For Rik.


Death comes to us all. That’s one of the few certainties in life you can rely on. Despite this logic, I find it hard to believe that Rik Mayall has gone.

How can a person with such boundless energy and enthusiasm not be about? He represented the eternal teenager. Even as he approached middle age, he'd never aged with it.

As a kid, I’d tune into Bottom every week, revelling in its rudeness. If my parents entered the room, I’d initiate a loud conversation, in the hope of masking the filth spouting from my television.

My best friend Chris owned a book of the scripts. Whole days were lost to acting out the episodes, with me as Richie and him as Eddie. I still remember Richie’s lullaby from the camping-on-Wimbledon-Common episode verbatim. God knows what important information it replaced in my head.

Every performance was given that distinctive wide-eyed, nostril-flared Mayall stamp. There was nobody like him. Take Flashheart in Blackadder; he’s surrounded by the finest comic actors of his generation, yet still manages to steal the scene for himself.

Rik Mayall made me cry with laughter time and again. Today he makes me cry. We’ve lost one of the best.

Here's hoping there's some smashing blouses in Heaven.

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