User Reviews

One year after catching viewers attention with his alter ego Kevin Turvey on the BBC Scotland sketch show 'A Kick Up The Eighties', Rik Mayall expanded the character in a one-off show created for television entitled 'The Man Behind The Green Door'.

The show was a mockumentary giving us a glimpse into a week in the life of the harebrained Turvey, which included interviews at his home in Latymer Rise, Redditch, with his brassy mother ( Gwyneth Guthrie from 'Take The High Road' ), their lodger Mick ( Robbie Coltrane ) who has recently escaped from the army ( and it is suggested that he is sleeping with Kevin's mother ) and Turvey's friend Keith Marshall ( Mayall's future long-term comedy partner Ade Edmondson ), who was previously mentioned on 'A Kick Up The Eighties'. Roger Sloman makes a brief appearance as a psychotic park-keeper who beats Kevin senseless.

The interviews with Turvey's mother and lodger were hilarious. On being asked to describe her son's personality, she responds: ''He's always been a bit of a loner. A bit of a Clint Eastwood figure, in that people don't like him very much.''. Upon being asked to describe his relationship with Kevin, Mick the lodger gives a surreal statement along the lines of ''I have four pairs of shoes, one brown pair and three black pairs. I'll lend him the brown ones, but not the black ones. I know it sounds peculiar but its just the way I like to live my life.''.

Rik Mayall wrote 'Green Door' in collaboration with its producer Colin Gilbert, who had earlier worked on 'A Kick Up The Eighties' and would later go on to do other shows such as 'Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee', 'Naked Video' and 'Rab C. Nesbitt'.

It was mostly good stuff, with good work not only from Mayall, but from Coltrane and Guthrie too. Only Ade Edmondson's musical item 'Keith Marshall & His Musical Anarchy' fell upon stony ground. Kevin Turvey never received a full series, however. Probably just as well. I doubt very much that the character would be able to sustain a full six-part sitcom. Afterwards, Mayall found greater stardom in 'The Young Ones' and 'The Comic Strip Presents', as did Edmondson and Coltrane.

Funniest bit - in a bid to impress Mick the lodger, Kevin shouts through to the kitchen: ''Hurry up with dinner mum, we're f**king hungry!''. ''Come through here a moment please Kevin!'', asks his mother out of vision. As Kevin walks out of shot to the kitchen, we hear what sounds like a frying pan being hit across his head!

Unlike most Rik Mayall fans, I prefer his early Dangerous Brothers and Comic Strip work to his later shows such as "The New Statesman". I adore his "20th Century Coyote" routines in which he berates the audience and hollers at them to "SHUT UP!" while he tries to read outrageously bad poetry. I'm also a big fan of his writing, in such shows as "The Young Ones", "The Comic Strip Presents", and even the crass but deceptively interesting "Bottom". Maybe that's why I'm able to really enjoy this unique show and give it its proper due.

The character of Kevin Turvey is delightful and unlike any of Rik's other roles. Kevin is a ridiculously literal fool, an overgrown child who takes everything far too seriously without ever realizing how silly he is. He lives with his mother and their "lodger" (wonderfully played by Robbie Coltrane), and has somehow convinced some friends with a camera to film him doing "investigative reports" around his hometown. He chooses to investigate burning issues like whether or not the park employee that posted the "keep off the grass" sign had to actually keep ON the grass to post it, or if they employed a system of strings and pulleys instead. Absolutely mad.

Much like Alan Partridge, Turvey proudly invites you to share in his pathetically boring life because he actually thinks it's pretty neat. He babbles endlessly, talking in bigger and bigger circles until he has completely lost any thread of logic, throwing out stranger and stranger ideas, and it's impossible to guess what he might say next. For example: an idle comment about the eating of frogs' legs turns into a detailed argument about how they manage to take care of the legless frogs afterwards (do they get little wheeled carts or do they just stay in bed?)

There are far too many great moments to list here, from his interminable trip to London to his raucous cover of the song "Downtown", with Coltrane, Ade Edmondson, Simon Brint, and Rowland Riverton. If you like your humor tidy and conventional, this will bore you, but if you like a dose of surreal weirdness with your laughs you should definitely check this out. Kevin Turvey is a scream.

"Kevin Turvey: The Man Behind the Green Door" is a 40-minute fake documentary from almost 35 years ago starring the late Rik Mayall as title character Kevin Turvey. The co-writer (to Mayall) and director here is Colin Gilbert. In general, I have to say this is not really my brand of humour and I felt it dragged on several occasions. Funny moments were certainly not enough, not even for a film under 45 minutes. Still after having watched Mayall's comedy stand-up routine, i must say this film here is better than him on stage. The script certainly elevates the material. I wish I could say something more positive in the light of his death, but I just wasn't entertained at all by this one here. Thumbs down and I don't recommend it, unless you want to see the young Robbie Coltrane.