Rik Mayall

If you’ve tended to think Rik Mayall was both very funny and quite annoying, it turns out you’re not alone – because, with varying degrees of tact, that’s what most of the people who knew him suggested in Rik Mayall: Magnificent B’stard. At a time when far too many documentaries about celebrities are celebratory to the point of cloying, this one was, of course, all the better for it. By his own account, Mayall first discovered the joys of showing off in primary school. Instructed to mime in the choir, since his voice was ‘so horrible’, he did so with the wild exaggeration that would remain his speciality. The laughs he got duly turned his boyhood head.