Tales Of Moral Uplift

Rik Mayall, a true legend and genius

Another person I’ve been fortunate enough to work with.

When the director Bob Baldwin asked me to compose the music for something starring Rik I was extremely honoured and rather excited as he’d been a hero of mine since The Young Ones. I wasn’t expecting him to be in drag though!

In this strange and creepy series that falls somewhere between Tales Of The Unexpected and Ripping Yarns, Rik plays the storyteller Ffione Caromody, a thoroughly nasty piece of Victoriana with not a good thing to say about anyone.

I used the theme tune I composed for the show as the jumping off point, and as I had free reign to do pretty much anything I liked I was able to create some much longer cues than normal, which had the knock-on effect of my music radically changing the shape of some of the scenes (hopefully for the better – see the clip below ‘The Land Of Nana’ to see what I mean).

We made a staggering 13 episodes in an incredibly short space of time, and even with limited resources, horrific deadlines and a tight budget I’m very proud to have been part of this series.

RIP Rik, you will be sorely missed.

Tales Of Uplift And Moral Improvement – Theme

Tales Of Uplift And Moral Improvement – The Land Of Nana

Tales Of Uplift And Moral Improvement – Generosity

Comedy series starring Rik Mayall / Alex Kirk / Simon Messingham / Lucinda Raikes

Directed by Bob Baldwin

Produced by Alan Marke