by Rik Mayall
To this day, I am convinced that insidious elements had infiltrated us and brainwashed Alexei Sayle and the others. Earlier on that day I had just happened to see my great friend and fellow Sex Pistol of comedy, Adrian Edmondson, giving fifty quid to Alexei with the words, “as hard as you can right in the face,” but this was a false trail, a smokescreen, conjured up by the shadowy forces who wanted me to think that my fellow anarchists and crazy good time compadrays had decided to have me whacked. It was an elaborate sting and from then on, I knew that I had to be careful.
Later, I decided to ask a few questions, see if I could russell a few feathers. First off, I spoke to friend and fellow cast member, Nigel Planer, about what happened when I was unconscious.
“Oh, were you unconscious?” he said.
“This afternoon, I was lying on the floor next to you.”
“When was that?”
“When we were filming.”
“Filming?”
“Making the television programme.”
“When was I watching television?”
“You weren’t watching it, you were on it.”
“Did I climb on it when I was drunk?”
“No, Nige, you’re an acter.”
“What?”
“Nigel!”
“Who’s that?”
“It’s you.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Who’s you?”
“Your name is Nigel Planer.”
“I thought I was Anne Acter.”
“Yes you are.”
“So what’s my character called?”
“No, just concentrate, I’m talking to you.”
“So I don’t have a character?”
“No.”
“Don’t I have a job?”
“Yes, you’re an…Oh God, never mind.”
“So I’m not getting paid. That’s a bummer. I’m going to call my agent. Oh, wait a minute.”
“What?”
“What should I call him?”
“It’s a woman.”
“I’ll call him a woman, that’s a good idea.”
So it wasn’t Nigel who had been brainwashed, he was behaving normally. Although it was always difficult to tell with Nige.
I never did find out who was behind the attempt on my life, but what was clear was that I had to watch my back (which means be very cautious) as my work was entering a dangerous phase. I had created a legend with The Young Ones. Let’s face it, you’ve probably got married to it. You’ve probably conceived to it. It has probably revolutionised your entire concept of society. You are probably wearing different clothes because of me. I, Richard Mayall, had televised the revolution. I was in danger, but I had arrived.
Bob Geldof
Basement Flat
126b Kilburn High Road
London NW8
26th November 1984
Dear Bob,
Love you work – or I did until I turned up yesterday at Air Studios to do my bit for Band Aid. What in the name of sweet Fanny fucking Nightingale is going on? All I wanted to do was join my pier group of international stars from the world of pop and rock and record a simple tune which might bring much needed food and provisions to the starving in Africa. But oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely ruddy bloomin’ well not.
Picture the scene. That’s the one. There I am walking towards Air Studios just as that Phil Collins is going in. I called to him but he pretended not to hear me. Between you and me Bob, I’ve never liked him. There’s something a bit seedy about him. Something not quite right. And those bloody awful records. Anyway, I was on my way in after him when this enormous bloke in a bomber jacket blocked my passage. Ooer I thought but figured this was probably just some sort of joke dreamt up by one of my great popstar mates like Francis Rossi or Kool from Kool and the Gang. The bloke said, “We don’t want your sort around here.” I laughed knowingly but he was deadly serious. I told him to go and tell you that I had arrived and that I had come to do my bit. When he came back a few minutes later, he lied and said that he had spoken to you and you had told him to tell me to fuck off.
It was then that Simon Le Bon arrived with his all-girl backing band. I called across to him and told him there had been a horrible mix up but he pretended he didn’t recognise me. What is wrong with these people? So then I spoke to the big bloke in the bomber jacket again and it was then that he beat me up. Yes Bob, perhaps you should read that sentence again. That’s right, I was beaten up at a charity recording. Your charity recording. How’s that make you feel?
So there I was lying on the pavement when a limo pulls up next to me and out climbs Boy George with George Michael and Bananarama and they all definitely recognised me as they stepped over me and went inside, even though they pretended that they didn’t. You can just tell.
Undeterred (no offence), I went around to the back of the building where I managed to find a window that was ajar. I climbed through it and imagine my horror when I fell head first into a toilet bowl. Now you know me Bob, I’m well known for not swallowing, but on this occasion I had been taken by surprise and I managed to swallow about half a gallon of toilet water and something that I can only describe as “solid”. This made me feel sick but I decided I would press on and I managed to make my way through to the studio. I’ll say this for you Bob, you got some big stars there: Boneo, Paul Wella, Chris Cross – it was wall-to-ceiling talent and just as I was taking in the sheer enormity of it all and chatting star-to-star with various top rock legends like Paul Young, I overheard you tell the security guard to “Get that twat with the shit in his hair out of here.” All I can presume is that this was a joke on your part that backfired because the security guard in question did actually throw me out.
Obviously if this is all a great-mates-together music biz joke that you’re all playing on me then I want you to know that I’m completely comfortable with that and love everyone as though they were my brother – or sister. But if it isn’t, then you’re all a bunch of jealous talentless fuck-holes.
And another thing – you should seriously consider rerouting some of the funds from Ethiopia in order to get yourself some proper professional celebrity endorsement from light entertainment giants like me. You’d make much more money in the long run but you’re probably too mean and spiteful to realise it.
Anyway Bob, get back to me. Soon. Say “hi” to Midge,
Rik.
APRIL 16TH 2005: 2.55AM
I’m troubled. There are some things I don’t understand and haven’t been able to understand since they first happened, and part of me is afraid of knowing what they mean. As I write this, it’s blowing a gale outside. The glass is rattling in the window pane and I can taste the saltwash on the air as the wind blows in off the Cornish coast. There are thick black clouds rising above me. They are a bit like bruises, as though the sky has taken a good kicking, and every so often a flash of lightning lights up the raindrops that streak across the glass. And I’m sitting here alone in the middle of the night while my family sleep in other rooms in the farmhouse. I suppose I should be asleep too but something keeps me here at my typewriter. I need to get this off my chest. Some secrets are meant to be told. And this is a secret I have never told anyone before. Until now.
When I was a little boy, I went to bed one night and in the morning I woke up weeping. I had never woken up crying before. It scared me. In the coming days, memories of a dream began to come back to me bit by bit until the dream was complete or as complete as my waking mind would allow. This is what it was: I was in a field and it was kind of dusky. There was another person there. But I couldn’t see their face because the person wore a hood. I was certain it was a man. A human-like man. Up ahead maybe ten or fifteen paces, there was a rise in the field as though there might be something the other side of it like a canal or something. I don’t know what was the other side – I never got to find out. The man turned to me but still I couldn’t see his face and he beckoned me. He wanted me to follow
him. But I didn’t follow him. I didn’t want to. I don’t know why, I just didn’t. Then he started to beckon me more urgently as if to say, “Come on! Come on!” I don’t know where he wanted me to go or why he wanted me to go there but one thing was for sure – I wasn’t going to go with him. And for some reason which I can’t fathom, it made me terribly sad. Terribly sad that I wasn’t going to go with him. That’s what made me cry so much. Don’t ask me why.
Sometimes, but not very often, I have what seem like flashbacks of this dream. It’s unnerving. Sometimes, usually when I’m driving, I catch a fleeting glimpse of a field through the car window as I drive past and it looks just like the field in my dream. But I don’t have the chance to stop. It’s always like that. But if I could stop I don’t know that I would. Although I often wonder what would happen if I did. What would happen if I did find the field? What would happen if I confronted that man from my dream?
I don’t know how many times in my life – maybe five, maybe eight times, I don’t know – I dream the whole of the dream again. And I want to know what the end is and I try to dream it but I can’t. It always ends in the same place, like a finite piece of film. And I always wake up crying. Always-ish, sometimes it makes me scared. Or angry. Or something. I don’t know what it is.
Other times, very rarely but quite unexpectedly, I catch a kind of echo of the dream, a feeling, like an emotion with no apparent trigger. Like I say, it’s very rare but when it comes, fear and sadness come at me for no apparent reason at all. Anywhere – in a lift, on the bog, on Kate Moss. Sorry, this is a serious bit – it doesn’t last very long and I always hide it but it leaves me wondering, what is this? Then sometimes I try to think when it was that I first ever had the dream and I can’t really place it. But it’s always been with me, hiding in my subconscious.
This is the first time that I have ever spoken about this, and I know that it’s probably hard for you to imagine that someone like me should become anxious or frightened but this does frighten me because I don’t understand it. Or, at least, I didn’t. There’s more to this but I’m not going to write about it now. We’ll come back to this later.
Arthur Scargill
National President
N.U.M.
Huddersfield Road
Barnsley
20th September 1984
Dear Brother Scargill,
Radical socialist comedian and acter Rik Mayall here. You’ve probably heard of me. First of all, congratulations on your fabulous strike. It is really sticking it to Thatch and the fascist pig bullyboys who do her dirty work. I thought I would right to you to offer my services in your fight against the Tory scum. I have seen that other pop stars and celebrities have offered to help your cause by putting on concerts and shows and stuff and I thought I would like to demonstrate to you (I am always demonstrating) that I am standing firmly alongside you too. In fact, I am more alongside you than they are because their shows and concerts and records are always sometimes a bit shit, let’s face it. So, Arthur, I have written you a poem which you can have with my best wishes. Perhaps you could put it in the N.U.M. magazine. I presume you do have a magazine although you might have had to stop publishing it because you don’t have any money left. Anyway, if you don’t have a magazine then feel free to sell this poem to a national newspaper who would probably give you quite a bit of money because I’m such a big star nowadays and people are always trying to get hold of my material. I have checked all this with my agent and he is happy to let me give you this work for free but a small contribution for general admin and stationery would be gratefully received.
Anyway, Arthur, here is the poem. You had better sit down for this and if Mrs Scargill is in the area, it might be an idea if she were to fan you with a copy of the Radio Times or whatever television listings magazine you happen to have to hand because my words are like jets of liquid fire and you might need to cool down a little bit.
CLASS STRUGGLE
The pit is full of grit
But it
Is the place where it is at.
Every single pig
He doesn’t dig
What the kids dig
And the miners dig
Which is coal
Not dole
With their children
And their meager wages
In front of a fire which is out because
There isn’t any coal
For the soul.
Or the fire.
Powerful words, I think you will agree Arthur. And they are all yours. Well, I wrote them and I want everyone to know that I did and please use this letter as proof that I have let you use them. What I suggest is that you learn this poem by heart and resight it when you are next on television being interviewed on the Nine o’clock news or News at Ten. Make sure that you do mention that I wrote it if you do. Just refer to me as Rik Mayall, radical socialist or something like that. Just so long as you mention the Rik Mayall bit, that’s the important part although some mention of my socialist leanings would be good. And might I also suggest that if you are going to do the poem on TV that you perhaps update your image a little bit. I know that poor working class northern people are not very fashionable but you as their leader should perhaps make a bit more of an effort with your “look” which means the clothes you wear and your hair-do. Firstly, I would get rid of the Bobby Charlton comb-over. If I was you, I would get a pony tail to show how at one you are with your sexuality. Alternatively (and I invented alternating), you could turn that basketball hat that you wear so that the peak sticks out at the back. This is very fashionable on the other side of the pond – which means America, Arthur. This being the revolution, I think you should also buy yourself some jeans trousers. I don’t think Shay Gavarra wore a cheap pair of slacks from Burtons with an anorak. Although he might have done so don’t quote me on that. You should also get yourself some cowboy boots to go with the jeans or if those are a bit pricey for you, then maybe some Green Flash pumps are quite happening, but do make sure that they are dirtied up a bit. There is nothing worse than seeing someone trying to be cool in a pair of bright wight plimsolls. If you don’t feel this is the right look for you, you might like to try a daring Doctor Martin/ legwarmer “combo”. It’s difficult for me to picture you like this but if you fancy it I could come up to Barnsley and take a look. I would need somewhere decent to stay though and a car (not a van) there and back.
Some of my great violent moments from my great violent television programme, Bottom (I video-grabbed these moments myself for you to enjoy at great personal risk to myself because of that dodgy fucking equipment that wretched neighbour 'sold' to me that made me foul myself (twice)).
The greatest moment of my life.
A bird
As far as that northern accent is concerned, I’m sorry to say this Arthur, but I don’t think it’s convincing anybody. I would just drop it. What would really swing it for you with the British public is if you put some more street slang into your diction (which means how you speak and is not a reference to anything below the waist although I am internationally renowned for my top quality lavatory gags). Maybe refer to your interviewers as “baby” and drop in a few menches (this is a showbiz word which is short for mention, Arthur) about very cutting edge pop stars like Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones. Be careful with this because if you get it a bit wrong and mention someone like Spandau Ballet, everyone will think you’re a twat. Also, it’s very important to remember that we’re not allowed to say “cunt” anymore – it is not acceptable to our sisters the feminists – although I guess it is okay to say it about Mrs Thatch.
Anyway, Arthur, keep up the good work – although it’s not really work is it, that’s the whole point – so keep up the good not working.
All the pigs are racists,
Brother Rik Mayall.
COMEDY MOSH PIT
I’d like to talk about that great performance that I gave in that thing I did that everyone talks about, but I can’t because it’s a secr
et. I’ll tell you why, because when Israel was formed which was a long time ago before I was born – I wasn’t involved in the formation of Israel, (if you go to anyone and ask them they’ll tell you. Go up to them and say, “You know Rik Mayall?” and if they say “no,” then they’re just lying, so just punch them and call them a liar. That way you’ll be telling the truth. They sometimes call me Rik “just punch them and call them a liar, Mayall” Mayall. But anyway, what was I talking about? Chips. No, Israel. That’s weird, I’ve never been to a chippie in Israel. That must mean something. Things do don’t they? That’s what I always think whenever I go to the chip shops. I think that’s enough about that subject now. Moving on.
