit we become, the funnier the trousers-down
routines will be. (In the forthcoming Guest House Paradiso) We're
running a foul hotel next door to a nuclear power station and Ade's going to
direct it. Should be fun. I'm in a period of flux at the moment. It's the first time I
haven't had had a long-term character in mind. Alan B'Stard is dead despite
some interesting political changes recently, and Bottom is dormant
though not quite dead. I don't know. Give me a child of five and I'll give you a Rik Mayall fan for
life. The straighter stuff I do is about people who are solitary as
opposed to lonely. They are secretive, don't trust anyone, never share anything
and prefer to tell lies. Les Dawson said that people like actors but they love comedians.
People generally come up and say very nice things. Privately, I don't find I'm
expected to be funny. My friends know my wife is Scottish and her relations
from Glasgow are much more amusing than I am. I like playing bastards. Marty (his character from Bring
Me the Head of Mavis Davis) is a desperate man, and he doesn't sit about
being depressed. I have got into the habit of playing bastards. I don't behave
like that in my normal life. Jack Nicholson said that being an actor meant
living life to the full without responsibility. (on Stephen Fry's disappearance from Cell Mates)
Yes, I've forgiven him, but I was angry with him once I knew he was all right.
My theatre superstition is my lucky pants I wasn't wearing them the night
Stephen disappeared. My daughter Rosie is so into the Spice Girls, but I have no
affinity for them at all. I'm still putting on my Sex Pistols albums at
weekends. I wasn't confident about doing those films (The Comic
Strip Presents...) because they were film but made for television, which
is a very odd thing. Film makes the joke look too grand it makes everything
look too beautiful; tape makes everything look horrible, which is better for
comedy. Dominic (De'ath from In the Red) is a snob and in
his brother's shadow, which is very me, to have that edge of jealousy and
spite. They made dye my hair black, which coincided with my 40th birthday
party. People thought, "How sad." (On his accident in April, 1998) I feel elated. I know I'm lucky
to be here and to have my brain doing what I want it to again. I appreciate
things I hadn't even noticed before. It's all like a surreal dream now I was talking gibberish
(while recovering in the hospital). It must have been so hard for Barbara and
everyone because of the way I was behaving. At one stage I thought all the
nurses, or "chicks" as I called them, were there for a party. So I kept trying
to suggest that I took them down to the pub. There were a few giggles and
blushes when I went back to thank them a few months ago! I went through a bleak dark period (after the accident). My
brain was like a separate organ to me refusing to do what I wanted it to. Wrong
words would come out and I couldn't write jokes or think of any. I was in Devon
and it was heartbreaking. This beautiful farm in a beautiful place where I
thought we were going to live happily ever after and I'd wrecked it all. I've
always taken pride in being able to support my family. I remember sitting round
the dinner table lost in thought one night thinking "Now they're going to have
to support me". I felt a great sense of loss that the old Rik had gone. I
couldn't get to grips with the new one. I'd been told it could take two years
and then the recovery might not be full. She (Barbara, his wife) has always been the power for me. The
kindest, strongest, wisest person that I have drawn on. (On the moments before his accident) It was a very blustery day
and I thought I felt a couple of spots of rain, even though there wasn't any.
This feeling suddenly swept over me and I thought, 'Hang on this is dangerous'.
It was as if someone had tapped me on the shoulder and said "Get the kids off".
I wasn't being stupid. I wasn't planning on roaring off like a madman. I was
just going to give them a little ride, very slowly. But something stopped me. My mood started to change from elation (as he began to recover
from his accident), that feeling of being happy to be alive and wanting to
escape. I found myself getting emotional and weepy when my friends
phoned up, for the first time I realized just how loved I was and I felt
completely overwhelmed. I was nervous about it (filming the Jonathan Creek Christmas
Special), because I was still suffering from a little word blindness, so Rosie
(his daughter) went through all the lines with me making sure I didn't forget
any. When I went into rehearsals I was word perfect and all the other actors
were looking at me and thinking: "What's going on?" They must have thought the
knock on the head had done me the world of good. |