DOCTORS treating the comedian and actor Rik Mayall said yesterday that they were "happy with his progress" after he received serious head injuries in a quad bike accident.
Mayall's wife, Barbara, 39, said: "We think he is OK." She has been at her husband's bedside in the intensive care unit at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, since the accident on Thursday evening. She said through a hospital spokesman that she was now "more optimistic" about her husband's condition.
Mayall, 40, was unconscious when he was flown to the hospital by police helicopter after the accident. He has been kept under sedation in a stable condition since he arrived at the hospital's specialist neurological ward.
A hospital spokesman said yesterday that Mayall was still stable, but "looking more hopeful". He said the performer had spent "a comfortable night". She said: "He is almost through the critical initial 72-hour period of waiting for the brain to stop swelling."
Two of Mayall's comedy partners in the Comic Strip series, Peter Richardson and Adrian Edmondson, visited him in the hospital yesterday.
The accident happened as Mayall was riding the four-wheel bike across a sloping field at Pasture Farm, near East Allington, in the South Hams.
Mayall bought the country estate last year as a retreat for himself, Barbara, to whom he has been married for 12 years, and their three children, Rosie, 11, Sidney, nine, and two-year-old Bonnie.
Mayall got his first television break as Kevin Turvey in A Kick Up The Eighties, and went on to star in The Young Ones, The Comic Strip Presents, Bottom and The New Statesman.
Channel 4 decided to go ahead last night with the screening of Four Men in a Car, starring Mayall, after consulting his family. No specific details have been given of Mayall's injuries or treatment.