Rik Mayall: Magnificent B’Stard review – Ade Edmondson is still visibly stricken about losing him

Packed with fun memories from Ben Elton and Stephen Fry plus heartbreaking regret from his former partner, the Bottom star is so adored that this documentary risks descending into cringe – but his punky spirit shines through

Rik Mayall: Magnificent B’Stard is a homage to the man and an elegy for what you have to presume were the lost youths of most of the viewing audience. I don’t know what the current youth would make of it. I suppose they’re not watching television anyway, so the question’s moot.

Plus, of course, it doesn’t matter. This is 90 minutes of television for us – the generation that grew up with Mayall on screen as Rick the Poet (“This is my angriest poem – Theatre!”), then self-styled investigative reporter from and mostly in Redditch, Kevin Turvey, then in The Young Ones as anarchist sociology student Rick and on through its less wildly popular follow-up Filthy Rich & Catflap. Then there was his unforgettable turn as Lord Flashheart in Blackadder II (and as the horndog lord’s equally priapic descendant Squadron Commander Flashheart in Blackadder Goes Forth); the unexpected pivot towards a more restrained demonstration of his comic talents as oleaginous, ruthless, corrupt, entirely fictional Tory MP Alan B’Stard in Marks and Gran’s brilliant The New Statesman; a Hollywood punt as Drop Dead Fred; then the huge success of Bottom as a sitcom and a live show throughout the 90s until a terrible quad biking accident in 1998 trimmed his sails.
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