One year after catching viewers attention with his alter ego Kevin Turvey on the BBC Scotland sketch show 'A Kick Up The Eighties', Rik Mayall expanded the character in a one-off show created for television entitled 'The Man Behind The Green Door'.
The show was a mockumentary giving us a glimpse into a week in the life of the harebrained Turvey, which included interviews at his home in Latymer Rise, Redditch, with his brassy mother ( Gwyneth Guthrie from 'Take The High Road' ), their lodger Mick ( Robbie Coltrane ) who has recently escaped from the army ( and it is suggested that he is sleeping with Kevin's mother ) and Turvey's friend Keith Marshall ( Mayall's future long-term comedy partner Ade Edmondson ), who was previously mentioned on 'A Kick Up The Eighties'. Roger Sloman makes a brief appearance as a psychotic park-keeper who beats Kevin senseless.
The interviews with Turvey's mother and lodger were hilarious. On being asked to describe her son's personality, she responds: ''He's always been a bit of a loner. A bit of a Clint Eastwood figure, in that people don't like him very much.''. Upon being asked to describe his relationship with Kevin, Mick the lodger gives a surreal statement along the lines of ''I have four pairs of shoes, one brown pair and three black pairs. I'll lend him the brown ones, but not the black ones. I know it sounds peculiar but its just the way I like to live my life.''.
Rik Mayall wrote 'Green Door' in collaboration with its producer Colin Gilbert, who had earlier worked on 'A Kick Up The Eighties' and would later go on to do other shows such as 'Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee', 'Naked Video' and 'Rab C. Nesbitt'.
It was mostly good stuff, with good work not only from Mayall, but from Coltrane and Guthrie too. Only Ade Edmondson's musical item 'Keith Marshall & His Musical Anarchy' fell upon stony ground. Kevin Turvey never received a full series, however. Probably just as well. I doubt very much that the character would be able to sustain a full six-part sitcom. Afterwards, Mayall found greater stardom in 'The Young Ones' and 'The Comic Strip Presents', as did Edmondson and Coltrane.
Funniest bit - in a bid to impress Mick the lodger, Kevin shouts through to the kitchen: ''Hurry up with dinner mum, we're f**king hungry!''. ''Come through here a moment please Kevin!'', asks his mother out of vision. As Kevin walks out of shot to the kitchen, we hear what sounds like a frying pan being hit across his head!
The show was a mockumentary giving us a glimpse into a week in the life of the harebrained Turvey, which included interviews at his home in Latymer Rise, Redditch, with his brassy mother ( Gwyneth Guthrie from 'Take The High Road' ), their lodger Mick ( Robbie Coltrane ) who has recently escaped from the army ( and it is suggested that he is sleeping with Kevin's mother ) and Turvey's friend Keith Marshall ( Mayall's future long-term comedy partner Ade Edmondson ), who was previously mentioned on 'A Kick Up The Eighties'. Roger Sloman makes a brief appearance as a psychotic park-keeper who beats Kevin senseless.
The interviews with Turvey's mother and lodger were hilarious. On being asked to describe her son's personality, she responds: ''He's always been a bit of a loner. A bit of a Clint Eastwood figure, in that people don't like him very much.''. Upon being asked to describe his relationship with Kevin, Mick the lodger gives a surreal statement along the lines of ''I have four pairs of shoes, one brown pair and three black pairs. I'll lend him the brown ones, but not the black ones. I know it sounds peculiar but its just the way I like to live my life.''.
Rik Mayall wrote 'Green Door' in collaboration with its producer Colin Gilbert, who had earlier worked on 'A Kick Up The Eighties' and would later go on to do other shows such as 'Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee', 'Naked Video' and 'Rab C. Nesbitt'.
It was mostly good stuff, with good work not only from Mayall, but from Coltrane and Guthrie too. Only Ade Edmondson's musical item 'Keith Marshall & His Musical Anarchy' fell upon stony ground. Kevin Turvey never received a full series, however. Probably just as well. I doubt very much that the character would be able to sustain a full six-part sitcom. Afterwards, Mayall found greater stardom in 'The Young Ones' and 'The Comic Strip Presents', as did Edmondson and Coltrane.
Funniest bit - in a bid to impress Mick the lodger, Kevin shouts through to the kitchen: ''Hurry up with dinner mum, we're f**king hungry!''. ''Come through here a moment please Kevin!'', asks his mother out of vision. As Kevin walks out of shot to the kitchen, we hear what sounds like a frying pan being hit across his head!