Richard Richard and Edward Hitler while away the hours with drinking, fighting, letching and the odd money-making scheme.
Bottom is the most British of comedies with its toilet humour, sexual innuendo and the pleasure it takes from seeing its main stars hurt themselves in numerous painful ways. Richie and Eddie are like a filthy and violent Laurel and Hardy as they insult and frequently batter each senseless.
Richie, played by the late comic genius Rik Mayall is a both child and adolescent trapped within a thirty-something man's body. He's almost (Harold) Steptoe-like in his desire to be a bit more refined than he appears, but deep down he is as much of an animal as his mate Eddie. One of Richie's greatest ambitions in life is to finally lose his virginity, but when you get to know the character you see why he is in the position he is in. Mayall's performances as this character contains mesmerising levels of energy, skill and comic timing.
Adrian Edmondson's Eddie is perfect foil for Richie's madness. He is usually either drunk or drinking and takes an enormous amount of pleasure seeing Richie either hurt or humiliated. Much of the harm that comes to Richie is directly from Eddie via a fisticuffs, household weapons or simply Eddie's blunt manner getting them into trouble.
These are a pair of early 1990s, post-Thatcher, recession era British dole scroungers with no interests except drinking, watching TV, attempting to have sex and filling their lives with delinquency to pass the time.
Some episodes introduce supporting characters like Spudgun, Dave Hedgehog, Dick Head, Mr Harrison and Lady Natasha. All these serve the show well to give more variety to the proceedings.
My favourite episodes are 'Gas' (Series1), Holy (Series 2) and Hole (Series 3). Series 2 is the most consistent in my opinion as it has no weak episodes. Series 3 is mostly strong with a couple of slightly weaker ones. Series 1 for me loses its way a bit in the middle, but picks up again towards the end.
A word of warning - the show contains lots of crude and misogynistic behaviour from the main characters. Take heart though, the audience is meant to be laughing at them and not with them. Ridiculing their outrageous behaviour is the point of it all.
