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Life is a litany of loss.
This has been a bad year for English comedy. First to go was Roger Lloyd Pack of Only Fools and Horses and Vicar of Dibley fame and now, unbelievably, unbearably, far too son, it's Rik Mayall. I don't usually cry over the death of a stranger, but I'm making an exception in his case.
I first discovered Rik in the second grade when our teacher showed us a supposedly educational new movie about imaginary friends (or that's what some prankster told her anyway) called Drop Dead Fred. It was the first time I heard the word "megabitch" (educational, like I said) and I was immediately enchanted by that insane wall-eyed guy who seemed to defy every law of sense and sanity. It wasn't until years later, though, that I found the really good stuff. The Young Ones, Bottom, Blackadder, The New Statesman, to name just a few, kept me going during the worst times of my own life and always helped to remind me that, despite appearances, there were still people in the world with wild, uninhibited, brilliant imaginations. Rik's comedy creations were violent and relentless, mad and impassioned, unbalanced and sublime. With him must also go all of his unforgettable incarnations. Not just one man has died, but a whole dysfunctional community of cherished friends.
One article after his death has described Rik Mayall as a "one-off talent", a sentiment with which I readily agree. It is a very rare treat to experience something, anything at all, and to have the sense that it is happening for the very first time, that it is absolutely new. In a world seemingly bereft of undiscovered countries, Rik Mayall charted new ground. Although I arrived thirty years late to the party, I can vividly remember the exhilaration I felt when I saw my first episode of The Young Ones. Nothing like it had been done before or even since, at least nothing that reached the same high-water mark of Rik's ecstatic energy. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but no one can deny that The Young Ones was absolutely revolutionary.
This was meant to be a short post, but it's now morphed into a sort of personal essay-cum-obituary. I'm sorry if I've "bored the pants off you", as Rik would have said. More than anything, and this is horribly trite but true, I am grateful to this man for his artistry, for his courage, for his insanity and his humanity, which was always the anchor which kept his sky-high personae from simply floating away.
I can't believe you're gone.
This has been a bad year for English comedy. First to go was Roger Lloyd Pack of Only Fools and Horses and Vicar of Dibley fame and now, unbelievably, unbearably, far too son, it's Rik Mayall. I don't usually cry over the death of a stranger, but I'm making an exception in his case.
I first discovered Rik in the second grade when our teacher showed us a supposedly educational new movie about imaginary friends (or that's what some prankster told her anyway) called Drop Dead Fred. It was the first time I heard the word "megabitch" (educational, like I said) and I was immediately enchanted by that insane wall-eyed guy who seemed to defy every law of sense and sanity. It wasn't until years later, though, that I found the really good stuff. The Young Ones, Bottom, Blackadder, The New Statesman, to name just a few, kept me going during the worst times of my own life and always helped to remind me that, despite appearances, there were still people in the world with wild, uninhibited, brilliant imaginations. Rik's comedy creations were violent and relentless, mad and impassioned, unbalanced and sublime. With him must also go all of his unforgettable incarnations. Not just one man has died, but a whole dysfunctional community of cherished friends.
One article after his death has described Rik Mayall as a "one-off talent", a sentiment with which I readily agree. It is a very rare treat to experience something, anything at all, and to have the sense that it is happening for the very first time, that it is absolutely new. In a world seemingly bereft of undiscovered countries, Rik Mayall charted new ground. Although I arrived thirty years late to the party, I can vividly remember the exhilaration I felt when I saw my first episode of The Young Ones. Nothing like it had been done before or even since, at least nothing that reached the same high-water mark of Rik's ecstatic energy. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but no one can deny that The Young Ones was absolutely revolutionary.
This was meant to be a short post, but it's now morphed into a sort of personal essay-cum-obituary. I'm sorry if I've "bored the pants off you", as Rik would have said. More than anything, and this is horribly trite but true, I am grateful to this man for his artistry, for his courage, for his insanity and his humanity, which was always the anchor which kept his sky-high personae from simply floating away.
I can't believe you're gone.