by Rik Mayall
PERU
People often say to me, “Hey Rik!” and I say to them, “Back off, ordinary, I’ll do the farmyard jokes.” That’s what it’s like on the showbusiness merry-go-round, you just never know what anyone is going to say to you next. Unless I’m in a cutting edge play, of course, and I’ve learnt all my lines (which I do do) and I’m speaking at one of the extras who has words, in which case I do know what they’re going to say to me next. But apart from that, it’s just a mad crazy whurl of unexpectedness deluging down on me like a firestorm of rain and drizzle and stuff.
Picture the year. That’s right, it was the year 2000. It was the millennial year in so many ways. Fuck I was busy. I was in demand everywhere. I mean, just look at what I’d been up to, viewer: there was Blackadder Back and Forth with Kate Moss (yes) which was a one off special for the great new millennium dome. Tony B wanted a major star to pull in the crowds. So who did he call? Damn right*. There were audio books for Dr Seuss, the Sound of Trumpets, Horrid Henry’s Haunted House and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. There were thousands of lines to learn but it was no trouble. I learnt them, and what’s more, I remembered them. There was narration for countless episodes of the kids’ show Jellikins. Not to mention a stage play directed by my old compardray Andy de la Tour called A Family Affair which toured the country playing to sell out audiences wherever we went. It was in French too so imagine how hard it was translating all your lines as you speak them, but again, it was no trouble for the man they call the Maestro. Not that I do lines. I never touch the stuff. There was a radio play called Higher Education which was recorded in Manchester. Incredible. Manchester! That’s another town. There was a dangerous cutting edge underground video voice-over called Hogs of War, and I haven’t even got onto the feature films I did that year. There was Jesus Christ Superstar in which I displayed my excellent singing voice, a Monkey’s Tale, Watership Down and the great “lost” comedy classic Kevin of the North which I made in Canada with the legendary Leslie Nielsen and which all my Canadian fans tell me is the greatest film to come out of Canada – get this – ever. Beat that Brad whatever-your-name-is which I won’t even mention is used as cockney rhyming slang for a shit because I don’t want to tread on Chas ‘n’ Dave’s toes. I respect them. But even after all of this, I still found time to make ratings-busting television films like the Comic Strip’s Four Men in a Plane and The Knock; and the icing on the cake – no fuck that – the cherry on top of the icing on the cake – no fuck that again and more – the bit of air just hovering above the cherry on the icing of the vast cake mountain, the – and I mean the, as in THE – Strepsils radio commercial voice-over which was a landmark in human communication and is still spoken of in hushed tones amongst all voice-over professionals and technicians and all their families and friends throughout the western world. And that’s fucking true that is. You can ask anyone. Anyone connected with voice-overs anyway. Ask them, they’ll tell you. Do it now. I’ll wait here. Done it? Good. I told you didn’t I? Anyway, let’s forget about it now and move on. I don’t talk about those things ever because I’m a professional (though with a better haircut and car). Let’s just say I was tired after all my top quality work. Okay, said it now. I was tired. There, said it again. And what I decided I needed was a new intellectual pursuit to stimulate my artistry. So I decided to right a noval. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, hold on a fucking minute Mr. Rik comedy-genius Mayall – love your work obviously – I never knew you had written a noval. How come I never saw it at the top of the best cellar charts which is where it would most surely have gone if you had written it? How come I never saw you reading it at the Cannes book festival? And you’d be right to be thinking all of that, viewer, and I respect you for it. Hey, you’re a The Rik Mayall viewer, so what should I expect? My viewers are the best viewers and anyone who says they’re not can fucking well shag Margaret Beckett at gunpoint while being forced to watch The Late Review* at full volume with the telly sellotaped to Margaret’s head. Anyway, what happened is – well, I tell you what, let me start right at the beginning.
New paragraph.
You know that Jack Karouac, well he wrote all of his novals on a continuous roll of paper like a big bog roll. How hardcore top-writer-like is that? If I had known Jack Karouac I’m sure we would have been big mates because that’s the kind of guys that we are, or were in his case. If he had a case that is. He might have had a ruck sack. Then there was Graham Green, or Greeny as I liked to call him or he would have liked me to call him if I’d met him because we would have been great mates, drinking loads of whatever it was he drank, sitting in a sauna together smoking cigars and talking about top quality books we are planning to write.
Anyway, the thing is, I do loads of reading. Well I don’t but I could if I wanted to. And the other thing is, actually, never mind, what I meant to say back there was the other great novalist alongside Greeny and Karouacy, as I like to call them, is Hemingway. Or Hemingwayy as I like to call him. You know him, bit of a fat guy with a nice beard. Shot himself. And not in the foot. Ernie I would have called him if I’d known him. Kind of friendly like. The thing is, I have maximum respect for my writer buddies but the reason I’ve never read anything they’ve written is because I don’t want to soil my mind with their words. Life is a one off – that’s what I’m always saying to people – not to everyone and I don’t say it all the time but I say it sometimes. You know how sometimes you just say stuff that comes into your head. Well, that’s what I do. I might be walking along the street or something and you know how sometimes you say words but you don’t say them out loud, you say them inside your head, or you might mumble a bit – well, that’s exactly it. Where was I? Oh yeah, I don’t read much because I don’t want to soil my canvas. I mean, I could say something about soiling your arsenal but that sounds a bit like a crap joke about shitting yourself and I don’t do stuff like that, especially on a football pitch. That’s just me. But it’s very important that you pick your authors carefully. The important ones are me, Karouacy, Grahamy Greeny, Ernie H and Adolf – now he wrote a book, a big fuck off one, respec for that but it was all in German! Can you believe that? All in fucking German! And I didn’t laugh once! Cunt. And then there’s Ibsen. He’s another one. He was Swedish and all his stuff was just plays and they were crap so strike him off the list. Ibsen? Forget it. It’s a well known fact that you never see “IBSEN – HE WAS SHIT GOOD” written on walls by kids. You never see that. That bloke Ibsen was just a miserable Nordic twat with appalling sideboards who wrote shit plays that went on and on and on and no one ever got their top off. What’s the point of him? I’d like to see the Rik Mayall fans and the Ibsen fans in a punch up. Now that I’d like to see.
Now, the thing with Jesus is that he went into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. It sounded to me like a nice little break away from everything in the countryside. I had been working flat out satisfying the vast unquenchable thirst for me that my beloved ordinaries feel 24-7* and I was richer than Croesus† even after Heimi had taken off his 90%. And I was officially known as The Audience Magnet. That’s a fact. Now when Jesus went off into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, he had something big and happening to do [insert what he had to do here. Well, not right here obviously. Back there instead of “big and happening”. Big it up, make it sound quite important and profound]. But I had something even bigger and happeninger to get out of my system. I would write a noval. A bloody good noval as well. I would fire my book like an arrow from the bow of my typewriter. Fuck that’s a good line. Read it and weep Alistair Mclean. And the thing about me is, once I have made my mind up to do something, I do it like a full throttle out of control shit-kicking trouser-eating berserking motherfucker of a juggernaut with its brake cables ripped off and stuffed up its own arse. Don’t mess with me viewer because I’m a shit-your-pants-and-run-for-it savage motherfucker when I’m riled. Shit, I said motherfucker twice. Shit! And shit. Oh cunts! CUNTS!!! CUNTS!!! CUNTS!!! As Ernie
Hemingway‡ said, “fuck off.” Poof. My noval would be like no other. I would sail away with my reader to the land of knowledge. There we would coagulate together into the overactive volcano that is a Rik Mayall noval in a strange and beauteous land where you, the viewer, knows with every word, that the novalist (that’s me) doesn’t care whether he lives or dies as he (me) tells it like it is and shoots from the hip like a vast over-arching black-hooded death-spattering toxic avenger of creative writing.
But where to go? There was always Bromsgrove (and it’s not true what people say). Kidderminster is handy and there’s always Halesowen. But no, this time things were different. The West Midlands was my roots but now I needed my flower. This time, I needed space, colour, wild free otherness and freedom so that I could remember whatever the fucking hell it was that I wanted to write about. In order to mine my rich seam of great words, I would have to cleanse myself of all day to day influences. But most importantly I knew that there would have to be one more thing. One thing for me to achieve completion. A bird. Birds. Maybe Peruvian ones. Young ones (I’m not talking about my show that changed the face of, well, everything really, but young birds who could help me with my noble, selfless endeavour and do the washing up, general cleaning, ironing, cooking, dusting and rigorous massage).
Suddenly, it appeared so simple. I needed to toss myself off. Toss myself off to some farflung land and take some time away from the everyday existence of a top showbiz phenomeonen and return bearing the gift of my great noval which I would give to the world and would publish and sell in all good book outlets and maybe some supermarkets (especially the hot ‘n’ happening Asda – I never shop anywhere else) and garages as well when it comes out in paperback.
But first I thought I had better telephone Heimi and tell him my idea.
“Heimi, it’s me,” I said when he answered the phone.
“Heimi? Never heard of him, he must be dead.”
“No Heimi, it’s me – Rik.”
“Never heard of him either, I was just passing when I heard the phone ring. All my best wishes to you and your family…”
“Heimi, it’s me, Rik, The Rik Mayall. You know, Andrex, Anusalve – your star client.”
“Anusalve! Ah, Rikki, Rikki, Rikki, my boy, love you, love you, kissy kissy. Sorry about that, had to fire the receptionist. Very nasty – she tried to leave with my tail between her legs. What can I do for you my boy?”
“I’ve got a fantastic idea. It’ll make us both rich. You especially.”
“I’m moist already.”
“I’m going to write a book.”
It went quiet on the end of the line.
“Oooh, that’s nasty, don’t like the sound of it, I’ve gone dry. This is going to chafe.”
“Why don’t you like it Heimi?” I said, “it’s a great idea. I go away somewhere hot and foreign in some far flung land like Peru where prices and human life is cheap and I write my big serious noval. Then you can sell it to a publisher and everyone’s happy.”
“No, no, no, Rikky my favourite client, don’t be a silly boy, wake up and smell the Swarfega – nobody on the planet reads books these days. All the money’s in voice-over work now – you know that.”
“But Heimi, it’ll be an opportunity for me to flex my glistening creative muscles. It’ll make me a really serious artiste. I can do all those things I’ve always wanted to do, like appear with all those ponces on the Late Show and make out I’m really serious and intellectual, like I’ve really got stuff to say that means stuff.”
‘Hush your mouth now Rik, Heimi does the talking, I won’t hear another word. Got a lovely little job for you – radio voice-over for an iron lung commercial.”
Get this. For the first time in my career I decided to ignore Heimi’s advice and plough my own furrow. What a fabulous metaphor that is, me ploughing my own furrow. Watch me as I strain like a handsome local farmer-type in the nineteenth century heaving my powerful plough through the soil, all stubble and body odour and followed by a vast army of happy illegitimate children.
Anyway, never mind about that, what’s important is that I decided to make my trip into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights and I called Heimi and told him. He wasn’t best pleased but said that he’d be okay with it so long as I didn’t go too far and he could send a van for me in the event that any more voice-over work came in. I agreed. What else could I do?
On the way to the airport, I decided to stop off at the BBC to see what had happened to my new hedge cutting thirteen part situation comedy called Total Arse Head which had been sitting on the BBC’s desk since Spring ’98 would you believe, which means that I’d been waiting for a reply for [oh someone else do the maths and work out how long it is].
BANG! and I was there.
“Get me the cunt in charge of light entertainment,” I said without blinking. I never blink when I’m working. It’s a sign of weakness.
“Who shall I say it is?” said the bloke in his BBC commissioner’s outfit. Why they can’t have top birds on reception like all the other television places is beyond me.
“Yeah right, very funny,” I said at his blatant attempt to pretend to not recognise me.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re sorry? Look, just tell him I’m here and I want to know when we start shooting because I’m off to Peru to write a blockbuster smash hit book.”
“But who can I say it is?”
There was a Q (and I don’t mean that old bloke in the James Bond films*) behind me and in it was that bloke out of Eastenders with the bad skin – you know the one. This made it all the more essential that the overweight leper-cocked discharge-face behind the desk remembered my name. It was a pride thing. I pulled a quick Rick-from-the-Young-Ones comedy face – I couldn’t have made it more obvious who I was if I had taken out a penknife and carved my name on my own forehead with it (back to front obviously so he could read it properly in the mirror). But have a quick brandy and grab hold of something sturdy before you read the next line. Here it is: he still pretended that he didn’t know who I was!!
Everything was silent. Time had stopped. Someone had to slam existence back into meaning. So I did.
“I am The Rik Mayall!” I declaimed convincingly.
With that, I strod manfully down the corridor looking hard and dangerous with my hands on my hips – although I had to put them on my bottom sometimes so as not to bump into anyone when I was walking past them in the corridor. That’s what I was doing – I wasn’t wandering around pulling my arse cheeks apart looking for company at the BBC. I don’t ever touch my arse cheeks. Or anyone else’s. Especially Little Ben-Elton’s. That story’s just not true. What happened was that when I was giving his arse cheeks a feel up in the Liverpool Empire toilets in 1983, it was an accident. I thought they were mine and I was just checking that all was well with my bottom as it always is and always has been – let me say here and now that there has never ever ever been anything wrong with my bottom. So what I’m saying is that although it looked like I was giving him a feel up when we got caught by Tony Herpes†, I wasn’t. It doesn’t count anyway. Not because I don’t think Little’s a man – he is – well, I say he is, I can’t say for certain. I mean there’s a slim chance – maybe a few thousand to one – that he’s a bird but if he is, you wouldn’t want to shag him anyway would you? I feel bad for saying that. Look, Little, if you’re reading this and you do happen to be a bird then I would shag you because I’m a hard core feminist.
Where was I? Oh yeah, striding down the corridor in the BBC manfully with my hands in the right place. I came to a door and flung it open.
“Listen up shit smeers,” I hurled, “what in the name of fuck do you think you’re playing at sitting on my Total Arse Head for two whole bloody years and not coming hurtling back to me on your knees vomiting blood and gratitude and cash, imploring me to make my latest breakthruogh light entertainment project.” Silence. Nothing but silence. The room was empty. I sat down for a moment and
leafed through my emergency copy of Razzle and got a hold of my bearings. This was war.
“I don’t give a toss who you say you are,” said the security guard moments later as he threw me out of a first floor window, “get out and stay out.” I could tell that he did recognise me really but was just trying to be hard. Poof. (No offence).
SPLAT! So there I was in a skip round the back of BBC Television Centre. Right, that’s it, this sort of shit has got to stop. I’m going to Peru. And SHAZZAMM!!! (or something that means a couple of hours later) there I was at the departure gate at Heathrow.
“Read my mouth and feel my words as they penetrate you with roar manhood,” I said to the woman behind the desk.
“I am all ears, Rik Mayall,” she said, “in fact, I’m all eyes and noses and lips and dirty bits as well for you. God, you’re even better looking in the flesh. And talking of flesh, The Rik, if I may, I bet you’ve got plenty of flesh to go round – speaking in the bulging trousers sense*.”
