Team Fred

I’m Team Fred and I like this movie. I don’t love it, but I like it. I love Rik Mayall (MAY-ul) and have seen literally everything he’s ever appeared in, as should everybody. He was a comedic genius, not only with with eye-gouging, ball-stomping slapstick, but also with deeply ironic character work. It’s a shame that he’s not better known in the States, because he really was one of the great comic talents of all time. That said, it’s just as well Drop Dead Fred wasn’t his launching pad into Hollywood superstardom, because its failure kept him on English television, where he made Bottom, the undisputed pinnacle of his career. One reason I like, but don’t love, Drop Dead Fred is that the role of Fred, the unbridled id, is wrong for Rik Mayall; this absolutely should have been an Ade Edmondson vehicle. He was Rik’s partner in the Dangerous Brothers and Bottom, and even Waiting For Godot in the West End, and played Vyvyan on The Young Ones. In their comedic relationship, it was Ade who was always the one who did whatever he wanted however he wanted without any shame, screaming every line, while Rik was always the ego-restrained id, a pompous and boastful narcissist with a carefully guarded and largely phony persona who wanted and pretended to live a wild life, but when caught or confronted attempting to feebly do so, would be so embarrassed that he would adamantly deny it and even voice his moral superiority over it. That complex hypocrisy was the brilliance of his characters, and it’s completely absent here. So, when’s Casey coming back to watch Guest House Paradiso? She’d love it...