Lord Flashheart - Character

Character

Lord Flashheart is boisterous, arrogant and appears very attractive to all the women he comes in contact with. He is extremely popular among his peers, and immediately becomes the centre of attention whenever he enters a room, usually by bursting through a wall in a spectacular fashion. The two Flashhearts are stereotypes of a certain kind of hero (the Elizabethan swashbuckler and the World War I RFC flying ace, respectively), slanted to emphasise the negative qualities associated with such characters such as narcissism, sexism, homophobia, and promiscuity.

Rik Mayall later recalled,

I was surprised when they asked me. Very honouring that they asked me. 'Alright,' I said, 'I'll do it as long as I get more laughs than Rowan.'"

His catchphrase is to shout "Woof!" or "Let's do-oo-ooooo it!" very loudly, while thrusting his pelvis suggestively. He commonly uses sexual innuendoes in ordinary conversation, for example, "Am I pleased to see you, or did I just put a canoe in my pocket?"

Flashheart is inspired in part, in name and personality, by Harry Flashman, the protagonist of George MacDonald Fraser's popular Flashman novels, also a swashbuckling womaniser with an exaggerated sense of "heroism".

Mayall played a Napoleonic War-era character very strongly reminiscent of Flashheart in a 2011 advert for Bombardier Bitter, although the character is referred to as "Bombardier Bedford".