
Max Kinnings (writer of the forthcoming official Rik Mayall biography) interview
From Talking Bottom by Talking Bottom
December 5, 2025 · 51 min · Episode 78
About this episode
Max Kinnings discusses his work with Rik Mayall and his upcoming official biography.
This week's guest is a man whose professional career has often tighly interwoven with Rik Mayall's. He's a prolific writer of screenplays, novels, video games, plays - and was the ghost writer of Rik's spoof autobiography Bigger than Hitler, Better than Christ. He's currently researching and writing the only official biography of Rik Mayall, due for publication in 2028. It's Max Kinnings! Max chats with us about working with Rik, first on a screenplay and then on the legendary autobiography that took the nation by storm. We also discuss his BBC Radio 4 documentary about Rik, Panglobal Phenomenon, which was based on over 100 hours of archive recordings of himself and Rik chatting about ideas. He shares his memories of working on Rik and Ade's Waiting For Godot in 1991 and on the first two Bottom Live shows, plus of course how the work on the official Rik biography is going! To buy the book "Talking Bottom: A Guide to the Cult Sitcom," our Lamb and Flag & Hammersmith Bugle tea towels or listen to more episodes, click here: https://linktr.ee/talkingbottom
People in this episode
Guest: Max Kinnings
Topics covered
- Rik Mayall
- biography
- screenwriting
- documentary
- comedy
Keywords
- autobiography
- Waiting For Godot
- Bottom Live
- Panglobal Phenomenon
Mentioned in this episode
Products: Talking Bottom: A Guide to the Cult Sitcom, Lamb and Flag tea towels, Hammersmith Bugle tea towels
Books & works: Bigger than Hitler, Better than Christ, Panglobal Phenomenon, Waiting For Godot, Bottom Live, Talking Bottom: A Guide to the Cult Sitcom, Lamb and Flag & Hammersmith Bugle
More episodes of Talking Bottom
- Mark Arden & Steve Frost (The Oblivion Boys) interview · April 17, 2026 · 1h 11m
- The Young Ones S1 E6: Flood · April 9, 2026 · 1h 3m
- The Young Ones S1 E5: Interesting · April 2, 2026 · 1h 16m
- The Young Ones S1 E4: Bomb · March 27, 2026 · 47 min
- The Young Ones S1 E3: Boring · March 20, 2026 · 1h 5m
- The Young Ones S1 E2: Oil · March 13, 2026 · 1h 23m
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