Bigger than Hitler - Better than Christ

by Rik Mayall

  “Here you are mate. Oh sod it, have a tenner. It’s a gift, not a loan.” (If any of you top TV guys are reading my great book at the moment, I do this kind of thing all the time.)

  “No, not a fiver, a favour.”

  “Oh right, sorry Andy, come on then, give it back. Ow! Stop it, come on, give it back, come on, come on, shit, oh look, you’ve ripped it! Fucking hell, Andy. Ow, ow, stop it! We can’t behave like this, we’re showbusiness giants. Someone might see us and they’ll put it in their autobiography some day.”

  “But I need you back on ITV prime time*.”

  An intense passionate close up on The Rik Mayall. A half turn to the light. Exhale. Slight forehead crease, pursed lip: “I don’t know Andy, I’m doing other things now. I’ve moved on.”

  “I’m begging you.” And he dropped to his knees.

  “Steady.”

  “Okay.”

  “Get up.”

  “Will do.”

  And he did. People who work in television are forever trying it on with me, it’s just the way it is.

  “You know me Andy – I’ve never rested on a laurel in my life. I’m always swerving artistically and subverting the status quo and I’m not talking about the band who are great unless you don’t like them in which case they’re shit. It’s your choice, Andy, I’m a socialist.”

  “But you saved the Discovery Channel with your genre redefining documentary presentation of Violent Nation which showed up all the other has-beens who present documentaries on it for the dregs and the dross that they are.”

  “I always do the unexpected Andy Harries. Whoops! You didn’t expect that, did you? Bet that hurt.”

  “Why did you punch my secretary?”

  “Oh Christ, sorry, I didn’t mean to, it wasn’t me. Have some money. Here, have these blood-stained bits of tenner back. Sorry Andy, look I’ll do anything for you. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. You can get another secretary, can’t you?”

  “I can get what I like, I’m Andy Harries,” said the tormented good looking genius (or Jesus-Christ-it’s-Andy-Harries-hide-your-wallets-and-run-for-it as he’s known in acterland). “But I can’t get The Rik Mayall.”

  “The thing is, Andy, it’s a…big world out there and it’s got a…lot of things on it and those things they’re…always changing. One day I’m by your side and the next day I’m by your other side and the day after that I’ve screamed around another media hairpin bend with rubber burning on two wheels and I’m onto something new. And that’s what’s happening right now, Andy baby. It’s my new arts and crafts show, Arthole with The Rik Mayall, on satellite channel 693.”

  “Why do you keep talking in that shit American accent?” breathed Andy.

  “It’s just my er…way, Andy.”

  “You’re certainly a dangerous motherfucker, Rik Mayall, no offence. But I’m not sure about those pauses you keep doing in your sentences with the dot dot dots.”

  “They can take care of that in editing, can’t they? You’re the telly man.”

  “No, you sad cunt, this is a book.”

  “Oh fuck! Yeah! Sorry Andy. What was this conversation about?”

  “Rik, ITV is collapsing, we need you back on our station. You’re the only one who can save us.”

  “Don’t do the knees thing.”

  “Okay, I won’t. But I’m still begging you. You’ll just have to pretend that I’m on them. My knees, that is.”

  “Will do, but in the meantime, what have you got in mind, which means what are you thinking about?”

  “I just want you to star in the jewel in the crown of ITV’s fabulous autumn schedule 2005. We are desperate for you to play the heart-throb hero George, in a new hard-hitting award-winning drama film series called All About George.”

  “You’re on.”

  “Great. British independent television is saved.”

  “Less is not more, Andy, less is less. I’m not saving British independent television, I’m saving British television. The BBC’s fucked. You are all this nation’s TV culture has got left – sorry, too American – Telly culture. But hang on a minute Andy Harries, I haven’t said yes yet. I’ve got loads of edge cutting stuff that I’m already committed to like publicising my new Comic Strip movie, Churchill: The Hollywood Years with my great mate Peter Richardson (who always brings out the best in me) and the really edge cutting voice-over work that I am internationally renowned for such as the Andrex puppy and the Anusalve tape worm, not to mention my genre-holocausting new sitcom, The Murderers, that I have written with that great friend of mine whose name escapes me which is the single most dangerous in-your-face piece of television sitcom writing the world has ever seen but is suppressed and censored by the massed ranks of the global media industrial complex who know that if it was ever made and broadcast it would spell the end of civilisation as we know it as well as showing up every other piece of international television comedy for the mindless middle-class arse dribble that it undoubtedly is. So Andy, I’m afraid it’s a “no”.”

  I had to grapple with him to stop him pulling out a gun, putting it to his head and hanging himself.

  “Look, Andy Harries, if it means that much to you why don’t you find some acter that looks a bit like me and put him in it? So long as he’s a total undeniable acting genius, then you can say that he’s me and your problems are over.”

  He fell to his knees.

  “We’ve been here before,” I told him and he stood up again.

  “Thank you Rik Mayall, you’ve saved my life,” he groaned with relief, “I’ll get straight on the phone to Alan Rickman’s people and get him signed up. I’m sure he’ll be only too pleased to undergo the weeks of painful facial surgery. They don’t call you the titan of British broadcasting for nothing, do they?”

  “No they don’t Andy Harries, it costs them a fucking fortune.”

  “Thanks for saving my life.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Bye then, Rik Mayall, all the best.”

  “Bye.”

  And with that he was gone. But that is not what I wanted to tell you about, viewer. So you can forget about it if you like although it’s quite interesting in its own way because everything that pours out of my typing finger is white hot and fascinating. It’s all about peaks and troughs and even my troughs are more interesting than most people’s peaks. Not that that was a trough. Far from it. This entire book is a raging peak. Anyway, we’ll leave it there. I don’t do not leaving it there. It’s just not the kind of thing that I don’t do. And I don’t mean not not. That’s it. In a nutshell or something. Kind of tricky to understand but if you don’t understand it then fuck you. You’ve bought the wrong book. And you’re nearly at the end so it’s a bit late now thicko. Thicko twat. If you want a fight I’m on. My name’s Joan Prescott and I live somewhere around the Houses of Parliament, so if you see me in the street, just start it. I’ll give you twenty quid if you beat me in a fight.

  Now shut up and listen. What I’m going to talk to you about is this. I’ve remembered it now and here it comes, so grab something. Brace yourselves. Listen. Again. Everything good comes in threes.

  I want you to read that again – thrice. Which means three times. For sincronicetitty. It’s important. We’re talking about stuff here that is beyond the ken* of most ordinaries and even super intelligent non-ordinaries as well. But have no fear, viewer, because I will be your guide through this cosmic maelstrom of hi-octane philosophical concepts. I will strip to the waist like that guy in that one with the weird lawnmower who looks like he’s got a hair lip but all the birds fancy him anyway, and I’ll grab the pole and steer our punt [print carefully] through the choppy waters of the high seas of really deep astral-plane-bending thought or something. Oh you know what I mean, you get the general idea. This is big.

  Right. What I’m saying is that all things, all good things come in threes. Have you got that? Remember how I asked you to read that bit back there three times? Well if you did it me
ans you’ve now read it four times. Oh hello, that’s interesting isn’t it? That could be significant. Or maybe, it couldn’t be. Hmmm. Think about it for a moment. I tell you what – wherever you are, take a deep breath. Look around you. Take it all in. Even if it’s shit. It doesn’t matter. Just let the majesty of existence deluge into your soul. Let it soak through your very being. Feels good doesn’t it? Let it shine through the portal of your mind like a blazing arc light across the firmament on a moonless night. Like a – something else that’s great – and then relax. Now find your inner stillness. That’s it. And now that all is calm and at rest, let me enter you, viewer. Feel my spirit suffuse through you. Feel the grace of my cosmic presence as it lights up the dark recesses of your very soul. And yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of enlightenment, you shall fear no one, not nothing, because I am with you, I am in you. Feel me deep inside you pulsating in all my divine glory. And now we are three, viewer. There are you, there are me and there are this book. The book what you are now holding in your very hands (unless it’s balanced on your knees or something). We are all that matters at this moment in time, just as the other great threes were all that mattered at the other great times in the past, in this vast endless universe that we are all destined to wander forever. For all things that mean anything come in threes: the father, the son and the holy spirit. The truth, the light and the way. Brucey, Tarbey and Lynchy. Things that come in threes, things that don’t come in threes, and all the other things that don’t do either. The Young Ones, Bottom, and Rik and Ade’s next one. But finally, here we are. The greatest three of them all. The eternal trinity of The Rik, God himself, and you lot. We are here, at last. Our arrival has finally come. After all these years and epochs and stuff. We are arrived as the three great cornerstones of everything. Time, Space and Meaning. We are the chosen ones. And this book – this good book – no, it’s better than that – this great book, shall be our testament. And we shall know one another by our sign, which is the raising of the first three fingers of our right hand. Like the one I’m doing on the cover if that fucking photographer gets it right. And from this, we shall know our fellow disciples by giving each other the finger – sorry, fuck, the fingers – and spreading our message in unity. We shall finger each other whenever we want for all time.

  Rik is great. Rik Mayall is greater. But The Rik Mayall is a bit even more greater. So go forth, be fruity and multiply. The people who buy this book I mean. Tell everyone to go out and buy a copy.

  My work here is done. The rest is silence. All that remains is dust.

  By the same author:

  Some postcards

  A few police statements

  Occasional letters page in Razzle

  Over 2,500,000 autographs*

  Copyright

  The Publisher wishes to point out that due to ‘contractual obligations’, the author has exerted his right to insist that the text of Bigger Than Hitler Better Than Christ be reproduced ‘exactly like what has come off my typewriter, right?’

  In addition, the Publisher has been prohibited from proof-reading or otherwise editing the author’s text, and as such all mistakes and infelicities are entirely those of The Rik Mayall.

  HarperCollinsEntertainment

  An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Published by HarperCollinsEntertainment 2006

  FIRST EDITION

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsEntertainment 2005

  Copyright © Rik Mayall 2005

  The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © APRIL Year ISBN: 978-0-007-37543-1

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  *Phone my agent Heimi “M.D.” Fingelstein to arrange an audition. Don’t call on Thursday afternoons though cos that’s when he gets his hair done.

  *When I say “ordinaries” I mean the honest normal everyday people who love my work. People like you most probably. And I want you to know right here and now that I love your work too unless you’re not working in which case I love the way you sit around all day watching the telly doing fuck all, blowing off and shouting. Actually, that reminds me of a really good story where…Oh shit, this is a footnote. There isn’t space. Bollocks.

  *I’ve had her.

  †Although I’ve never had a drink problem and I’ve never taken any drugs. Apart from legal ones like painkillers. Although I don’t take many of them because I’m quite hard.

  ‡Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Adrian Edmondson (very talented), John Sessions, Phil Cornwell, who are all my good friends. And who I respect massively. It’s never them. Ever. They don’t beat me up.

  *I’m known for my good dialog.

  *Have you ever tried to count all the programmes there are without me in them? It’s a lot.

  *Be careful, this can be dangerous. I know.

  *No offence.

  *This is Latin.

  *There’s more to this but this isn’t the director’s cut.

  *Teachers are all you’ve got left, kids. Don’t listen to anyone else. Especially the BBC.

  *Don’t tell the publisher.

  *Maybe this should be platinum? Check which costs more.

  *I want to get this sorted here and now. I do not lie about my age and anyone who says that I do is a cunt. Lines in the sand—I will say no more.

  †Or maybe lie down. Or squat. Or, you know—whatever. Look, they can do what they like, okay? So get off my back about it. Who do you think I am, Albert Speer? Get a life. Who cares? I don’t. Bollocks to the lot of you. No, not bollocks, oh look just go back up there and read the rest of the book will you.

  ‡This is a hotelier’s expression which means a room with one big bed and you can smoke cigarettes in it.

  *Rik Tip (and I’m not talking about my penis): If you’re going to do this, don’t write it in lipstick because it’ll get everywhere and might look like she’s bleeding.

  *You have to watch out with me, don’t you. Funny jokes can pop up with me any-old-where. I’m crazy. But that’s enough. Back to the book. Now.

  †Check what this means.

  *I want to make it perfectly clear here that Adrian has never blackmailed me for large amounts of money and taken members of my family whenever I default on the payments. He would never do this. He is kind. And very talented. More than me.

  *
I’m not going to write anything here about shagging Lloyd’s girlfriend and if you see him reading this book then please take it from him and tell him he never saw it and you don’t know what he’s talking about.

  *This is a fashionable term for a motorcycle.

  †This is a happening way of saying they did something.

  *Ever.

  *Note to printer: careful with this. I’ve never done crack in my life. Well, not that sort of crack anyway. Not the sort that you need a pipe for. Although there was that time with Beverly Marwood but that doesn’t count because half the pipe broke off in there and it took us two hours to get it out. Anyway, just be careful and print it as it’s written.

  *Very big thing in those days, viewer. The 70s was the Breast Decade. They were very important for our generation—they still are really.

  *This means the cinema. It makes sense.

  †The very great Brian.