British Comedy Guide

Rik Mayall Presents

Rik Mayall Presents is one of my favourite comedy dramas. It was broadcast back in the early nineties, and in my opinion, is one of his best projects.

Is anyone else familiar with the show?

Yeah, I remember it. :)
I seem to recall the best episode was when he brought a girl home. (Amanda Donahue) It was a really dark tale, like something Shearsmith and Pemberton would write, but that's all I remember. For some reason, he cut his hand open on purpose.

That was the series where one episode, Dancing Queen, had him at his own stag do and a female stripper (Helena Bonham Carter) was there.

His "stag" friends dumped him on a train to Scarborough I think it was and the stripper was on the train as well.

Then it became a sort of love story between him and the stripper in Scarborough.

Very bitter sweet if I remember rightly.

Start of it here on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d0kkton-Iw#aid=P-tKZuRNro4

I seem to remember a row about this series at the British Comedy Awards (or some awards event).

When the panel met to choose the winner in the various categories Rik Mayall was NOT on the list for best comedy actor for this series.

So even though it was too late to change the nominations for each category a couple of people on the voting panel pushed for adding Rik Mayall to the list and his name was added, and he won.

I seem to remember it caused it bit of a furore at the time.

I vaguely remember seeing the Dancing Queen episode when I was a kid. At the time I assumed it was a film and have never thought to seek it out. Thanks be to Jesus for You Tube.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen this show so I think I'll have to try and find it and see what it's like.

Quote: Fazza @ 11th March 2014, 7:00 PM GMT

I think I'll have to try and find it

https://www.comedy.co.uk/shop/item/158/rik_mayall_presents_the_complete_series_dvd/

:)

I remember watching them at the time and enjoying them. I imagine the idea was to let Rik stretch himself more as an actor, rather than play the one dimensional caricatures he's so brilliant at. It's a shame he didn't do more work like this, in addition to his out and out comedy stuff. Probably wasn't offered it.

Dancing Queen was the one that stood out for me, it was probably the first time I saw Rik underplay a role but he pulled it off well. I'm glad that ITV are repeating it again this weekend.

Yes I watched it again the other weekend. Hadn't seen Dancing Queen for a long long time. When it was first aired I remember enjoying it, it was definitely the episode that stood out. It did look quite dated, mainly due to the style of direction and film quality, however I still enjoyed it.

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