Andy de la Tour: Rik Mayall & anarchic Fringe days

Rik Mayall wasn't supposed to be on the bill. Ben Elton and I had planned to come to the Edinburgh Festival to do some stand-up comedy and with luck entice a hundred or so punters a night to come to see us.

The Andy de la Tour three minute interview

After a twenty year pause from stand-up, Andy de la Tour went to New York to rediscover his comedy roots. Stand-Up or Die in New York is the story of what happened. Andy was last in Edinburgh 30 years ago with Rik Mayall and Ben Elton. Now he's back.

In praise of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson's Bottom

Grimy, bleak, extremely violent and stupidly funny, Wil salutes the genius of Ade Edmondson and Rik Mayall's sitcom, Bottom...

Rik Mayall: in the company of crazies

The late Rik Mayall was at his most consistently brilliant in The New Statesman.

Rik Mayall mourned at private funeral in Devon

Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and other friends of Rik Mayall have joined his family to mourn the comedian and actor at a private funeral in Devon.

Badults, currently and mystifyingly enjoying a second series, continues to spray out a veritable diarrhoea of terrible jokes that even the Chuckle Brothers would have put a line through at first-draft stage. Like this one: "I'm on the five:two diet. I eat five breakfasts and two dinners!".

Rik Mayall certainly didn't do the show any favours by dying and reminding everybody that Badults is basically a very poor copy of The Young Ones with no Rick, Neil or Vyvyan, but three Mikes.

The main problem with Badults, apart from the script, is that the protagonists - fringe legends Pappy's - are virtually indistinguishable except by their hairstyles. It is a show that would definitely benefit from the introduction of a little character comedy or, failing that, some characters. Jokes, even good ones, quickly become boring unless you have some sort of emotional investment in the people making them.

I have it on good authority that Pappy's are quite brilliant live, but whatever their stage alchemy may be it is signally failing to translate to the screen.

Rik Mayall fans win over council

Hammersmith and Fulham Council has said it is interested in arranging a bench in memory of TV comic Rik Mayall who died last week, following a petition by fans.

Robin Ince prepares to take you In and Out of His Mind

The comedy boffin is pals with Brian Cox, has a TED talk under his belt and loves Rik Mayall.

Letter: Rik Mayall's courage in Cell Mates

I acted with Rik Mayall just once, in 1995, in the ill-fated production of Simon Gray's Cell Mates, directed by Simon himself. After Stephen Fry went Awol, we were all shattered, but no one more than Rik, because the play was virtually a two-hander, with the other three actors, of whom I was one, playing small parts to help tell the story of George Blake and Sean Bourke.