Bigger than Hitler - Better than Christ

by Rik Mayall

  So there I was at The Nash. I like to call it The Nash. I don’t really know why. Whatever. They have three stages there – two little ones and one that’s named after that acter. He’s dead now. But don’t feel sorry for him because he’s dead. I never actually met him and that’s the same with an awful lot of people. There’s a lot of people that I haven’t met. It’s just the way life is.

  Now if you were to ask Jim “Hello mate, how are you?” Broadbent who was the best actor in that production, The Government Inspector, he’s going to say that it was me because it was. Jim was in it – bless him – I don’t know why I should bless him, it’s not like he sneezed or anything that would require blessing. We’re just wildcats, us acters. We just do shit like that. But anyway, I could phone Jim whenever I want to because I’ve got his phone number. So there. My dear friend Peter somebody-or other was also in it – lovely bloke – at least I think he was a bloke. I never checked.

  Some of the cast* were frightened because the Nash is so big. But I wasn’t because I’d just played the Liverpool Empire which is three times the size and rammed full of scousers. Shame we hadn’t sold any of the tickets.

  Being in a play in London is great for having sex in the afternoon. You wouldn’t do it for any other reason. The pay is shit. It’s an actual fact that I had sex with seven different people (women) during my time at the National. I was known as Hot Cock at the Nash. But a word of advice for you, viewer, if you’re going to have sex with actresses, you must always bag up (which means wear a johnny) and when you’ve finished, take off your johnny, tie a knot in it and write the actresses’ name on it (don’t use a sharp Biro for obvious reasons) and keep it for at least a year and a half in a brief case with all the others and put it somewhere that your wife won’t find it and don’t write “Johnny Bank” on it (like you might want to) because she might see this and become suspicious. So, that way, when the actress says she’s pregnant, you go down the police station with your “Johnny Bank” briefcase and you tell them that it couldn’t have been you because – and you get out the johnny with her name written on it. Quid Pro Quo, as the Romans used to say. Along with stuff like, “Let’s go and watch some gladiators having a fight,” or, “Let’s invade England,” or, “Why do we have to wear togas all the time – I’ve been wearing this toga for years and it’s getting pretty wiffy. It can stand up and walk around on its own. Oh no, that’s with me in it, sorry. Come on, let’s go and watch some more Christians being eaten by lions. It’s a bit shit this conversation, isn’t it? In fact, it’s a bit shit being Roman really, isn’t it? I wish we had some telly. But not late twentieth century telly which is all such nob dribble apart from The Young Ones. Which is great. I’m a huge fan. God I wish it was 1981 – have you seen that Rik Mayall bloke? He’s great. That’s what all us Romans say. Only another two thousand years to go.”

  So, right, my Richard Eyre anecdote, right? So, there’s me, right? You know me. I’m Rik Mayall. You’re reading my book. You got it. So there I am one day at the Nash. That’s the National Theatre, remember? We call it the Nash – well, you know all this already – but if you don’t then go back a few lines and I’ll wait for you here. Because I’m a nice guy. Okay? Done it? Cool. Told you I was. Let’s do it now then. There’s me right, you know me, and there I am, right, walking down one of the corridors at the Nash and Richard Eyre is coming the other way.

  “Hi Rik Mayall,” he says.

  “Hello Richard Eyre,” I say.

  “Hey, are those your jeans?” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Oh right.”

  “Why, did you think they were someone else’s?”

  “No, I was just asking. Did you know that Jim’s had a bit of flu?”

  “Yes.”

  Stuff like that happened all the time. Loads of other stuff happened as well. It was great. I’m sure stuff like that happens at the Nash to this day but I wouldn’t know personally because I haven’t been asked back there since. Not since the restraining order which is all a load of shit anyway because I never touched her.

  Heimi Fingelstein

  Top Bollocks Management

  PO Box 4372

  Bermondsey

  London SE16

  21st November 1986

  Dear Heimi,

  I thought I would try and write you a letter because my last few attempts to telephone you have been unsuccessful. I tried all last week but each time the phone was picked up and I said who I was, the line went dead. Perhaps Big Joan is on holiday? And then, the last time I phoned, someone answered – I could have sworn it was you but maybe I’m mistaken – and said, “Mad Keith?” and before I could reply, this person on the line – whoever it was (it really did sound like you) – said, “Have you whacked that fucker Mayall yet?” I want you to know that if this was you joking with me that I totally get the joke and find it highly amusing. Anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about which I will write down here – because writing’s not really talking is it (although I’m good at both) – is that I was wondering whether you could find me some voice-over work. I see that other acters and comedians – far less talented ones than me – are using their voices on television and radio commercials and I hear that there is a lot of money to be made.

  I presume that the best way to go about this is for me to contact companies with ideas for adverts that feature me in them. This is not a problem because even though I am a radical hardcore socialist, and a communist even sometimes, I am also “in bed” with capitalism. I am after all, part of the international currency of talent. I am a showbusiness Wall Street in my own right. I do not see a problem in combining socialism and capitalism together. For example, if I was to do a radio voice over for cough sweets, I could knock off a few quid because it’s winter and I am worried about what my people are sucking. (I am not being disgusting.) That way, everyone is happy – the cough sweet company, my people, me, and you as well Heimi, after you have taken your 90% commission.

  The way I see it is that it isn’t called showbusiness for nothing. It’s not all blockbuster movies, top television light entertainment formats, sell out West End runs and comedy tours, there is also international trade and industry to think about. I see myself as more than just another celebrity with a great voice who can speak on commercials, I can also be an advisor to companies on how best to create edge cutting advertising campaigns.

  For example, I was in Tesco’s the other day. I sometimes go to Sainsbury’s but I didn’t this day because I had to return some books to the library and if I go to the library I walk past Tesco’s and if I was to go Sainsbury’s, it would mean walking about another half a mile and I’ve been having trouble with my big toe recently – Doctor Dunwoody thinks it might be an ingrowing toe nail but he’s just a fascist pig and he once made up a story about me having a scrotal rash just so he could get my trousers down. Anyway, none of that is important. I was in Tesco’s and I was buying some toothpaste and I saw that there was a new mouthwash on special promotion called Country Mouth. I took one of the leaflets from the leaflet dispenser thing and I thought that because I didn’t have to get back straight away (I had already been to the library) I would read about this new mouthwash. I can’t remember what it said word for word but it basically said stuff about how the mouthwash – Country Mouth – would leave your mouth smelling like a fresh woodland glade. Now this is all well and good, Heimi, and I appreciate that Country Mouth is a more snappy (that’s a media expression) name than Woodland Glade Mouth but even so, I think the company behind this product is making a big fundamental errer. I know that us leading acters and entertainers can speak properly but a lot of ordinaries (especially the really poor ones) can’t and their pronunciation of Country Mouth could represent something of an accident black spot, media-wise. So, what I was thinking was that you might get me a meeting with the manufacturers of Country Mouth and I can go in there and have a brainstorm (this is a new marketing expression, Heimi, that means everybody sits around
a table – a glass topped one preferably – and talks about lots of ideas and stuff) with their marketing top brass. I could say to them, “Now listen, guys, I like all the running through the pastures and all that but think about your radio commercials. You’re only an “R” away from being deeply offensive. From where I’m sitting, it’s screaming vagina in my face and I think with an oral hygiene product, it’s best to have a vagina-free playing field.” So, with me, not only would the manufacturers of Country Mouth be getting a top quality acter’s voice and intonation but also even topper quality advice about the product itself. Everyone’s a winner – and I don’t mean that song by Hot Chocolate. But if I did, I would.

  I hope I can talk to you soon about all this and we can get our heads together on this one (another great marketing expression) and work out a strategy.

  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

  Best wishes,

  Rik Mayall (your star client A.K.A. “the cash machine”).

  P.S. I think there might be some money owing to me from all the work I’ve done over the past couple of years. I’ve been working like a dog. I know that you and my great friend Adrian have split all the money from Consuela, Private Enterprise, Eat the Rich, Whoops Apocalypse and Filthy, Rich and Catflap but there is plenty of other stuff that I’ve done like my Australian tour with Little Ben-Elton (those theatres looked pretty full to me), and Bad News. They must have earned something, not that I am questioning your honesty in any way Heimi – I want to make that clear – but you definitely said that you would probably be able to cream off a few grand from the Comic Relief work. Obviously, if you can sort this out I’d be much obliged but it must never leak out. If people were to find out that Comic Relief is a front for organ harvesting, drug dealing and global child prostitution, there’d be a hell of a stink. The papers would be all over us. And Cliff must never get found out.

  Anyway, whatever you can do on the money front would be great. I’m still on the run after the last palimony sting so I need cash to keep moving. All I’ve received from you recently was that mysterious package with the wires sticking out of it.

  ANOTHER BIT OF MY PART IN THE DESTINY

  OF THE NATION (BRITAIN/BRINGING

  DOWN THATCH* (PART ONE†)

  British showbusiness has two high points above all others: the two Elizabethan periods. The first Elizabethans had no electricity. They had no microphones or photo opportunities, so it was always at 2pm that the curtain went up in their theatres. And so it was that at 2pm on the afternoon of the 21st May 1587 that Christopher Marlow (good play writer)’s new play “Tamberlain the Great” opened at the Carlsberg Hammersmith Apollo Theatre in the heart of London’s Hammersmith. It was an instant smash hit – it had everything – violence, sex, words, good acting and some plot, and it shat all over Shakespeare (not hot)’s bollocks. And it was two hundred years later to the minute in 1987 in the age of us the second Elizabethans, the new Elizabethans (our queen is called Elizabeth too so it all works) that Paul Jackson, the head of the BBC, took me to a TV conference and A THING HAPPENED.

  I know loads of stuff about historical stuff. They call me Rik knows-loads-about-historical-stuff Mayall. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but you know what they’re like, some people.

  They’ve just got crap tongues. There’s loads of people out there and I know because I’ve been out there. Let me tell you about some of the time I’ve spent out there. But not now, right, because I’m right in the middle of a chapter. I don’t fuck about, viewer. Nuff said (which means enuff although it’s spelt differently). Now, where was I? Oh yeah, I went to a TV conference in the north of England with Paul Jackson, the head of the BBC. Now I’m a caring guy especially with northerners who I love and adore massively in everything they do or think, even though they are all indescribably ignorant and need all the help they can get. Some of them can’t even speak you know. Well, I mean, they try but you can’t understand a word they say if speaking is what they’re trying to do. I’ve been to their towns – some of them more than once. I don’t mind having the inoculations although the smell can be really quite overpowering. It’s their diet I think – when they can actually get something to eat – hence the fact they are all so ugly and small. But that’s the working class for you. Born and raised in the north of England. They love me up there. I can speak to them and they treat me like a Christ figure. That’s why I decided I would bring down Thatcher for them after all that she did to them, like making it illegal for them to work in their holes which is where they get the coal to light their little fires.

  So anyway, A THING HAPPENED (this is the same thing not a separate one).

  “Meet these guys,” Paul said.

  And it happened. I met them.

  Marlow would have written one of his plays about it.

  “Hello,” I said, “who are you?”

  “We’re comedy writers called Lawrence Marks and Maurice Gran.”

  The room went quiet.

  “We’re big fans,” said the guys, “we love your work.” (People always say this to me but I don’t put it in books.) “We’ve got a great idea for a television programme.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s you.”

  “Fucking hell that is a great idea.”

  “You can use swear words as well.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “It’s called Jackanory.”

  “It’s called what?”

  “Jackanory – you can read stories in that special way that only you can.”

  “That’s rubbish, it’s been done. I invented the programme, you twerps. Haven’t you seen George’s Marvellous Medicine?”

  “Oh Gosh, sorry about that, the great Rik Mayall.”

  “That’s okay, but I tell you what fellas, I’ve got a great idea that you can write for me and pretend that you thought it up yourselves.”

  “That’s very kind.”

  “Don’t mention it. How about someone called Alan B’stard who is a cunning and handsome young Tory MP and we can make it so damn good, make the satire so needle sharp and I can act the part so convincingly that we’ll bring down the government.”

  The room went quiet. Again.

  “You can call it The New Statesman,” I said. Lawrence and Maurice sat there slack-jawed. That was when the face of Great Britain changed forever.

  Crikey oh blimey, I really threw myself into the role when I played Alan B’Stard. That doesn’t mean I jumped off something or committed suicide or anything like that, it means that I really worked hard on learning my lines (that means words) properly and put my costume on the right way round and made sure my flies were done up and stuff.

  Role is what they call the name for the person you’re pretending to be in a film or a play or something on the telly, sorry, damn, the TV. No one has ever known why it’s called a role – that’s just another one of the mystiques (that’s not a spelling mistake) of the film industry making business. It’s not that they are stupid although a lot are and I know who they are and I could say their names anytime I felt like it but I won’t because I’m not like that. I think it’s probably got something to do with breakfast but I don’t show off that I know this, I just know it quietly like in that one with Yul Brinner (who I respect).

  I would like to ask you one question, viewer, and it is this: What other light entertainer that you can mention has actually changed the government? I’ll leave that question hanging in the air, right next to that other one from earlier. It’s not that I can’t think of anything else to say – it’s just very poignant [check meaning].

  Orson Wells

  118118 Sunset Boulevard

  Hollywood

  California

  USA

  22nd October 1986

  Dear Orson,

  Big fan, love your work. Now you know me, I don’t mess about and I’ve decided that being the inventor of alternative comedy in the UK (or this side of the pond as you yanks like to call it) is all well an
d good but there’s not much money in it. So I’ve thought up something which I thought you might be interested in having a think about too.

  Now I’ve seen you on the television advertising that Domestos Double Century – “a full blooded aloroso” as you call it with your deep balls-like-billiards voice and I figure that there’s room for two big name stars to enter the sherry arena, make a killing and clean up. Now obviously I don’t want to muscle in on your scene – not a man of your kaliber – so I wondered if you would mind me having a pop at scooping the Emva Creme account.

  I kind of figure that with two giant behemoths of western popular culture standing astride the sherry market, we might be able to form a united front and move on to other brands like Harvey’s Bristol Creme and Crufts Original. I reckon that in no time at all we could have the sherry industry in a headlock/stranglehold arrangement and we’ll be able to ask our price when other brands come a-knocking. We’ll be like a sort of global sherry advertising consortium kind of thing.

  Something else that springs to mind is that we might consider developing a “lo-cal” sherry option and thought you might be up for doing a before and after type campaign where we show you as you are now (i.e. a bit of a bloater – no disrespect Orson) and then show you after you’ve been drinking the Mayall/Wells lo-cal option and all the punters can see the startling difference. We can do something with trick photography I’m sure. No one will ever know.