Television series
Bottom
- Comedy
- Strange
Two desperate, unemployed, sexually starved flatmates smash bottles, chairs and each other's skulls in pursuit of a pint, a shag, or just a Friday night that doesn't end in humiliation. Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson turn poverty and male stupidity into slapstick opera. It's crude, cartoonish, gleefully nihilistic — built for anyone who finds pain the funniest sound effect in television.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like your comedy loud, filthy and physically reckless, and find the cruelty between two broke, dim flatmates funnier than it has any right to be.
Skip it if you need characters who grow or a plot to follow, because these two barely change and the violence is constant enough to wear down anyone who wants gentle wit.
What it asks of you: Half-hour episodes played at full tilt; you have to keep up with the frantic shouting and slapstick rather than sit back and wait for jokes.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Young Ones1982
Mayall and Edmondson's first double act, four students sharing a house that's basically a war zone. This is the blueprint for everything Bottom does, only younger and marginally less bleak.
But It's rougher and more sketch-show chaotic, and the era's music-video interludes haven't aged well at all.
Filthy Rich & Catflap1987
The missing link between The Young Ones and Bottom — same duo, same anarchic energy, this time playing failed showbiz has-beens instead of students.
But Only six episodes exist and it's harder to find, and it feels more like a rough draft than a destination in itself.
Father Ted1995
Different accents, same engine: men trapped together, absurd escalation, and a genius for turning humiliation into pure joy — gentler violence, identical appetite for disaster.
But It's warmer and far less physically brutal — if you came for the smashing, this will feel almost too kind.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Bottom
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Waiting for Godot2001
Strip away the violence and the vocabulary and Bottom is running Beckett's engine: two men, one relationship, endless failure to escape each other or the day.
Two men waiting, bickering, threatening each other, forever failing to leave. Beckett's 1953 play is the granddaddy of two idiots trapped together in circular despair, filmed here with real bite.
But No frying pans, no swearing, and the comedy is existential rather than slapstick — it demands patience Bottom never asks for.
More like this (7)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia2005
American cousins to Richie and Eddie — awful people doing awful things to each other with total commitment, for decades, never once growing up.
But Bigger cast, longer seasons, and a meaner streak that can tip from farce into something closer to actual cruelty.
Peep Show2003
Two useless men sharing a flat and slowly destroying each other, filmed from inside their own skulls — a quieter, more painfully honest cousin to Bottom's chaos.
But It's subtler and sadder than violent, so if you want slapstick this will feel like a comedown.
The Inbetweeners2008
Same DNA of humiliation and male stupidity, just younger and hornier — the schoolboy edition of Richie and Eddie's endless failure to get laid.
But It's tamer and more conventionally sitcom-shaped, missing the surreal, cartoonish extremity that makes Bottom feel like nothing else.
Man Down2013
Greg Davies at his most disaster-prone — a man whose life collapses in increasingly stupid, painful ways, told with the same gleeful cruelty toward its hero.
But It's a one-man show rather than a duo, so you lose the specific pleasure of watching two idiots wreck each other.
Blackadder1983
Rik Mayall turns up gloriously as Lord Flashheart, and the show shares Bottom's love of savage wit dressed up as historical farce.
But It's far more verbal than physical, and the period setting is a world away from Richie and Eddie's grim bedsit.
Jackass2000
Bottom's violence is choreographed cartoon slapstick; Jackass strips away the fiction and does it for real, with the same gleeful worship of physical stupidity.
If Bottom's violence makes you laugh, here it's real, unscripted, and inflicted on willing volunteers — the purest, stupidest descendant of watching men hurt themselves for a laugh.
But There's no plot, no character, no wit beyond the dare itself — pain as pure spectacle rather than comedy of despair.
The Trip2010
Same double-act architecture — one deluded, one long-suffering, both trapped by pride — just relocated from squalor and violence to restaurants and repressed sadness.
Two men on a road trip, sniping and competing and secretly needing each other — Coogan and Brydon fight Richie and Eddie's ego war with wine pairings instead of head-butts.
But It's improvised and almost entirely verbal — nobody gets hurt, and the laughs land quieter and more melancholic than you'd expect.
People
Cast
Writing
- Adrian EdmondsonCreator
- Rik MayallCreator
Recommended by
The Goodies, Withnail & I, The Young Ones, Filthy Rich & Catflap, Happy Families, Blackadder's Christmas Carol