Sad news has just broken via the BBC that Rik Mayall, beloved British comic actor, known for his irreverent, often outrageous style has died, according to his manager. There are no details concerning the cause of death yet, but Mayall was only 56 years old. Mayall will be most fondly for his performance in seminal British comedy The Young Ones, which cemented him and his fellow players as the cutting edge of the alternative comedy movement, as well as the creation of memorable grotesques like Alan B-Stard in The New Statesman and Richie opposite long-term collaborator Adrian Edmonson ingloriously obnoxious cult sitcom Bottom. He also rightly stole every scene in Blackadder as anti-hero Lord Flashheart. In film terms, Mayall starred in Drop Dead Fred as a grotesque imaginary friend opposite Phoebe Cates, and was unjustly cut from the Harry Potter franchise when Peeves the Poltergeist was deemed surplus to requirements. Most recently, Mayall starred opposite Greg Davies - a comic whose routines and stage persona owes a lot to Mayall's influence - in Man Down, as well as reprising his role as Gideon Pryke in Jonathan Creek. He leaves a wife and three children. RIP Rik Mayall 1958-2014.
