Читать книгу Bigger than Hitler – Better than Christ - Rik Mayall - Страница 16

Bang, bang, bang, bang, went her head against the toilet door. I’m always doing it with starlets in toilets at film premieres but this film was one of the best I’d seen. I wasn’t in it but it was great all the same, although I did have three lines in that one with what’s-his-name in it – the bloke with the leg – but it wasn’t much to shout about. The main thing is that I’m hard and cool. Like a Kidderminster Bruce Willis.

“Oh Rik, you’re the best.” She could barely speak. Back bottom stuff is always best with American girls.

Bang, bang, bang – her nose went next. I’ve always been such a passionate lover but I thought crikey, I’d better get out of here. There’s blood and teeth everywhere and there’s papperatsi^* all over the place outside.

“Check you later, babe, which is American for cheerio, thank you for a charming afternoon in the toilet. I have to go now.”

“Oh Rik, you’re the best lover ever, I can’t wait to not tell anyone about this and keep our secret safe,” she said. “Thank God British television is so shit nowadays. Everyone will go and see my movie now.”

That’s when my blood ran cold. That’s right, my blood ran ice cold at that very moment. She’s right, I thought. The condition of British television is beyond repair. The art form is dead. A year from today there will be just a vast pyre of useless TV sets as the British public go streaming to the cinema instead. This is a situ-fucking-ation. I left the toilet cubicle like a car bomb and went outside.

“Hey Rik Mayall, give us a smile,” said a papperatsi. Whap! Half his camera went back into his eye socket.

“Leave the fuck me alone, I’m incognito,” I howled enigmally and was gone.

The rain was lashing down and I was looking a lot like Clint. In fact, a lot of people walking past me said, “Hey bloke, you look a lot like Clint, only better.”

“Thanks complete strangers,” I said, and carried on my way muscularily.

“Excuse me sir,” said another one.

“Yes non-entity.”

“Are you going to be Rik Mayall, international light entertainment leviathan?”

“No,” I said.

“Get away.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“No I meant ‘get away’ as in you are going to be Rik Mayall.”

“No, I’m not. I’m going to be The Rik Mayall and much more besides.”

“Blimey bloody crikey, can I have your autograph?”

“Not yet – I am only a partially formed foetus of a comedy legend. Give me a chance.”

“Thanks anyway.”

And that was his fifteen minutes gone. Like that ridiculous blond painter Andrew War Hole used to say. Even though they only lasted about a minute and a quarter.

On I mooded into the nearest pub. I won’t tell you the name of it because it’s important to protect the privacy of pubs. Pubs have far too much unwanted intrusion these days. Anyway, the thing is, huge genre-shifting ideas like The Young Ones don’t just come along like that. But this one did. There I was at the bar ordering a drink:

“I’ll have a pint of hang on a fucking minute – I’ve got an idea. I’ll write a situation comedy.”

Close up on the Rik doing that eye thing. Chicks gasp. Guys slit their wrists. End of shot. I’m young, I thought to myself, there’s one of me, so I’ll call the show The Young One. But no, I won’t be selfish, I am a socialist after all, I’ll put some of my great mates in it as well, and call it The Young Ones. Plural. Good.

I went straight home after another few pints and a donna kebab and I stayed up late writing the first series. I got through nine typewriters that night under the barrage of my relentless unstoppable fingering. They call me Mr Typewriter.

The cock crowed – ooer obviously^* – and I got up the crack of Dawn (nice girl/ooer obviously again) and I got out of bed like a raging undetonated warhead and went straight off to the BBC.

“It’s punk rock, it’s radical, it’s anarchy, it’s four guys in a house together on a one way ticket to oblivion and there’ll be bands – good ones – playing live and it’s just a big two fingers to the establishment, and television will never be the same again. Ever.” Silence. All the television executives looked at me as they sat around the table in their pastel coloured jackets and shirts.

“I know where I’ve seen you before,” one of them said. “Weren’t you that dreadful northerner on that Kick Up the Eighties programme that no one could understand? When you were talking, you didn’t make any sense. You kept going on in that ridiculous accent like you were from Lancashire or somewhere. Who on earth let you make that? Oh it was made in Scotland wasn’t it? They’re light years behind us. They’re just a bunch of alcoholics who wear skirts. They don’t know how it’s done. Now, you mentioned something about having pop music in the show?”

“Yes I did.”

“But that’s a silly idea. Drama is drama and pop music is pop…”

“It’s called rock ‘n’ roll.”

“Well, whatever you silly people want to call it. You can’t put your music into drama programmes. It’s just not done. Now, tell me, you’re not Jewish are you?”

“So what if I am. Are you some kind of racist?”

“Oh no, no no no. It’s just we have to be very careful. Where do you hunt?”

“Oh this is ridiculous.”

“How many bedrooms do your parents have in their house?”

“What?”

“You are Jewish aren’t you?”

“Oh I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to prove this once and for all. Say hello to Mr Todge.” And out came The Behemoth. “That’s what I think of your poncey middle class attitudes,” I said in my West Midlands drawl.

“Pardon,” they said.

“Now listen up, I’m a hardcore socialist. I’m a man of the people. All the people are one and I am one and I am at war with the establishment and my first battle is to get something decent on TV.”

But the mood had changed. There was silence in the room. They all sat there slack-jawed.

“Crikey,” they said after a moment, “do you feint when you read dirty magazines?”

I saw my opening. It was now or never. “Who’s in charge here?” I brooded, my manhood still unfurled like a fire hose.

“Paul Jackson.”

“Okay, I want to see him. Now!” And I slammed my fist on the desk. Ow! Shit!

And out I strod. I didn’t even close the door. Anarchy is my middle name. Rik Anarchy Mayall or R.A.M. to my great mates. Not in a homoey way though. Not that I’ve got anything against the gay – sexual equality is my middle name and I’ve always been a rock hard feminist and homosexualist and some of my best darkies are friends.

Cut to: Paul Jackson’s office (just outside the door). SPLAM! I smashed the door open and walked into the office like a torpedo.

“Rik Anarchy Mayall here, Paul Jackson,” I said but I shouldn’t have bothered because he wasn’t there. I waited a couple of hours outside and read a magazine. I think I had a hot chocolate as well from the drinks machine. Then he came back. I think he must have been out for lunch.

“Paul Jackson, it’s Rik Mayall,” I repeated.

“Rik Mayall, oh my God! I’ve seen you countless times at The Comedy Store and you’re fabulous.”

“No, Rik Anarchy Mayall here, Paul Jackson.”

“Pardon,” said Paul Jackson.

“Anarchy is my middle name. You can call me R.A.M. because I ram everything that moves.”

“Do you mean sexually?”

“I mean anythingly. I ram everything out of the way of alternative comedy.”

“Alternative comedy? What’s that?”

“It’s something I’ve just invented.”

“Shit my pants, you’re the guy I’ve been looking for. Everything at the BBC is so slack and flaccid. We need a guy like you. This is just a sad right-wing old-fashioned upper middle class flat-minded soulless organisation of victorian leftovers that needs a shock of nuclear energy like your own unique brand of originality. So please come and work for us Rik Mayall.”

“Okay,” I said. “Modern television is a wasteland of shit.”

“You’re right it is.”

“I know.”

“I like your balls.”

“Thank you Paul Jackson, I like yours too, but we’ll need some Rock ‘n’ Roll if we want this baby to fly. Don’t you know that there are vital thrusting new bands out there that we need to get on the television like Rip Rig and Panic and other ones as well that I can’t think of at the moment. They need a voice and I’m going to give it to them.”

“So what’s the name of the show?”

“The Young Ones.”

“But that’s the name of a film.”

“Yes, but not just any film. It’s only about the finest piece of cinema ever committed to celluloid. Comedy and pop music together – and so shall it be again. It’s my mission to cure popular culture.”

“My god, you’ve invented post-modernism,” said Paul and dropped to his knees.

“No.”

“No harm trying.”

“Try anything and you’re dead.”

“Okay, sorry, but you have to do those sorts of things at the BBC in the late nineties.”

“But this is the early eighties, Paul.”

“Oh shit yeah, sorry Rik Mayall, I think you’re great.”

“Don’t put me on a pedestal Paul. I’m not a god. I’m a socialist, I’m a wide-eyed anarchist at the gates of dawn. So let’s go forth and lightly entertain everybody.”

“Damn right, Rik,” he said and slammed his fist on the table. “Ouch.”

“I’ve just done that one Paul. My comedy’s way ahead of yours.”

“Don’t freak out, Rik, man. It was an homage.”

“Respec Paul.”

“That’s early next century, Rik, man.”

“Oh yeah! Oh fuck all this, let’s stop all this talking and get on with the story.”

“Good thinking Rik Mayall.”

“I’ll do the last line.”

“Gotchya.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

“No! I said, I’ll do the last line, now shut up!”

“Sorry.”

“This is the last line of dialogue Paul, say anything after this and I’m not writing it.”

See?

So I phoned all the non-entities that I knew, told them I was going to give them their first brake in showbusiness and that very afternoon, we made the first six episodes of The Young Ones. The following day I was mobbed. Things happened fast in those days.

Because of the success of The Young Ones, Channel 4 phoned me and said, “Can you invent the Comic Strip please?” It was a busy life. I went home, got some of my typewriters out, dusted off the old finger and I was at it. Then I started writing.