Richard Michael "Rik" Mayallwas an English comedian, writer, actor and voice-over artist... (wikipedia)
It's difficult for me, to look into eyes of a journalist and trust him to present it as you say.
Other people get moody in their forties and fifties - men get the male menopause. I missed the whole thing. I was just really happy.
I ought to be groovy and be able to say the enemy is this and the enemy is that... but I've never been very good at... I don't want to have to answer questions I don't know the answer to properly. I have an opinion.
I had a very happy childhood, happy teenage years and I was famous by the time I was 22. A charmed life.
I don't have moments of weakness. I'm Rik Mayall.
Words on the page don't have the same impact as somebody saying the words to you.
I don't want people to know who I am.
When you're an experienced celeb - which I am - you sometimes just need a bit of space, when you're not 'on'. I'm always on!
With an audience it's now, there are no editors around. It's just me and the audience and it's what I like best.
You perform for a different audience each night. People who don't understand just think that you go out there every night and do the same thing, but you don't - you have to find out who they are and give it to them.
I would love to do more on the stage; having actual contact with the audience is great. You can give them a good seeing to!
I am a global light entertainment phenomena, so how can I remember everything?
We'll wait until the next thing comes along and we shall do another thing - probably about being old.
With 1,000-seater venues, rather than 5,000-seaters, there are richer opportunities for sucking the audience in.
Bigger Than Hitler is because I made so many more sitcoms than Hitler ever made. It's just vast. Videos of me have been watched in countries that weren't invented when he was around. It's just a fact of who I am.
I live on the limit, Vyvyan. The limit, because I'm a rider at the gates of dawn and I take no prisoners!
I was brought up to be a good boy and proud of myself so I suppress all the things about me that are bad.
On stage you can group 200 people together and scare them or embarrass them or whatever. You can't do that on TV. You have to use the conventions, that's why Kevin (Turvey) works so well.
I was in a coma for five days - I was dead longer than Jesus before he was raised from the dead.