Bigger than Hitler - Better than Christ

by Rik Mayall

  Still I held the show together. Fellow cast members were looking terrified and sweating excessively. It was quite unpleasant really. I knew that the audience was teetering on the edge of theatrical armageddon when a pensioner in a Drop Dead Fred T-shirt was fired from a giant catapult constructed from the elastic underwear of viciously stripped and beaten Dave the Cardboard Box fans and landed in the orchestra pit with a sickening thud followed by the plopping sound of an accompanying colostomy bag a split second later. Andrex puppy fans were managing to hold the front six rows of the stalls from the advances of an angry mob of How to be a Little Sod mentalists and through the doors at the back of the auditorium, I could just make out some blue anoraks as a confused group of Kevin Turvey fans were deep in conversation about which bus to take home and how interesting it was that some numbers on bus tickets are slightly not the same as the numbers on some other bus tickets when suddenly they were set upon by a small smartly dressed group of Government Inspector devotees and chased from the building past the three ubiquitious Tales of Uplift and Moral Improvement fans who are always so proud of being the only three people on the planet to have actually seen the programme and always look down their noses at the Grim Tales hordes and fifty-something Rik ‘n’ Roald Dahl Jackanory intellectuals.

  It was open slaughter at the back of the upper circle where the almost suicidal Comic Strip antidisestablishmentarians were beating the fuck out of each other. Bad News were kicking the shit out of Summer School who were giving it to The Strike who were already stomping on More Bad News while Beat Generation were ripping the faces off all five of them while the Private Enterprise girls were taking them from the side and were happily setting fire to the Gino die-hards.

  Way over in the middle of the stalls, the entire Bottom series one, two and three were fighting full civil war as furious Bottom splinters formed. Fans of individual episodes were twotting, smacking and headbutting the living daylights out of each other until suddenly they all reunited and took on a gang of Filthy, Rich and Catflap psychos wearing the most appalling mid-eighties clothes that they must have found somewhere in North Wales. But never mind about all that. What really put the fear of God into me was that THEY must be out there somewhere. Yes, THEM, the most terrifying subhuman hell-pack of mine or anyone else’s admirers: BOTTOM LIVE FANS. Read them and weep, Genghis Khan. An army of three million blood-drunk Mongols? My Bottom fans would have had them for breakfast. And yes, there they were, encrusted in their own vomit, rampaging through the back of the auditorium, drinking lager, using shocking language and hungry for human flesh. They literally ate their way forward through rows X, Y and Z going to the toilet wherever they liked. They made Stalingrad look like a mid-morning appearance on Richard and Judy. They approached the stage bellowing, “Why isn’t Eddie here hitting you, Richie?” and, “Why can’t we see your Y-fronts sticking out of the top of your trousers?” It was as if there was no law. The sky turned black with despair. The Rik Mayall was alone (apart from a couple or so other acters who were in the play as well, dearest friends of mine, who were, er, oh…just look up in an old programme to find out who they were). There he stood alone, The Rik Mayall with his leaderless legions from five enormous international sell-out tours. They were like an army in their own right. When the police arrived, they didn’t even try to tame them. They didn’t get the chance, they were eaten immediately. So was their van. So was their dog. Well, no he wasn’t really. He was taken away to the toilet where some of the…oh, let’s not go into it. It was just horrid. The toilet, I mean, not the dog shagging. It was like the Ambassadors Theatre, Woking was transformed into Brighton beach in 1965, only instead of mods and rockers and Sting and Phil Daniels and Leslie Ash (yes), there were countless Rik Mayall fans rioting. It just couldn’t get any worse. And then it did. They took to the stage, grabbed my leading lady, shaved her head, superglued a pair of glasses to her face, put her in a brown suit, made her drink three bottles of Thunderbird and told her to beat the shit out of me – which she did. Rather well actually. Talented girl. I must find out her name. Bless her.

  The Noel Coward Wednesday afternoon matinee suddenly underwent a spectacular volte-face. There was Eddie on stage, beating the living shit out of me and the Bottom Live berserkers were now trying to keep the peace. It was like the Hells Angels at Altamont. And the remainder of the audience regardless of whichever part of my thirty-five year career they vouchsafed their allegiance to, were beginning to mellow and thrill to the show as my teeth and nose cartiledge were spattered around the stage. I was beginning to gain control of my ordinaries! Now was my chance!

  “Just ruddy well shut up you utter utter spastics!” I suddenly unleashed like a whiplash (paying subtle though genuine and heartfelt homage to my Rick character from my revolutionary breakthruough situation comedy The Young Ones which revolutionised the whole concept of global comedy) by getting my “R”s out and mispronouncing them for my beloved Woking audience that afternoon. Right then, everything stopped. Every face in the auditorium whipped round from what they were doing and locked onto their Rik. A frisson of disbelief rippled like quicksilver through the auditorium. And then it was as if a crack in the earth’s surface had formed and widened into a chasm from which a gigantic volcanic eruption of powerful golden laughter exploded forth, growing and growing in its majesty and pure love. My audacious gambit had paid off. Rik and his legions were one again through the simple trick of his timeless comedy genius. It was as if God had smiled on the world again. Which he did. And I, smiling to my audience, moved forward to receive their adoration, laughter and joy. Those of them who were still alive. I looked out over the carnage all around me. There was only one way to go and that was on. I looked at my leading lady (who was still dressed as Eddie Hitler) and kissed her on the lips. At that moment there was a deafening tortured howl from the entire audience: “No!!! Fucking hell Richie!! You can’t snog Eddie!” And the entire audience exploded violently once more into another Grade A riot until I turned to them with one of my great twinkles and said, “It’s okay, my great showbusiness chums, it’s just another one of my great Rik Mayall jokes.” What a triumph of theatre that was. They simply hooted with laughter and gave me a three hour standing ovation, by the end of which all the pubs suddenly opened and the audience disappeared still applauding and arguing over whose round it was. Result. I, The Rik Mayall, had not only saved the show but I had also saved the theatre and countless lives of people in the auditorium that afternoon. Yes – several hundred had died, yes – the theatre was destroyed but the show must always go on.

  And interestingly, in Woking, that’s what it will do. Overnight, someone somehow rebuilt the entire theatre and swept all the bodies under the carpet. You could go to Woking this very day – it’s not far – and you could sniff around and ask some questions. But wherever you go, people will tell you the same thing, that there never was a bloodbath at the theatre that day and that I never did manage to broker a peace deal with my top acting. They’ll deny all knowledge of it. And do you know why that is? Because they’re frightened. And that’s because there are dark forces at work. Let’s put it like this. There are people out there whose interests are not best served by having a Rik Mayall in their midst who is so much better at acting than all the other ones in the world are at acting. I shall say no more. That’s not because I don’t know what to say or haven’t thought of anything that I could say or have thought of something to say and have then forgotten it like a twat (which I’m not). It’s none of those things. It’s just because I want to give my words the maximum effect. And that’s the thing that I have. Done. My story has been told. Noel and I are at peace. But not like that obviously. I don’t do that sort of thing. Although of course, I’ve got nothing against…oh fuck all this. See chapter seventy.

  QUICK MAYALL

  When you’re a comedy hellraiser and the wild man of light entertainment, you sometimes need to let off steam. But I never do, okay? I just want to make that clear. I don’t let off steam b
ecause I don’t need to. So, there you go. Read it and weep. Or, maybe, read it and think hmmmm that’s quite interesting, I wonder if he’ll write another great book that I can get on order at my local bookshop.

  What it was is this. Or was this. Or whatever you fancy really. That’s Anarcho-Surrealism that is. The thing is or was, I was arrested for doing 127m.p.h.* in my top of the range saloon dragster and The Mirror (which is a tabloid newspaper which I love and admire enormously as I do all tabloid newspapers and the talented journalists who work for them) ran† a headline: QUICK MAYALL. Now this is clever for a number of reasons. Firstly, Quick rhymes with Rik. So there you have it. So that’s quite a clever thing to put on the front of your newspaper. They’re clever guys. They don’t fuck about. You’ve got to have your trousers done up when you’re running around that kind of yard. You’re talking university degrees here. These aren’t ordinary men, or women, obviously.

  Actually, forget all that.

  [Start chapter again below.]

  Hello. Now, the reason I was done for speeding on the M5 in 2003 was that I was trying out a new comedy character. I didn’t have a name for him yet but I knew he would be a quick driver and so when I was caught by the pigs it was just some research. Method acting. And anyway, I’m not very good at driving slowly. “Not very good at driving slowly” is one of my middle names. Showbusiness fire whirlwinds don’t drive slowly. You can’t be seen to be driving slowly if you’re meant to be highly amusing on the television. Ask yourself, has Jim Davidson been done for driving too fast? I think you’ll find that he has. That’s why people like me and Jim are at the forefront of pretty much everything that’s dangerous and revolutionary. Ask yourself this as well, in fact, don’t bother, I’m going to ask you instead: Does Lemmy from Motorhead obey speed limits? I don’t think so. Does Lemmy drive his Heinkel bomber down the slow lane of the M6? I don’t think he does. Do you think that me and Lemmy would find ourselves sitting down together at a Happy Eater, having an all day breakfast like there’s no tomorrow, and Lemmy would turn to me and say, “later Rik Mayall – I’m off,” and then he’d stride out into the car park, up onto the wing and into the cockpit and then set off at 15m.p.h. down the slow lane? Like a girl. No fucking way. Which means of course he wouldn’t. Lemmy is rock. It’s the same with me. Show me a throttle and all I want to do is open it up. Maybe read that line again. I just have. It’s pretty good.

  And also, at the time when I was done for speeding, it was a difficult time for Britain, it was April 2003 and Tony B was taking us triumphantly to war against the middle east. Some people in the country were sad about this but only because they didn’t understand what Tony was doing which was protecting us all from terrorists by killing thousands of Iraqi children who could quite easily have grown up to be bad people who didn’t want their oil wells to be stolen by the army and given to a handful of Tony’s extremely rich friends who own and control all of the West’s money, arms, government policies and “election” results. These children might easily have become violent because they didn’t have sufficient pluck to shrug off malnutrition, starvation, drought, disease, state brutality, and Anglo-American pogrom-style racial extermination. But Tony has been to Oxford University for heaven’s sake and knows far better than anyone what is good for us all. Anyway, these were uncertain times, so I decided that I needed to do something to lift the spirits of the British people. Getting done for speeding was a situationist, dadaist [check this] gesture that I made in a selfless way. In an almost – let’s face it – Victoria-Cross-worthy way too. Because instead of just cheering up the troops like other lesser talents might do, I was using my deep inner understanding of the media and cheering up the entire nation. But no matter how popular you are in this country, the British justice system will still prosecute you and that is only right and proper. I am quite hard, after all, and I can take it. Sacrifice is my middle name. A thousand pound fine? It was a small price to pay, which I would have paid, if my accountant wasn’t suffering from some financial irregularities at the time and I hadn’t gone to the wrong court room and given a false name. But what’s important is that I learned my lesson. So, the next time the police tried to catch me, I put my foot down even further. 138 m.p.h. I think I managed that time. I was still caught and fined though, dash it, and banned for six years. But I don’t care, I still drive all over the place. I’m Rik Mayall. And there’s not many people who can say that.

  Tony Blair

  The Prime Minister

  10 Tendowning Street

  London SW1

  April 5 2005

  Dear Tony,

  Just turned on the television because I like to have the current affairs on in the background because that’s the kind of twenty-four-hour rolling news kind of twentieth century guy that I am and I like to keep my finger on the pulse and my ear to the ground. In fact, I have fingers all over the place and in a lot of pies as well, right. People often call me Rik “Mr Fingers” Mayall. Keep that one in your mind there Tone, okay? Received.

  But anyway, enough about me. There I was just now, right, sitting on my sofa in my house watching the television and it was like WHOAH! It was coming at me, right, like a twenty-ton runaway cement mixer with a crack-addled psycho at the wheel and Judas Priest on the in-cement-mixer hi-fi sound system thing (probably Breakin’ The Law or one of their early ones because we’re down with Judas aren’t we Tony?). And I’m thinking to myself, fucking hell! (I know you won’t mind me swearing like this because I went to Oxford as well and we were so swearing all the time. We were always in the student union bar drinking strong lager and playing guitars, listening to pop music and wearing flares. We were so whatever-the-word-is. Fill it in yourself Tony, I’m sure you know what I mean. But make it good.)

  Anyway, fucking hell! I thought to myself, Tony’s only gone and called a general election! And there you were heading off to see the Queenster in the jag to ask permish (this is short for permission) to have a general election, and I have to say – no bollocks to that, I don’t have to say it but I’m going to say it anyway – you looked good. I really like your weight situation at the moment and you look like you might have been working out a bit as well. I’m sure your shoulders have got wider and those trousers did look a little loose around the waist, although the creases down the front were as sharp as always. I don’t think you look fifty. I don’t even think you look forty, to be totally honest with you. I know I can say that to you in a man to man, great mates together, slap on the back, absolutely straight as a dye way without you getting the wrong idea. And even if you did get the wrong idea, that’s okay with me, because I’m an all-inclusive guy in every way and I love everybody and I’m so down with the whoopsies. That’s what New Labour is all about, isn’t it Tony? Anyway, there you were getting into the jag fantastically – a nod and a half smile to the press core – and a little adjustment of the tie that says, “Don’t fuck with the big man”. Now I’m a big fan of the jag, as you know, but have you ever considered getting yourself a Harley Davidson instead? I don’t think any other P.M. (that’s an abbreviation) has done this before although I do have a vague memory of Harold Wilson and his secretary riding around on a motorbike and side car. But that was the seventies. Who was anyone then? Actually, it rather appeals to me the thought of you striding out of your front door (or the one you pretend is your front door when you’re not in the country with Cheggers) (why Cheggers? I’ve never understood that) and instead of doing the usual (nod, smile, cool tie knot, concerned expression, hint of itchy arse), you could pull on your helmet (ooer obviously) and get your leg over (ooer obviously again) get her started and all revved up (and again) and roar off down Downing Street like a dangerous bad-ass motherfucker. You just give it some thought Tonester because from where I’m sitting, it’s got “jolly good idea” written all over it.

  But forget all that, the reason that I’m writing to you is that I’d like to offer my services to you to help in your election campaign. That’s right, you heard
it here first, Tone. Ouch! Does that hurt? I don’t think so. Rik Mayall in Tony’s election campaign! Hide the chicks, boys. The Rikster’s on side!!! So, let’s get our teeth into the meat, Tone, not that I’ve got anything against vegetarians. As you know, leader, I have great experience of advertising things and making them total market dominators overnight, so it just came to me in a blind flash, right, that I ought to do the same for you in the election. Just think what effect a few million posters up and down the country would have with “Rik says: Vote Tony,” written on them. As soon as people see that you and I are locked together in political unity, it’ll be time to polish down the front bench again and take your seat with the big boys.

  After all, and I don’t really want to blow my own trumpet here, but I am the man who brought down the Thatcher administration with my smash hit TV series The New Statesman (it was very popular as well). Then I brought down the undercarriage and cleared the runway for New Labour’s second term with my next mega-smash series, Believe Nothing, which flattened the old-fashioned labour intelligentsia who didn’t dig the “Tony beat”. Blood, bodies, stale left wing morality scattered as far as the eye could see. So nothing was on the runway, big boy, because of the Mr Rik and you brought in the New Labour party at Mac 3. And I respec you for it. (Worth noting, Prime Minister, that the young people nowadays don’t use the letter “T”. There are votes in those hoodie sweat shirt things that I’m told are very fashionable on the council estates. So get out of Denver baby and get a hoodie on the Tony – like now, duuur (more young speak there Tony. No one knows what it means but it makes you look like you watch Top of the Pops a lot, so use it: Rik Tip there for you.))