I shed a few tears today. True. An odd thing. For a 35 year old man to shed tears for a 56 year old man he never knew. But Rik Mayall meant a lot to me. When the tears came, I felt an uncomfortable embarrassment at myself for being so fucking weird. Like some strange, creepy little fanboy weeping in the bins outside Madonna’s house. But man. Did I love him as a kid. 13, 14, 15 yrs of age, Rik Mayall was my idol.
Initially, I spent the whole day in shock. Shock, but no real emotional gut punch. Just a bit stunned. Detached. But later on, something happened. Reading through the Facebook newsfeed on my phone on the way home after my gig, I found myself being really surprised at the sheer volume, message after message after message, of real genuine sadness at his death. Other comedians, people of the same generation as me, they loved him when they were kids too. I wasn't the only one. And then one said it: “There are precious few celebrities that can die and leave me feeling as genuinely upset as I do right now” That was it. ‘Genuinely upset.’ That phrase hit me. I got a lump in my throat and choked up. I had a long, isolated half an hour walk home from the station at midnight and spent the whole time crying.
Why would a grown man cry for a bloke who did fart and nob gags on the telly?
The best way I can explain it is with Toy Story 3. At the end of Toy Story 3, Andy is all grown up. He hasn’t played with Woody and Buzz and the gang for years and he is taking them to a little girl down the road. She is shy, so he brings the toys out and begins to play with them to entice her and make her comfortable. He introduces her to each of them, explaining who they are and what they’re like. Suddenly he starts to relive his own memories. He mentally brings them to life again. And it hits him: He loved these toys. When he was child, they brought him so much joy. He’d forgotten how much they’d meant to him. And that was me tonight.
My teenage years were my war years. They were frankly shit. I didn’t enjoy school, in fact I hated it. Home life at that time was tougher than it's ever been before or since. And puberty hit me. I was a lanky, spotty wall of piss with big clunky hearing aids and no fucking clue who I was. All of this coalesced into a maudlin depression that lasted for about three years. But the one thing that always cheered me up? Bottom. Richie and Eddie kicking seven shades of shit out of each other. I would come home from another crap day at school, lock myself in my room and gorge myself on it. That delirious, endless procession of farts and flying fists, and Eddie smashing Richie’s bollocks with a cricket bat. I loved it. I loved these two grown adult men acting like complete bellends. I loved the slapstick, the anarchy. The sheer fucking stupidity. And above all I loved, loved, loved Rik Mayall. That face. Those big bulging beady eyes, the nostrils, the energy, his loose limbed, propulsive, mincing physicality. He was a human cartoon. I just fell in love with him. And so the following years I came to seek out and devour everything he did. The Young Ones, the Comic Strips, Filthy Rich and Catflaps, Kevin Turvey. I found a kindred spirit here. I could utterly relate to this goon. For those three years, at my most gawky and vulnerable and impressionable, he was my hero. Rik bloody Mayall.
Then as I got older, I grew out of Rik. I moved on. I became a young adult and discovered new influences and found enjoyment and escape in different things. The years went by and Rik became a sort of vague memory of the past. In my mind, he faded like the dusty abandoned toys in Andy’s cardboard box. But scrolling down that newsfeed, and seeing how much he meant to people, it all came flooding back. Through those awkward, painful teenage years, he was my go to man when I needed to block out a shitty day. He would cheer me up. Always. That means something. I loved the old bastard. The tears streamed down my face.
I’ll leave you with my favourite real life memory:
1995. I'm 16 years old. I manage to secure tickets to see a live recording of Bottom series 3 at the BBC TV studios. YES!! The seats we got were amazing. Front row, slap bang right in front of the living room set. THAT living room set! The Bottom living room! And the first scene? Nothing could have prepared me for it. The first two minutes of the episode had been pre recorded as they involved Eddie setting fire to Richie’s balls. The way sitcom recording worked then is, they showed the pre recorded scene for us, the audience, to watch and record our laughs. And then it was synchronized just so that as the pre recorded scene finished, it would seamlessly cut right into the live action right in front of us. So, Richie crashes down the stairs with his balls on fire. He bursts into the living room. Frantically searches for something to put it out. And he sees it. The goldfish bowl on the table. He leaps onto the table on his knees and grabs it. And there, right in front of my stunned eyes, was my comedy hero, in that Bottom living room, on all fours on the table, FUCKING a goldfish bowl. Literally fucking it. Fucking it with a commitment no other human being in their right mind could ever agree to. Heaven. Absolute heaven.
*At the end of the recording, as people started filing out, Rik was talking to a technician just 10 yards away from me. Everyone was leaving, but I’m still there, not moving, taking it all in. Standing there staring at Rik. There he is. The man himself! And then: He suddenly catches me staring at him. He sees this young kid standing there, literally grinning from ear to ear. He gives me a little smile and a cheeky little wink. What a great bloke. He had no idea what a creepy little shit I was.
Thank you Rik. Thank you for helping a young, gawky, melancholic gimp be a bit happier and making him want to grow up to be a comedian too.
Gig No.51 done. MC/Promoter Geoff Alderman
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