RikMayall

His big break came performing with comedy partner Adrian Edmondson as '20th Century Coyote' at The Comic Strip Club, which led to various roles in the cult television hit The Comic Strip Presents…

Mayall is most famous for his role as the obnoxious poetry-writing, Cliff Richard fan/ sociology student Rick in the anarchic sitcom The Young Ones, which he co-wrote with Lise Mayer and Ben Elton and starred in alongside Edmondson.

The show was the perfect vehicle for their extreme slapstick violence, crude juvenile humour and eccentric characters.

It also set the tone for their later sitcom Bottom, which rivalled the show in its cult status, vulgar schoolboy humour and cartoonish violence, which often involved fires, explosions, and causing eye-watering pain to each others knackers.

Mayall is also known for his role as Tory MP Alan B'stard (the name said it all) in the wickedly biting ITV satire The New Statesman (1986-1992).