Sick (''The Young Ones'')

"Sick" is the eleventh episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 12 June 1984. The episode features the song "Our House", performed by Madness, the only band to appear on the show twice.^[1]

Plot

All four flatmates are ill in bed, although Rick and Mike seem to faking illness with Vyvyan trying to ease the suffering with vodka, which he later uses to blow up Rick's bedroom, in the form of a Molotov cocktail, to stop Rick complaining. Neil's sneezing fit prompts Vyvyan to send Mike out to get a cure (prompting a joke about The Cure). Vyvyan takes drastic emergency action, involving the use of Rick's laundry bag, and some extreme acupuncture, using six-inch nails. Vyvyan also tries to get Neil to sneeze outside by pushing him through the bedroom window. Neil's snot splatters all over a man's face who is standing in the street. The man's reaction throwing a brick toward the four's house, ends up smashing through the window of a neighbouring house, thus beginning a cycle of violence which results in a street riot, also sucking in musical act, Madness, during the performance of their song, "Our House" (who in unsurprising Madness humour, launch the attacks on each other).

Brian Damage Balowski escapes from his police guard after they are called in to deal with the trouble, and takes the quartet hostage. Usefully, Brian Damage eventually cures Neil's sneezing with a timely headbutt. Just as the four's doom seems sealed, Neil reveals that his parents had arranged to come for tea within a few minutes. A major clean-up operation - with Brian Damage doing his bit, helpfully polishing his shotgun - follows, before Neil's parents knock the door as the riot continues in violent chaos around them. After breaking a wooden chair over Rick's back, Neil's mother complains that the show should be more acceptable, in the manner of a classic sitcom like The Good Life, at which point, Vyvyan gives a highly articulate and vehement outburst against The Good Life by ripping apart the show's title page.^[2] Suddenly, the quartet go into a whole new sitcom involving the cultivation of plants in the back garden. Rick ends up supposedly killing Neil with a spade after he drones on too long about the cycle of plant life, and later buries him in special, grow-anything compost. Neil subsequently re-grows as three separate Neils.

Meanwhile, Rick is being taunted by his own conscience for killing Neil while he slept in his bed and has a nightmare about being on trial by judge Mike and prosecutor Vyvyan, who suggests they decide to hang Rick, when girls shows up and wishes that the "People's Poet" will not die. But first, the girls are going to strip naked for Rick. Rick's conscience wakes him up for having a wet dream when he is supposed to be feeling guilty of killing Neil. Rick later runs downstairs to the living room and tearfully wishes that he would see Neil again, and the three Neils come into the house, which spooks Rick. Just as Vyvyan and Mike enter, the back wall of the house opens up, and Neil's parents and Brian Damage head up a large staircase, milking the audience's applause during the show's closing credits.

Characters

As with all episodes of The Young Ones, the main four characters were student flatmates Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson), Rick (Rik Mayall), (Nigel Planer), and Mike (Christopher Ryan). Alexei Sayle starred as escaped convict Brian Damage Balowski. Brian Oulton and Peggy Thorpe-Bates guest starred as Neil's parents.

References

External links

• Sick at the British Film Institute
• The Young Ones: Sick on IMDb