Mayall's fury at the BBC

Rik Mayall has launched an attack on the BBC – claiming he’s been axed from their channels because he isn’t gay.

The comedian claims the corporation has become overrun with political correctness, which is why it axed his sitcom Bottom.

Mayall said: ‘You have to be black, homosexual and a woman to work at the BBC.

‘That’s why they didn’t like Bottom. They were two men who were heterosexual and that was the problem.’

His comments come despite his role as a founder of the alternative comedy scene that drove old-fashioned sexist, racist gags out of fashion – attracting the sort of comments from the old guard that Mayall is now levelling at the BBC.

Mayall, 47, expressed his anger in an interview with The Sun, possibly intended tongue-in-cheek although that's that's not the way it is presented. In the interview, he blamed former BBC Two controller Jane Root for killing off the show he created with Adrian Edmondson.

He said: ‘She destroyed mine and Adrian’s baby. The last series of Bottom, she didn’t like it.

‘They never made it because she didn’t like it. It was the finest series of Bottom we’d written.

‘The BBC banned Adrian and I from being on TV, for being heterosexual or known to disagree with the Government.’

Mayall is also furious with the BBC for turning down a comedy drama he wrote called The Murderers.

He previously called the script ‘the best piece of television that has ever been written… a naked and very funny attack on television’.

But Mayall claims the BBC were ‘too frightened’ of the comedy.

He said: ‘I feel sorry for the nation that the people controlling TV output are not letting them see it.

‘They didn’t have the balls to take The Murderers which was as good as The Young Ones. British TV used to be the finest in the world, now it’s totally imploded.’

Published: 3 Oct 2005