{"id":622893,"date":"2026-06-05T15:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T15:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/622893\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T15:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T15:51:09","slug":"young-ones-star-nigel-planer-remembers-extraordinary-rik-mayall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/622893\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Ones star Nigel Planer remembers &#8216;extraordinary&#8217; Rik Mayall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Planer also spoke of the &#8220;long shelf live&#8221; of his character Neil and how he had gone on to become a huge star, releasing Neil&#8217;s Heavy Concept Album and Neil&#8217;s Book of the Dead, while also featuring on Band Aid and supporting Madness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I milked it basically,&#8221; Planer added. &#8220;He got bigger than me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Rik Mayall Comedy Festival is currently being held at and around the Norbury Theatre in Droitwich Spa, where Mayall was raised and first performed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It first took place in 2025 and aims to celebrate the legacy of the late comedian, who died in 2014 at the age of 56.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When asked if Mayall would have liked the festival, Planer said: &#8220;I think this would have suited him quite well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He would be performing every show he could do and, probably, nobody else would be allowed on.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Planer also spoke of the &#8220;long shelf live&#8221; of his character Neil and how he had gone on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-622893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}