The Bottom line

Critics sneered at Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson's flat-share losers but audiences loved the anarchic sitcom's endless double entendres and cartoon fights. No wonder its comic genius is considered on a par with Only Fools, Steptoe and Son and Fawlty Towers

- BY ANGELA PEARSON and PAUL TANTER

RIK Mayall and Adrian Edmondson's Bottom exploded on to British television in the early 90s.

The anarchic sitcom was violent, rude, disgusting and so uproariously funny that it became an instant hit with viewers at home (but less so with certain snobbish critics).

It was littered with double entendres and fight scenes that left you howling with laughter or wincing - either way, your eyes watered.

When the antics of Richard Richard and Edward Elizabeth Hitler debuted on BBC2 in 1991, alternative comedy legends Mayall and Edmondson were already sitcom heroes, having revolutionised TV comedy starring in cultural phenomenon The Young Ones, which Mayall co-wrote with Ben Elton and Lise Mayer.

Whereas that show personified the idiocy and vitality of youth, Bottom saw Rik and Ade's TV personas evolve into stagnating adulthood, trapped in hilarious arrested development.

Written and performed by Mayall and Edmondson, Bottom was a perfect mixture of rude wordplay and outrageously pathetic plots combined with lashings of the trademark cartoon violence they perfected with their aptly named Dangerous Brothers live double act on stage, where Rik routinely beat Ade, even setting him on fire, in front of crowds dazzled by their unique, in-your-face comedic style that seemed impossible to contain and thrilled audiences with the feeling that anything could happen.

Originally titled Your Bottom, with the silly intent that viewers discussing the show next morning would say, "I saw your bottom on TV last night", a compromise with BBC2 controller Alan Yentob resulted in it becoming simply Bottom, signposting not only the fart gags and toilet humour, with which it became synonymous, but also a clever pun reflecting the status of their characters in the gutter of life.