8 Years ago today we lost the wonderful Rik Mayall, one of the funniest people to surface from the British Comedy Scene. Being there at the forefront of the alternative comedy scene alongside Ade Edmundson, Nigel Planer, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Peter Richardson and Alexei Sayle etc. etc. Rik played a big in my growing up in 1980’s Britain, I’ll never forget going to school in my early teens discussing the previous evening’s episodes of Young One & Comic Strip. Most of you in the UK will probably remember Rik from among other things: The Young Ones, Blackadder, Comic Strip Presents, New Statesman, Bottom and more recently Man Down. One of my favourite episodes of The Comic Strip Presents is ‘A Fistful of Travellers Cheques’ (1984) in which he played a student alongside friend Peter Richardson on a holiday discovering the life of a 1960’s Spaghetti Western Gunslinger. It’s a great show and it’s HERE on Youtube albeit in ropey quality.
#mentalsidenote – I find it odd to think that on a timeline A fistful of Travellers Cheques is closer date wise to the movies it was mimicking than it is to the present day.
