British actor Rik Mayall, known to many of us as Rick from The Young Ones, has died aged 56.
“We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Rik Mayall who passed away this morning,” his manager announced in the UK overnight.
His death is not thought to be suspicious.
Mayall was a cult British comedian appearing as Rick in The Young Ones from 1982 to 1984.
He was also Lord Flashheart in Blackadder, Alan B’Stard in The New Statesman, and was Fred in Drop Dead Fred.
In 1998, he cheated death surviving a near-fatal quad bike accident. He suffered a fractured skull and two brain haemorrhages.
The accident left him with epilepsy for which he took medication. He was on life support for five days and doctors were close to turning it off before he suddenly showed signs of life.
Mayall once joked: “I beat Jesus Christ,” he said.
“He was dead for three days at Easter.”
“When I crashed it was the day before Good Friday, Crap Thursday, and I was technically dead until Easter Monday – that’s five days.”
Top Comments
I loved the Young Ones as a teenager and when we watched each episode it was party night where ever we were. My kids loved Drop Dead Fred and I believe one of them called me the Mega Bitch after watching it. Hmmmm. Anyway RIP Rik.
I would hazard a guess that the Mammamia team haven't seen his portrayal of Lord Flasheart in Blackadder otherwise we would be treated to another lecture on sexism. I doubt they would have found his homophobic comments, objectifying women and over exaggerated macho image funny - even though it was a comedy.
LOL. I thought the same.
I watched some young ones and black adder with the kids recently. They couldn't understand the fuss... Youth of today. Sheesh!
Huh? Lord Flasheart was a terrible character, a blatantly sexist narcissist with no redeeming qualities; he was meant to be insufferable. Sometimes you can show characters behaving in inappropriate and unappealing ways in order to comment on or make fun of those behaviours. That's kind of a large part of how comedy works.