Background and career
Richard Michael Mayall (; 7 March 1958 – 9 June 2014) was an English comedian, actor and writer. He formed a close partnership with Adrian Edmondson while they were students at Manchester University, and was a pioneer of alternative comedy in the 1980s. Mayall starred in numerous successful comedy series throughout his career, including The Young Ones (1982–1984), The Comic Strip Presents... (1983–2012), Filthy Rich & Catflap (1987), The New Statesman (1987–1994), Bottom (1991–1995), and Believe Nothing (2002). He starred in the comedy films Drop Dead Fred (1991) and Guest House Paradiso (1999). Mayall won a Primetime Emmy Award for his voiceover performance as Mr. Toad in TVC London's 1996 animated movie The Willows in Winter (a sequel to TVC's 1995 production of The Wind in the Willows, in which Mayall also played Toad). His comedic style, defined by the over-the-top, grotesque and deeply unsympathethic characters he portrayed, was described as energetic "post-punk". Mayall died of a heart attack at his home in London on 9 June 2014 at the age of 56.
The second of four children, Richard Michael Mayall was born on 7 March 1958 at 98 Pittmans Field, Harlow, Essex, to Gillian (née Harrild; 1930–2018) and John Mayall (1925–2011). He had an older brother, Anthony, and two younger sisters, Libby and Kate. When Mayall was three years old, he and his parents—who taught drama—moved to Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, where he spent the rest of his childhood and performed in his parents' plays. He attended King's School, Worcester, to which he won a free scholarship. He failed most of his O-levels and scraped through A-levels. In 1975, Mayall went to the Victoria University of Manchester (now known as the University of Manchester) to study drama. He claimed that he failed to get a degree, or that he did not even turn up to his finals, but in reality he graduated with lower second-class honours in 1978. It was there that he met his future comedy partner Ade Edmondson; Ben Elton, a fellow student; and Lise Mayer, with whom he later co-wrote The Young Ones.
Edmondson and Mayall gained their reputation at The Comedy Store, from 1980. Apart from performing in their double act, 20th Century Coyote, Mayall developed solo routines, using characters such as Kevin Turvey and a pompous anarchist poet named Rick. This led to Edmondson and Mayall, along with compere of the Comedy Store Alexei Sayle and other up-and-coming comedians, including Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, French and Saunders, Arnold Brown, and Pete Richens setting up their own comedy club called The Comic Strip in the Raymond Revuebar, a strip club in Soho. Mayall's Kevin Turvey character gained a regular slot in A Kick Up the Eighties, first broadcast in 1981. He appeared as "Rest Home" Ricky in Richard O'Brien's Shock Treatment, a sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He played Dentonvale's resident attendant as the love interest to Nell Campbell's Nurse Ansalong. Mayall's television appearances as Kevin Turvey led to a mockumentary based on the character titled Kevin Turvey – The Man Behind The Green Door, broadcast in 1982. The previous year, he appeared in a bit role in An American Werewolf in London. His stage partnership with Edmondson continued, with them often appearing together as "The Dangerous Brothers", hapless daredevils whose hyper-violent antics foreshadowed their characters in Bottom. Channel 4 offered the Comic Strip group six short films, which became The Comic Strip Presents..., debuting on 2 November 1982. The series, which continued sporadically for many years, saw Mayall play a wide variety of roles. It was known for anti-establishment humour and for parodies such as Bad News on Tour, a spoof "rockumentary" starring Mayall, Richardson, Edmondson and Planer as a heavy metal band. At the time The Comic Strip Presents... was negotiated, the BBC took an interest in The Young Ones, a sitcom written by Mayall and his then-girlfriend Lise Mayer, in the same anarchic vein as Comic Strip. Ben Elton joined the writers. The series was commissioned and first broadcast in 1982, shortly after Comic Strip. Mayall played Rick, a pompous sociology student and Cliff Richard devotee. Mayall maintained his double-act with Edmondson, who starred as violent heavy punk metal medical student Vyvyan. Nigel Planer (as hippie Neil) and Christopher Ryan (as "Mike the cool person") also starred, with additional material written and performed by Alexei Sayle. The first series was successful, and a second was screened in 1984. The show owed a comic debt to Spike Milligan, but Milligan disapproved of Mayall's style of performance. Milligan once wrote: "Rik Mayall is putrid – absolutely vile. He thinks nose-picking is funny and farting and all that. He is the arsehole of British comedy." In 1986, Mayall played the private detective in the video of "Peter Gunn" by Art of Noise featuring Duane Eddy.
Mayall continued to work on The Comic Strip films. He returned to stand-up comedy, performing on Saturday Live—a British version of the American Saturday Night Live—first broadcast in 1985. He and Edmondson had a regular section as "The Dangerous Brothers", their earlier stage act. In 1985, Mayall debuted another comic creation. He had appeared in the final episode of the first series of Blackadder (1983) as "Mad Gerald". He returned to play Lord Flashheart in the Blackadder II episode titled "Bells". A descendant of this character, Squadron Commander Flashheart, was in the Blackadder Goes Forth episode "Private Plane". In the same episode, he was reunited with Edmondson, who played German flying ace Baron von Richthofen the "Red Baron", in a scene where he comes to rescue Captain Blackadder from the Germans. A decade later, Mayall also appeared in Blackadder: Back & Forth as Robin Hood. In 1986, Mayall joined Nigel Planer, Edmondson and Elton to star as Richie Rich in Filthy Rich & Catflap, which was billed as a follow-up to The Young Ones. The idea of Filthy Rich & Catflap was a reaction to comments made by Jimmy Tarbuck about The Young Ones. The series' primary focus was to highlight the "has been" status of light entertainment. While Mayall received positive critical reviews, viewing figures were poor and the series was never repeated on the BBC. In later years, release on video, DVD and repeats on UK TV found a following. Mayall suggested that the series did not last because he was uncomfortable acting in an Elton project, when they had been co-writers on The Young Ones. In the same year, Mayall had a No. 1 hit in the UK Singles Chart, when he and his co-stars from The Young Ones teamed with Cliff Richard to record "Living Doll" for the inaugural Comic Relief campaign. Mayall played Rick one last time in the Comic Relief stage-show and supported the Comic Relief cause for the rest of his life. 1987 saw Mayall co-star with Edmondson in one episode of the ITV sitcom Hardwicke House, although adverse reaction from press and viewers saw ITV withdraw the series after two episodes, leaving their appearance unbroadcast. He appeared on the children's television series Jackanory. His crazed portrayal of Roald Dahl's George's Marvellous Medicine proved memorable. However, the BBC received complaints "with viewers claiming both story and presentation to be both dangerous and offensive". Interested in pivoting away from roles similar to The Young Ones, Mayall approached writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, inquiring if they wanted to use him for a new project of theirs. By 1987, Mayall would play fictional Conservative politician Alan Beresford B'Stard MP in Marks and Gran's sitcom, The New Statesman. The character was a satirical mockery of Tory politicians from the era. The programme ran for four series—incorporating two BBC specials—between 1987 and 1994, and was successful both critically and in the ratings. In a similar vein to his appearance on Jackanory, in 1989, Mayall starred in a series of bit shows for ITV called Grim Tales, in which he narrated Grimm Brothers fairy tales while puppets acted the stories.
Mayall starred alongside Phoebe Cates in 1991's Drop Dead Fred as the eponymous character, a troublesome imaginary friend who reappears from a woman's childhood. It received negative reviews upon release and was a modest commercial success. It has gone on to become a cult classic. He appeared alongside Crispin Glover and Tatum O'Neal in the 1991 film Little Noises in a supporting role, filmed in New Jersey, during Mayall's stay in the United States amid production of Drop Dead Fred. In 1991, Edmondson and Mayall co-starred in the West End production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot at the Queen's Theatre, with Mayall playing Vladimir, Edmondson as Estragon and Christopher Ryan as Lucky. Here they came up with the idea for Bottom, which they said was a cruder cousin to Waiting for Godot. Bottom was commissioned by the BBC and three series were shown between 1991 and 1995. Mayall appeared in Bottom as Richard "Richie" Richard alongside Edmondson's Eddie Elizabeth Hitler. The series featured slapstick violence taken to new extremes, and gained a strong cult following. In the early 1990s, Mayall starred in humorous adverts for Nintendo games and consoles. With money from the ads, he bought his house in London which he called "Nintendo Towers". In 1993, following the second series, Mayall and Edmondson decided to take a stage-show version of the series on a national tour, Bottom: Live. It was a commercial success, filling large venues. Four additional stage shows were embarked upon in 1995, 1997, 2001 and 2003, each meeting with great success. The violent nature of these shows saw both Edmondson and Mayall ending up in hospital at various points. A film version, Guest House Paradiso was released in 1999. A fourth TV series was also written but not commissioned by the BBC. Mayall provided the voice of the character Froglip, the prince of the goblins, in the 1991 animated film The Princess and the Goblin. In 1993, he appeared in Rik Mayall Presents, six individual comedy dramas (Micky Love / Briefest Encounter / Dancing Queen / The Big One / Dirty Old Town / Clair de Lune). Mayall's performances won him a Best Comedy Performer award at that year's British Comedy Awards, and a second series of three was broadcast in early 1995. He provided the voice for Little Sod in Simon Brett's How to Be a Little Sod, written in 1991 and adapted as ten consecutive episodes broadcast by the BBC in 1995. In the early 1990s, he auditioned for the roles of Banzai, Zazu, and Timon in The Lion King (1994); he was asked to audition by lyricist Tim Rice but the role of Zazu went to Rowan Atkinson. In 1995, Mayall featured in a production of Simon Gray's play Cell Mates alongside Stephen Fry. The play received poor reviews, with many critics panning Fry's performance especially. Not long into the run, Fry had a nervous breakdown and fled to Belgium, where he remained for several days, eventually leading the play to close early. Gray published a diary that same year entitled "Fat Chance" detailing the incident, recalling Fry's departure left Mayall "distraught, in tears of grief, tears of anger" as he continued to perform with Fry's understudy until the play's premature cancellation. In 2007, Mayall said of the incident: "You don't leave the trenches ... selfishness is one thing, being a cunt is another. I mustn't start that war again." Edmondson would mine the Cell Mates event for comedic effect during their Bottom stage tours, such as during Bottom Live: The Big Number Two Tour, where, after Mayall had given mocking gestures to the audience and insulted their town, Edmondson would quip, "Have you finished yet? It's just I'm beginning to understand why Stephen Fry fucked off." Towards the end of the Cell Mates run, Mayall revealed a replica gun—a prop from the play—to a passer-by in the street. Mayall was cautioned over the incident and later conceded that this was "incredibly stupid, even by my standards". In 1998, Mayall was involved in a serious quad bike accident. The pair wrote the first draft of their feature film Guest House Paradiso while Mayall was still hospitalised. They planned to co-direct, but Edmondson took on the duties himself. Mayall returned to work doing voice-overs. His first post-accident acting job was in the 1998 Jonathan Creek Christmas special, as DI Gideon Pryke, a role he reprised in 2013. Jonathan Creek also featured Adrian Edmondson in a recurring role, though the two did not appear in any episodes together. From 1999, Mayall was the voice of the black-headed seagull Kehaar, in the first and second series of the animated television programme, Watership Down. In the late 1990s Mayall was featured in a number of adverts for Virgin Trains.
In 2000, Mayall voiced around half of the characters for the video game Hogs of War. Also that year, Mayall appeared in the Great Performances production of Jesus Christ Superstar as King Herod. He joked in the "making of" documentary, which was included on the DVD release, that "the real reason why millions of people want to come and see this is because I'm in it! Me and Jesus!" In 2001, Mayall acted as Lt Daniel Blaney in the episode "The White Knight Stratagem" from the series Murder Rooms: The Mysteries of the Real Sherlock Holmes. In 2002, Mayall teamed up with Marks and Gran once more when he starred as Professor Adonis Cnut in the ITV sitcom, Believe Nothing. The sitcom failed to repeat the success of The New Statesman and lasted for only one series. Mayall was originally cast as Peeves the Poltergeist in the first film adaptation of the Harry Potter book series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He had filmed his part for the role, but was cut in post-production due to director Chris Columbus and producer David Heyman being unsatisfied with the character's design. Columbus called his decision to exclude Mayall "one of [his] biggest regrets" and campaigned for Warner Bros. to release a director's cut that would include Mayall's performance during the film's twentieth anniversary in 2021. Mayall was not made aware of his cut until the film premiere. Mayall, when interviewed about the film following its release, mentioned how, during filming, the children in the cast were unable to suppress their giggles when he was filming and would frequently corpse. He derisively called it a "crap film." Following 2003's Bottom: Live tour, Bottom 5: Weapons Grade Y-Fronts, Mayall stated that he and Edmondson returned with another tour. In 2004 Mayall had a starring cameo role playing the record boss in the video short "ABBA: Our Last Video Ever". Mayall voiced Edwin in the BBC show Shoebox Zoo. In September 2005, he released an 'in-character' semi-fictionalised autobiography titled Bigger than Hitler – Better than Christ (ISBN 0-00-720727-1). At the same time, he starred in a new series for ITV, All About George. In 2006, Mayall reprised the role of Alan B'Stard in the play The New Statesman 2006: Blair B'stard Project, written by Marks and Gran. By this time B'Stard had left the floundering Conservatives and become a Labour MP. In 2007, following a successful two-month run in London's West End at the Trafalgar Studios, a heavily re-written version toured theatres nationwide, with Marks and Gran constantly updating the script to keep it topical. Mayall succumbed to chronic fatigue and flu in May 2007 and withdrew from the show. Alan B'Stard was played by his understudy, Mike Sherman during his hiatus. Mayall was cast in Evil Calls: The Raven (2008). For Evil Calls, Mayall's role as Winston the Butler was shot in 2002, when the film was titled Alone in the Dark. The film was not completed until 2008, and was released under its new Evil Calls title to distance it from the Alone in the Dark video game film. Mayall provided the voice of the Andrex puppy in the TV commercials for Andrex toilet paper, and had a voice part in the Domestos cleaning product adverts. He performed the voice of King Arthur in the children's television cartoon series King Arthur's Disasters, alongside Matt Lucas who plays Merlin, Morwenna Banks as Guinevere, and Phil Cornwell as Sir Lancelot. Mayall had a recurring role in the Channel Five remake of the lighthearted drama series Minder. He provided the voice of Cufflingk in the 2005 animated film Valiant. In September 2009, Mayall played a supporting role in the television programme Midsomer Murders as David Roper, a recovering party animal and tenuous friend of the families in and around Chettham Park House.
