Mayalls first namesake character arrived on British television in The Young Ones, a show he created with his partner at the time, Lise Mayer, and a young Ben Elton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul3U_J37YCc Rick was a caricature of a modern, leftie student: a deluded prat of a boy hated by his housemates who genuinely believes himself to be a working class Peoples Poet. Hypocritical and childish, self-absorbed and thick, Rick was in reality the antithesis of the socialist radical he believed himself to be, a snotty conservative with a small c hiding inside the vegetarian activist he claimed to be. Mayall was a part of an ensemble cast culled directly from the leading lights of the emerging British alternative comedy boom of the eighties. Just as that scene was a sneering reaction to decades of traditional, safe entertainment, The Young Ones was sitcom punk rock, and Mayall was the Johnny Rotten of the group. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwm1xkExlG4 This star-making turn is usually considered to be the greatest of Mayalls career. But weve got one more in mind for the top spot
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
