dashwood_one:
It was a shock, to be sure. Wherever he's gone, he's probably writing to 'Dear Mr Echo', and treading dogshit into a shag pile carpet somewhere, or not eating earwax [and we all know how nasty that tastes - right, kids?] His manic energy was the stuff of legend, and drove his comedy. Utterly fearless - starting an edition of the 1980's TV show 'The Tube' by lurching drunkenly out of a pub and vomiting on the pavement. At teatime, on a Friday. I laughed. My brother laughed. The suits at Channel 4 did not laugh. Bastards. My absolute favourite Rik Mayall show has to be 'A Fistful Of Traveller's Cheques' [1984], which is simply one of the funniest things I have ever watched. And I have watched it many, many times, and it still makes me laugh. He was a genius, pure and simple, and, like another comedy hero of mine, the incomparable Kenny Everett, gone way before his time.