In pictures: Rik Mayall

Comedian and actor Rik Mayall who has died aged 56 shot to fame playing Rick in The Young Ones.

His comedy career included appearances in shows including Blackadder, Bottom and The New Statesman.

Early in his career, one of Rik Mayall's characters was the socially awkward Kevin Turvey who appeared on TV show A Kick Up the Eighties in 1981

Mayall [far right] appeared as Rick in anarchic sitcom The Young Ones - with Adrian Edmondson as Vyvyan, Nigel Planer as Neil, Christopher Ryan as Mike

He played out-of-work actor Richie in 1986 BBC sitcom Filthy, Rich and Catflap

Rik Mayall stole the show as the swashbuckling Lord Flashheart in Blackadder II

He was back as flying ace Lord Flashheart in the World War One-set Blackadder Goes Forth in 1989

Mayall and Adrian Edmondson played Richie and Eddie in Bottom (1991) - the pair had a long-running comedy partnership

Tributes to Mayall, seen here on Wogan in 1991, praise him as a pioneer of alternative comedy

Mayall, pictured here in 1999, survived an almost fatal accident a year earlier when a quad bike accident left him in a coma for several days

Rik Mayall and Marsha Fitzalan posed as their comic 1980s TV characters Alan and Sarah B'Stard, launching the UK tour of the stage adaptation of The New Statesman in 2006

He was in good form at the British Comedy Awards at 2011 in London

Mayall played DI Gideon Pryke in detective drama series Jonathan Creek - he is seen here in the 2013 episode The Clue Of The Savant's Thumb, with Sheridan Smith, Alan Davies and Joanna Lumley