Fans' campaign gets official backing

The council being lobbied to erect a bench in Rik Mayall’s honour has said that it would be open to the idea.

Fans want to honour the comedian with a memorial bench on the spot in Hammersmith, West London, where the opening credits of Bottom were filmed. In just a couple of days, more than 2,000 people have signed an online petition.

Now a spokesman for Hammersmith and Fulham Council say they are up for the idea – if Mayall’s family agree.

He said: ‘The council is interested in this idea to mark the talented comedian's link to Hammersmith and would like to speak to his family at an appropriate time to discuss if they would like him honoured in this way.’

In a 2010 interview with the BBC, Mayall said: ‘Hammersmith is my stomping ground I suppose. And one of the great opening credit sequences was for the telly show Bottom, where you had Richie and Eddie - me and Ade - sitting on a bench.

‘If you were to come to the end of King Street where it meets the big roundabout to get to the Hammersmith Apollo, you'd find that same bench on a traffic island - until one day they took it away and put a pelican crossing in its place. That for me is the worst journey I ever made, discovering what had happened to that bench.’

Last week a spoof blue plaque was erected on the site, saying: ‘Rik Mayall, 1958-2014. Punched his friend in the balls on a bench near this spot’ – and contained a QR code linking to the Bottom opening credits:

Published: 17 Jun 2014