Rik Mayall

Rik Mayall was a British actor and comedian whose work helped define the alternative comedy that emerged in the late 1970s and 1980s. Born in 1958, he met Adrian Edmondson while studying in Manchester and became part of the Comic Strip comedy circle.

He played the self-important student Rick in The Young Ones and later reunited with Edmondson for Bottom. Other roles included the politician Alan B’Stard in The New Statesman, Lord Flashheart in Blackadder and the title character in Drop Dead Fred. He died in 2014, having brought a confrontational, physically exuberant style to television, film and live comedy.