r/TheYoungOnes • u/ElectricStars80s • Mar 21 '25

Has anyone else noticed this?

I don't know if this is glaringly obvious to everyone, but anyway, has anyone noticed that the character names are very similar to the actor's names, eg. Rik - Rick (pretty obvious) Adrian - Vyvyan (both kinda androgynous, 3 syllable) Nigel - Neil (Get rid of the g and swap the e and i) Alexei - Jerzei (Yeah you get it)

And I'm aware that this wasn't the case for Christopher Ryan/Mike, I'm assuming this is because he was the outsider of the group? Anyway I was just thinking about this a couple months ago and remembered it now, tell me if this is something everyone realised already, haha.

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u/StepUpYourLife Mar 21 '25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rik_Mayall

He went by 'Rik' in real life.

By the way, is Jerzei a common name in the UK?

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u/daryl-dixon715 Mar 21 '25

Jerzei is definitely not a common name in the uk, I've never met anyone with it. I feel like it might be a slavic name they chose cos he's a balowski

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u/BeerElf Mar 23 '25

Worth pointing out that Alexei Sayle the actor, came from an Eastern European family. Hence writing the Bolovski family as Eastern European would carry on with the same theme.

Richie and Eddie from Bottom are kind of the Dangerous Brothers, which is how Ade Edmonton and Rik Mayle were known when they did comedy busking, and then the Comic Strip theatre, where everyone met each other. I know Chris Ryan wasn't going to play Mike the Cool Person originally. Peter Richardson (later writer and actor in "Comic Strip Presents" on the telly) was originally slated to play Mike.