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Summary[]

Bottom Live 2003: The Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour is the fifth and final live show based on the sitcom Bottom. The show recorded for the DVD release was filmed in the Cliffs Pavilion Theatre in Southend in 2003, approximately ten years after the first live show. The tour itself was ambitious, with 52 shows over the course of only three and half months across the UK, with one performance in the Irish Republic. It could be considered as Richie and Eddie's swan song as it was the last project that Rik and Ade worked together on as these characters.

The Plot[]

Act 1[]

Richie needs a poo, but he can't "tip his skip" because Eddie has been locked in the bathroom for 15 days. Finally managing to burst in, he cannot find the toilet bowl, and Eddie emerges from a large industrial device in the centre of the room to tell him that "the toilet is no more!" Over the course of the first act, Eddie reveals he has been inventing various contraptions during his fortnight of lavatorial solitude, including a tattoo remover, an industrial vacuum cleaner, some weapons-grade lager and a time machine. Stepping into the time machine, the boys end up in a dark and lonely corner of time and space, unable to find a way back home.

Act 2[]

0

The TURDIS.

Trapped in a strange and dark netherworld, Richie and Eddie devise a plan to re-energise their time machine, The Turdis, with the power of friction. Generating friction in a manner only Richie knows (masturbation) the boys reach a point in time and space where they discover the meaning of life - pants. In honour of an enormous pair of floating y-fronts, Richie and Eddie once again perform the Pants Song before the curtains fall one last time.

Bloopers[]

During a fight scene in the first act, Ade swings a mallet at Rik but slips and falls onto his back. Rik immediately breaks character and laughs but is interrupted by an erroneous fart noise from the sound man, distracting them both from the gaffe which allows them to carry on.

During the first act Rik forgets his next couple of lines and breaks character by asking Ade "Eddie! You know, mate-mate to mate......What's my next line?"

In the second act, Rik and Ade are required to put on a pair of y-fronts each in preparation for the upcoming song. As with the previous live show, both fail to put them on in time for the introduction music to finish and they both have to repeat the scene again.

In the scene where Eddie is reading from the journal of Peregrine Richard Ade ad-libs an extra symptom of "anal leakage" making Rik laugh and complain "I don't remember him (Peregrine) being that ill last night!". Ade managed to make himself nearly laugh as well, and continues the ad-lib by claiming Peregrine is "communicating from beyond the grave".

In the Plymouth Pavilions show, only the second performance of the tour, Rik forgets his lines within the first few minutes of the play, disappears off stage and returns with a copy of the script to much mocking from Ade. In the same show, Ade also accidentally hits Rik with a cricket bat.

Late into Act Two, a couple of male audience members begin shouting abuse at Rik and Ade. Both are amused at the remarks and turn the break-in-play on its head by suggesting that, due to the disruption they are causing, there are now several thousand people in the auditorium who now want to "kick their (the hecklers) teeth in."

It appears Rik and Ade are guilty of staging some of their bloopers - both the Plymouth and Southend shows contained the same or similar bloopers. 

After reviving their characters from The Young Ones Rik says to Ade "You er......you haven't changed your material really have you Eddie?", making Ade pause as he tries to hold back a laugh.

Trivia[]

  1. "GMTV", the name which Eddie applies to his home brew, is a reference to the British daytime TV show Good Morning Television. Although now very popular, the show had had a rocky start from its inception in 1993 and was generally considered "crap".
  2. In Act Two, Rik and Ade temporarily resurrect their Young Ones personalities for the first time in over twenty years.
  3. The show marks the only time, across all the episodes and previous live shows, that the viewer sees Richie's bottom. For the benefit of the audience, he gives them a quick look at it whilst his trousers are around his ankles following his harrowing/enjoyable experience on The Evacuator.
  4. Merchandise for the tour included a large glossy booklet featuring a short story from Rik and Ade accompanied by photographs of the two brandishing all manner of heavy weapons. Other merchandise included beer glasses with the GMTV logo on.
  5. The time-travelling toilet, coined the "Turdis," is of course a reference to the Doctor's own time-machine, the Tardis from Doctor Who.
  6. With the death of Rik Mayall in 2014 Weapons Grade Y-fronts marks the last ever Bottom show as well as the last time both Rik and Ade worked together.
  7. The tour featured some very ambitious practical effects, including a gag where Richie's arm gets shredded and then reconstituted.
  8. The final scene implies that both Richie and Eddie have ascended to a strange netherworld having truly discovered the meaning of life. Although the two have played loosely with the continuity of these characters, this plot device hints that there was really no way back nor forwards for them, and that this show was really planned as the last ever adventure for Richie and Eddie.
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