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Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

Bottom Live (The Stage Show)

Rik Mayall & Adrian Edmondson

1993 · 1 h 45 min

A live, uncensored stage extension of the hyper-violent British sitcom.

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Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson take their squalid, hyper-violent BBC sitcom characters to the stage, completely free of television censors. It is a pure distillation of their slapstick dynamic, built on a premise where Richie and Eddie are trapped in their flat dealing with an inflatable doll named Monica, superglue, and a £15,000 inheritance. The performance relies on theatrical structure but remains prone to total collapse. A notable ten-minute sequence features Mayall forgetting his lines and devolving into an extended laughing fit while Edmondson mercilessly taunts him.

Filmed in 1993 at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, this was the first of five live tours the duo would undertake over the next decade. Their sitcom was at the peak of its cult popularity at the time. Moving to a live venue allowed them to heighten the vulgarity and break the fourth wall to directly address hecklers. The plot ultimately ends in accidental marriage and a double electrocution. Mostly, the script serves as a loose framework for the pair to beat each other senseless while navigating their own unscripted mistakes.

The set list

3 bits

  1. Richie buys an inflatable sex doll named Monica and accidentally superglues himself to it.

    Richie attempts to hide Monica from Eddie, but mistakes Eddie's superglue for hand cream and attaches the doll directly to his groin, requiring Eddie's violent assistance to remove it.

  2. Eddie plots to murder Richie for inheritance money after tricking him into signing a marriage certificate.

    Eddie misreads a solicitors' letter thinking Richie inherited £15,000, tries to poison him, and tricks him into signing a marriage certificate masquerading as an adoption form.

  3. The closer (spoiler). Show it

    Richie and Eddie electrocute themselves to evade shared bankruptcy debt. closer

    After realizing the £15,000 is an outstanding debt rather than an inheritance, and that their marriage makes them jointly liable, the duo electrocute themselves.

How it plays

Tone
Anarchic, juvenile, vulgar, crude, violent, and farcical.
On stage
Anarchic, squalid flatmates Richie Richard and Eddie Hitler engaged in explosive slapstick violence, verbal abuse, and desperate schemes.
Pace
High-energy, chaotic physical comedy featuring pratfalls, choreographed fights, and spontaneous ad-libs.
About
squalid flatmate life, sexual frustration, financial debt and greed, slapstick violence, accidental suicide

What the critics said

Praised by fans and reviewers as cult comedy genius, reveling in unrepentant toilet humor, vulgarity, violent slapstick, and anarchic chemistry.

In the room: Packed-out, highly participatory theater crowd reacting enthusiastically to fourth-wall breaks, heckles, and performer Corpsing and line flubs.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: en.wikipedia.org, letterboxd.com, thetvdb.com, ctlgs.org, talkingbottom.podbean.com, grokipedia.com.

Backstory

Conceived as a live theatrical extension of the BBC sitcom to escape television broadcast censorship constraints, enabling cruder language, unconstrained physicality, and direct fourth-wall audience interaction.

Details

Released
Taped
Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
Runtime
1 h 45 min
Director
Marcus Mortimer
Topics

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