Rik Mayall formed a close partnership with Ade Edmondson while they were students at Manchester University and was a pioneer of alternative comedy in the 1980s.
30 Facts About Rik Mayall
2.
Rik Mayall died suddenly at his home in London on 9 June 2014 at the age of 56.
3.
The second of four children, Rik Mayall was born on 7 March 1958 at 98 Matching Tye near Harlow, Essex, to Gillian and John Rik Mayall.
4.
In 1975, Rik Mayall went to the University of Manchester to study drama.
5.
Rik Mayall claimed that he failed to get a degree, or that he did not even turn up to his finals, but in reality he graduated with lower second-class honours in 1978.
6.
Edmondson and Rik Mayall gained their reputation at The Comedy Store, from 1980.
7.
In 1986, Rik Mayall played the private detective in the video of "Peter Gunn" by Art of Noise featuring Duane Eddy.
8.
In 1987, Rik Mayall played fictional Conservative MP Alan Beresford B'Stard in the sitcom The New Statesman written by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran.
9.
In 1991, Edmondson and Rik Mayall co-starred in the West End production of Beckett's Waiting for Godot at the Queen's Theatre, with Rik Mayall playing Vladimir, Edmondson as Estragon and Christopher Ryan as Lucky.
10.
Rik Mayall provided the voice of the character Froglip, the prince of the goblins, in the 1992 animated film adaption of the 1872 children's tale The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald.
11.
Rik Mayall's performances won him a Best Comedy Performer award at that year's British Comedy Awards, and a second series of three was broadcast in early 1995.
12.
Rik Mayall provided the voice for Little Sod in Simon Brett's How to Be a Little Sod, written in 1991 and adapted as ten consecutive episodes broadcast by the BBC in 1995.
13.
In 1995, Rik Mayall featured in a production of the play Cell Mates alongside Stephen Fry.
14.
Also in 1995, Rik Mayall provided the voice of Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows.
15.
From 1999, Rik Mayall was the voice of the black-headed seagull Kehaar, in the first and second series of the animated television programme, Watership Down.
16.
In 1998, Rik Mayall was involved in a serious quad bike accident.
17.
In 2000, Rik Mayall voiced around half of the characters for the PlayStation and Windows PC video game Hogs of War.
18.
In 2004 Rik Mayall had a starring cameo role playing the record boss in the video short "ABBA: Our Last Video Ever".
19.
In 2006, Rik Mayall reprised the role of Alan B'Stard in the play The New Statesman 2006: Blair B'stard Project, written by Marks and Gran.
20.
However, Rik Mayall succumbed to chronic fatigue and flu in May 2007 and withdrew from the show.
21.
Rik Mayall provided the voice of Cufflingk in the 2005 animated film Valiant.
22.
On 5 March 2011, Rik Mayall appeared on Let's Dance for Comic Relief in which he came on stage and attacked Ade Edmondson with a frying pan during his performance of The Dying Swan ballet.
23.
In May 2011 Rik Mayall became the eponymous 'Bombardier' in a TV advertising campaign for Bombardier Bitter in the UK.
24.
In September 2012, Rik Mayall starred in The Last Hurrah, a six-episode, full-cast audio series that he co-wrote with Craig Green and Dominic Vince.
25.
On 7 May 2014, Rik Mayall made one of his last recorded performances in the form of poetry and voice-overs read on English rock band, Magic Eight Ball's second album, Last Of The Old Romantics.
26.
Rik Mayall married Scottish make-up artist Barbara Robbin in 1985, and the couple had three children.
27.
On 9 April 1998, Rik Mayall was injured when he crashed a quad bike near his home in Devon.
28.
On 9 June 2014, Rik Mayall died at his home in Barnes, Richmond-upon-Thames, London, following a sudden heart attack after a morning jog.
29.
Rik Mayall's funeral took place on 19 June 2014, at St George's Church in Dittisham, Devon.
30.
Rik Mayall was originally going to be the voice of Newton in 2014's LittleBigPlanet 3, However his death caused Sumo Digital to hire a new actor.