A Kick Up the Eighties A Kick Up the Eighties A Kick Up the Eighties was a 1981-1984 BBC 2 sketch show starring Robbie Coltrane, Tracey Ullman, Richard Stilgoe, Miriam Margolyes, Rik Mayall, Ron Bain and Roger Sloman. The series was created by Tom Gutteridge (producer/director) and Sean Hardie (executive producer). Colin Gilbert was script editor. The show was the first break into television for Rik Mayall, who played the anorak-wearing investigative reporter Kevin Turvey; it was also the start of Tracey Ullman's television comedy career. Peter Capaldi, a trained graphic artist from Scotland, contributed to designing the show's opening sequence prior to launching his
The Black Seal billed as "Himself"); as with his appearances as Kevin Turvey in "A Kick Up the Eighties" (1982), Mayall liked to experiment at this time with a form of performance which blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction and encouraged the audience to believe the action was really happening. His appearance marked his first collaboration with Rowan Atkinson and it was noted that their work together took on a competitive edge; Mayall would dominate the set and preferred to rewrite his own lines. The competitiveness continued into their next Blackadder appearance together when Mayall played the role of the overbearing womaniser,