RIK MAYALL, 20/10/00

I only met Rik Mayall once – and I feel genuinely privileged to have done so. The outpouring of frustration, anger and grief following his sudden death in June 2014 was felt again recently on its anniversary. Like many, I felt that he had too much left to do. I longed to see him grow old disgracefully and tackle parts in his own inimitable way well into his old age – but it wasn’t to be.

Rik gave me my first experience of what became known as ‘alternative comedy’ – I’d been brought up on TV shows like Dad’s Army, Steptoe and Son and The Goodies. One night in 1981 however, I witnessed a whirlwind that would blow away all that had gone before – a man called Kevin Turvey.

He burst onto our screens as part of a show called ‘A Kick Up The Eighties’ – each week the self-styled Brummy investigator chose a different subject to look into. His anoraked enraged diatribes became complulsive viewing for the 14 year old me and my mate Damian. Each week we’d telephone one another and go through the monologue with a fine tooth comb – “What about that bit where he drank a pint of Pernod? – just amazing!”

We both did our best impression of Kevin at school and attempted to convince others about his comic genius, but try as we might, no one else seemed to get it.

The following November however, the whole world seemed to get it! I can distinctly remember calling Damian one night so excitedly “Mate! Kevin Turvey’s on the telly again, but he’s changed and he’s with three other blokes in a house and it looks MENTAL!” – and it was… Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan and Alexei Sayle seemed to us to take an almighty axe to the world of sitcom and like the Sex Pistols before them – brought complete Anarchy to the UK!

Rik was one of the first comedians I decided to photograph in 1995, it took years for me to feel I was ready however! My opportunity came in October 2000 when Rik was on a theatre tour. I was still shooting on a variety of second-hand cameras at this point and I waited nervously with my portfolio to show the great man. As he rifled through my set of 10 x 8’s – a mixture of old-school vintage heroes and young pretenders he came upon a fresh image shot that June in  St.Helens.

Johnny Vegas had been starring alongside Terry Titter in Joe Orton’s play ‘Erpingham Camp’. As Joe has been famously photographed by Lewis Morley a la Christine Keeler on the ant chair, Johnny Vegas decided that we would copy the portrait. When Rik came upon this portrait he was furious: “Bastard!” he raged “I’m not having that!” – he promptly ran off, returning with the contents of his dressing room fruit bowl.

 I was completely puzzled!

In an instant, Rik had pulled down his trousers, inserted three oranges down his infamous lucky white pants and began parading up and down the stage giving Nazi salutes as he went. “Shoot this! Shoot this!” he demanded. Rik refused to be upstaged by this young upstart and the pictures that we made were hilarious. As he paused for breath, panting from the crazy cakewalk, I asked Rik to gaze straight into the camera and was able to grab two frames. His hair swept across his face, the pores of his skin wide open and his eyes staring right through me – click – and here it is!

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