by Rik Mayall
But when we sent our dark and subversive scripts to the BBC, that’s when the trouble started. First of all they said that it wasn’t possible for just the two of us to sustain a whole show alone. But we reminded them that Hancock and Sid James did an entire show together. They’d forgotten about that because they were all so busy being morally sound and politically correct but when they realised we were right, they said, “Oh er, right, er…daddio or whatever it is you working classes say. You’re on. You can have a television series.”
So we got it! Fantastic! We were in, and we started work. But as soon as we started filming, we hit problems. We were told that we had to talk differently because we weren’t allowed to speak on television like we could in the theatre. It’s the same nowadays. No one really speaks like they do on television. Well, this was the beginning of that. There was a quota in those days. You were allowed three Bloodies per programme – no Fucks and absolutely no Cunts – you would be expelled from the country if you said “cunt” and it still is a very rude word and I never use the word cunt myself. Sometimes there would be huge fist fights with the BBC executives that came to the set. But even though there were about twenty of them, me and Big Ade (sorry, slim attractive Ade), took them on and won. It was savage and brutal and all just because we wanted to say “bloody hell” in our show. Sometimes we went over our “bloody hell” quota and they would tell us that we had to say things like “crikey” and “blimey” instead.
“I used those words in The Young Ones,” I said, “and now you want me to say them again so that I’ll turn into a has-been. Next, you’ll be asking me to use a slight speech impediment on my Rs.”
Sometimes it was like that movie Zulu with all the BBC executives on the horizon and we took them on over the word “bugger”, It was a battle for freedom of speech, part of my ongoing war against the insidious forces of censorship. Take George Orwell. He wrote books. He’s dead now. Nuff said. If you’re reading this George, well, I don’t really know what to say. Hi. I suppose.
We fought those battles on behalf of all those comedy giants who had come before us, like all the greats: Brucey, Tarby, Lynchy, Tommy O’Connory. We didn’t want them to feel that all the blood that they had spilled was in vein. We were part of the bloodline of British light entertainment. The baton was being passed from one generation to the next.
Some of the BBC executives even tried to make out that the show was sexist. But as I pointed out to them at the time, if they hadn’t insisted on us cutting out the nineteen bird-shagging scenes that we wrote into each episode then there would have been plenty of women in it. We even put in a couple of lesbian scenes but they wouldn’t allow us those either. We were only trying to be all-inclusive (which is one of my middle names). How hypocritical is that?
The Lemmy, The Rik and that twat from Holby City having a soft drink and looking like a girl.
Me, top bird and Kate Moss.
Me hitting an extra in the bollocks with a golf club (for fun) on the set of my tremendous new TV series All About George. April 2005.
Extra clutching his head wound while I have him sacked for being so shit at being hit in the bollocks with a golf club.
Extra not giving me drugs hidden inside my mobile in order to get his job back.
Me being great.
Anyway, Bottom was great and it ran for five series and everyone loved it. And when Richie and Eddie had done every gag possible in that format, we decided we needed a bigger arena. We felt constrained by rules and regulations. We knew that the BBC was beginning to corrode, to buckle, petrify, rot and lose its vision. Its eyes were beginning to dim and its teeth were beginning to decay. Its skin was beginning to flake and it gave off a rank stench as its bowels gave out and it became flaccid and flatulent. The great Adrian Edmondson and I had invented reality television (which is really all about drinking a lot and squabbling unpleasantly) but now it was time for action. It was time to by-pass cosy middle-class reactionary BBC sensibilities and show our Bottom to the masses.
Chapter ends for maximum effect.
PRE-AWARD-WINNING GUEST CHAPTER
WRITTEN BY KEVIN TURVEY
Dear Bloke who’s reading this book – unless you’m a lady who’s reading this book of course – or maybe someone who doesn’t know yet, or both, or neither, or all three, or somebody else completely, or something. But whoever it may concern, or even whoever it may not concern – in case you’re someone who’s reading this book by accident – in fact anyone at all: Good Evening. I’m Kevin Turvey. That’s my name as well. You know how people ask you to put a bit in a book. Well, I don’t. This is a first for me. You know that bloke Rik Mayall? Well, I know him as well. So that’s quite a thing, isn’t it? Because you know him and I know him as well. So that’s like two of us. Well, it’s not like two of us, actually, it is two of us, except there might be more of us. You know how I don’t know you and I don’t know how many of you is reading this, or am reading this – that’s writing that is – it depends on what I’m trying to say really what words I use. I mean, I do know what words I want to say but I don’t know which one’s the right one at the moment so when I say “am” or maybe “is” then just imagine, or think, or do something like that with your brain which makes it all right and then I can tell you the rest of the sentence. Okay? So that’s what I’m going to do now, right? I’ll start with the starting bit again so we all know where we am: you know that bloke Rik Mayall? He’s the one who’s in them things on the telly. You know the telly? That box in the corner of your room? Well, that’s the telly. I mean, you might keep it somewhere else. Like a table. Or somewhere else that’s like a table but isn’t – a supermarket trolley that’s accidentally not stolen and makes the news look like it’s in prison or something – but wherever it is that you keep it, you go up to it and you press the button on it, right, and the telly comes on and if it’s a programme with Rik Mayall in it, well, that’s the bloke I’m talking about. He’s the one in those programmes with Rik Mayall in. I think there might be some videos that he’s in as well. I know there’s video packets because I rent them from the corner shop although there aren’t always videos in them. I’m not saying they’re crap but all the ones that I rent from my video shop aren’t very good cos when you open up the packet, there’s nothing in it. Anyway that’s Rik Mayall and he’s the bloke that I’m talking about. Cos last month, right, I think it was the – no, I’m not going to tell you the date because that’s not important. It might have been the 9th of December but it might not, you know, it might have been another date like the 15th of August. That’s one that it might not have been or there are loads and loads of other dates that it might not have been but I’m not going to go on about it here cos that would be a waste of time. So that’s what I’m not going to do, right? So, anyway, you know that Rik Mayall? He’s that bloke on the telly and you know how sometimes you’ve got to go out and you’ve got to put on a raincoat in case it’s raining. Well, that’s exactly what I didn’t do, right? Because it wasn’t raining. Well, it might have been raining but it wasn’t raining on the place wh ere I came out of my front door because that was the place where it wasn’t raining. If you went down the street, it might have been raining but the thing is, I wasn’t there. I was back where my house is. So the whole thing about the raincoat is that it’s not important because – you know everything that I’ve just said, right, well forget that because it’s not important either, okay? So, there’s me right, not here where I am now, I mean there where I was then – and I was just going out of my door and then I was just walking down the street like you do, well, like I do anyway, or like I did that day, whenever it was, and I was walking down the street and I realised that I’d forgotten something, right? I wasn’t esactly quite sure what it was that I’d forgotten but I thought better safe than sorry and decided to go back for it. But when I got home I realised that I hadn’t forgotten anything, so I didn’t really need to go back home at all. So it was a bit crap. Escept that in actualness it wa
sn’t really crap. Because if I hadn’t remembered that I hadn’t forgotten anything at all then I would have had to spend ages and ages and maybe even more ages in my house looking for something that wasn’t there. And that’s what would have been crap. Which it wasn’t, because it didn’t happen, which is a thing that’s great isn’t it? Although it wasn’t really like that at the time, because I didn’t think any of those things. I just thought, oh great, and went away again. Anyway, I went out to have a look at the bus stop. Cos someone told me there was a new bus stop. So I went to look at it. It’s a great bus stop. It’s got a pole and you know, one of those sticky-out things with a picture of a bus on it and the number 144 cos that’s the number of the bus that goes past it. They put that there cos if it was another number it’d be wrong and people would be waiting there for the wrong bus and that’s crap. That’s why they don’t do that kind of thing unless it might be an accident. But that’s the thing about this bus stop, it’s got the right number on it and loads of other things. It’s got a shelter, a bit of kerb, a li tter bin – I didn’t have time to look at what was in the litter bin although I do sometimes, and it had got a little notice on it that said, “Looking for a good time? Try Worcester 3089.” I didn’t try it cos it must have been put up for someone else. And there was a different sign and it was quite old and a bit falling off and it said Don’t Drop Litter and there was a picture of a green bloke with only one arm dropping litter, so you’ve got to watch out for him. So then I did some waiting for the bus cos you know, it’s great. And then I came home again. And that’s when it happened. The phone went. It just got up and ran away. Just like that. Actually, that’s not true. It’s a joke I made up. You know with jokes how they’re not true? Well this is one of the ones that isn’t as well. So, I picked up the phone – not all of it obviously – just the bit I needed to speak into like, cos if I spoke into the bit I didn’t need to speak into then the person on the other end of the line wouldn’t be able to hear what I was saying. So I spoke into the phone properly like I always do so you don’t have to worry about that bit. I said, “hello,” friendly, like they do in movies although thems just actors so it’s not true. Well, some of them are not very good at acting so thems not actors, or it might be that someone has wandered into the film and isn’t an actor at all. But what I’m trying to tell you is that it was Rik Mayall on the phone and he told me to write a chapter for his book. He said I was the Lord Lucan of light entertainment and I didn’t know that. He said he’d found my number off the card I’ve got up in the grocer’s window advertising my hoover part. See, my hoover broke down so I sent off for a new part but by the time the new part arrived I’d mended the old one with some glue. You know, that superglue stuff. It’s very good but you don’t want to get it in your hair. It’s terrible. I don’t mean it’s crap, superglue – it’s great. The getting it in your hair bit is what’s crap about it. So anyway, I mended the broken hoover part which meant that I had a spare hoover part so I thought, waste not want not, so I put an advert up for it in the grocer’s window. No one’s bought the hoover part yet so if anyone would like it, please send a letter to where I live which is the third one along the row behind that bit where the fence is broken by a lamp post with “fuck off” written on it, the one with the green door – number 13 at the moment unless the 3 has fallen off again in which case number 1 unless it’s the other way around or maybe someone’s fixed it on the wrong way and made it 31 which is what happens if you put a 3 in front of a 1 – so it might be that but if it doesn’t have a green door then it really is number 31 so don’t post it there cos it’s not Kevin Turvey’s house, Calcott Drive, Redditch, Worcestershire. Okay? Anyway, none of that’s important, unless you want the hoover part in which case it is. So, Rik Mayall is on the phone right. The bloke off the telly. It’s 85p by the way, if you want the part – it’s the bit that goes at the top of the nozzle that looks a bit like one of them hammerhead sharks except that it’s not, you know, cos it’s not big enough and anyway it’s not a shark is it? But that Rik Mayall bloke says he’s doing a book right and would I write a chapter for it and he says, “If you don’t I’m going to kick your fucking head in Kevin Turvey. I know where you live and I’m going to torch your house.” I don’t know why he said that. I’ve already got a torch. And then he slams the phone down. So I thought, well I’d better make a start, so I made a cup of tea, got my biro and my pad that I use for writing things on and sat down. Then I thought I’d better get a biscuit. And you know that thing with them biscuits you can get where like the top of it – not the biscuits, I mean the top of the packet that they all come in, cos you know how biscuits all come in packets, well they have a bit at the top which they call the top cos that’s where it is on the packet, right, and you get this bit of plastic on the top and you get it with your finger and pull it all around the top and pull the top off the packet and that’s where all the biscuits are. Well that ’s what my packet of biscuits had on them. So I got hold of the piece of plastic on my packet of biscuits with my fingers right, just two of them, not five or eight of them or something like that cos that would be the wrong number of fingers right so that’s what I didn’t do, I just used two of my fingers, not somebody else’s, and opened the biscuits up and took one out and put it on one of my plates which I use for carrying biscuits around the place with and walked back to the cupboard which is where I keep my biscuits when I’m not eating them right, and put the packet of biscuits that I’ve been telling you about just now back into the cupboard and closed the cupboard door right and walked over to my table with the biscuit on my plate for carrying biscuits about the place on and sat down on my chair that I use for sitting down on – it was the yellow one that used to have a rip on it but now it’s got some sellotape on as well as the rip – and that’s esactly the time that the doorbell started ringing like it does when someone presses on it and that’s what was happening. So I thought, that must be someone pressing the doorbell. Which people do with their fingers when they want you to open the door for them. So I lifted up the biscuits in my hand – I think it was my left, but that’s not the thrust of the story at the moment – and I went down the hall to the front door at the edge of my house where I keep it and answered it and it was Teresa Kelly. My girlfriend. We’re in the love. She said, “Hello Kevin Turvey.” I said, “Hello Teresa Kelly.” She said, “Is that your biscuit?” And I said, “yeah.” And she said, “Can I have it?” And I said, “yeah,” and so I gave it to her and she went away. She said, “Thanks Kevin,” and I said, “That’s all right.” Then I said, “I love you Teresa Kelly,” but she’d gone by then. So I closed my front door with one of my hands and thought to myself in my head, like you do, I haven’t got a biscuit anymore. I can’t write a chapter for that Rik Mayall bloke’s book if I haven’t got a biscuit. I’d better get some biscuits from that bloke in the corner shop who sells biscuits, not the one who rents videos not very well, and that’s when I started to think about whether or not I needed to put a raincoat on, a bit like the time I already told you about a bit earlier in the story. You know, about when I didn’t know whether to put on a raincoat or not. That’s the one. Anyway, that’s not important right now cos I suddenly twigged the grate thing that I had them biscuits in the cupboard which was really lucky thinking and I could always get another one whenever I needed. So I got another one nearly quite exactly the same way as I got the last one so I won’t tell you about it right now, put it on one of my plates for carrying biscuits around the place cos I’ve got loads and I started writing the chapter for Rik Mayall with my yellow chair and my biro and my biscuit and everything I needed for the job. It was a hard job but I did it. And that was it. Good evening. Kevin Turvey.
Leonardo Spinetti
Guchi UK Ltd
Bond Street
London W1
7th June 1994
Dear Leonardo,
You remember me, I’m in loads of great sitcoms and you also had me thrown out of your barbecue last summer. Sorry
about that. How’s the wife and the kids and all that bollocks? You do have a few – kids I mean – you’re wopping away all afternoon you Italians, aren’t you? Anyway, I’ve got a deal for you. If you give me lots of clothes I’ll wander around in them and people will think, fucking hell! There’s The Rik Mayall in a load of top bollocks Guchi gear! I’d be like a live Guchi advert masculining up and down Bond Street every few days. Plus I can go up to people and say, “Hey you! You look like a shit cake. You ought to be wearing my kind of clothes.” And then walk off like nothing’s happened. I don’t care, I’ll say it to anyone – even Kate Moss (that’s a yes in case you’re wondering).
So what do you think? Fucking good, eh? Have a think about it and send me some money.
I hope you are well,
Rik Mayall (acter) (fuck, sorry, top acter) (yes I am) (cunt)
SECRETS I WILL NEVER DIVULGE FROM THE
BLOOD-SPATTERED TRENCHES OF THE
SHOWBUSINESS FRONT LINE
Let’s face it viewer, a nob gag is a nob gag*. Fashions in comedy come and go but the nob gag will always be with us. I remember as though it was yesterday hanging out† with the two Littles – Little Ben-Elton and Little Richard – at the launch of my other great noval, Bachelor Boys: The Young Ones book. Now Little Richard is a great hero of mine and a vast towering leviathan of rock ‘n’ roll genius and he told me his philosophy of live performance which will stay with me for all of my life.
