Try, if you can, not to feel emotional when reading the following written by Rik Mayall’s youngest daughter Bonnie.

“We will never forget the man, and neither will the world,” she tweeted.

“RIP to the man, the myth, the legend – my wonderful, generous, foul-mouthed and hysterical father. We will never forget him and neither will the world. We love you daddy.”

Too right!

There was genuine, palpable shock last week when news broke that Rik Mayall had died aged just 56.

A short life, but he certainly did pack it in, and changed the landscape of television in the process.

He made his leap into fame with his break-out role acting in and writing The Young Ones. This slap-bang-wallop depiction of British youth culture was a curveball hit, and made Rik a star across the pond. Presumably the American viewers, probably as sick of being stereotyped as humourless as much as we’re sick of being labelled as uptight, lapped it up. Remember: this was the glossy, greed-is-good Thatcherite 1980s, when Britain (punk aside) was pumping out the equivalent of a musical enema with bands like Wham!

A healthy dose of disgusting, anarchic couldn’t-give-a-toss comedy went down a treat.

Creating violent punk Vyvyan, spaced-out hippie Neil and poetry-scribbling pseudo-anarchist Rick, The Young Ones swerved the obvious move: to pour scorn on the Dark Overlord Margaret Thatcher and instead mock the liberal anti-establishment lefties (such as those you might find at, er, the BBC). Sample quote from Rick: “Neil, the bathroom’s free. Unlike the country under the Thatcherite junta.”

However, while people getting all nostalgic over The Young Ones are really showing their age, comedy – which usually doesn't stay fresh for long – is still pertinent now where Rik is concerned. As MP Alan B’stard in satirical sitcom The New Statesman, some of his quotes could be trotted out even today and yet have a slight, um ring of truth to them. (“You know the really great thing about a fudged coalition is that neither of us need to carry out a single promise of our election manifestos.”).

Get set for a tidal wave of welcome repeats of Blackadder and Drop Dead Fred on telly schedules, carrying on over the next few weeks and pick a favourite. Bottom is mine: with his pal Ade Edmonson: watching this as a pre-teen felt like a proper naughty treat.

But, despite nearing the brink of death in 1998 when Rik suffered an ill-fated quad bike accident in Devon, he kept two fingers stuck up at anything which took itself too seriously.

A pretty good stance to take in what can sometimes feel like a harsh, brutal world, unless you remember to have a laugh.

Touchingly, and also amusingly, you can see footage of Rik looking fit and healthy larking about on the set of De Ontsnapping [The Escape], a Dutch film in which he plays a gentleman landlord.

“I am THE Rik Mayall”, he bellows at the camera. “Don’t forget I got my doctorate at Exeter University so I am Dr The Rik Mayall, pan-global phenomenon, in Escape.”

It will be hard not miss him.