“I’m working at The Comic Strip. ‘Evening Vernon, Evening Ray!’ I shout. ‘Evening Nigel,’ they shout back. Well, perhaps they don’t know me as well as I think they do, but at least they think they know me.”

Adrian Edmondson celebrates the glorious feeling of belonging as he remembers the early days of working in Soho at The Comic Strip and eating at the Italian restaurant where the waiters do know his name, and his favourite dish.

Across this set of essays, Adrian Edmondson considers moments of personal and social change.

His career has taken him from 20th Century Coyote (punk meets comedy) to The Young Ones to Malvolio at the RSC via Eddie Hitler in Bottom.

Adrian Edmondson studied drama at Manchester University, where he met his comedy partner Rik Mayall. The influence of the absurdist dramatists he studied and his early love for The Goons, The Muppets and Monty Python are all reflected in his comedy practice. He and Rik were part of the first wave of Alternative Comedy where their glorious pursuit of laughter and anarchic performances changed the comedic landscape forever. He starred as Vyvyan in The Young Ones, the series that blasted its way onto our screens tearing into our preconceptions of what television comedy could be.

Adrian has since had a very significant career indeed. A career that has taken him in later years into 'straight' acting as well, at the RSC, BBC TV’s War and Peace and EastEnders, and as a writer of books for adults and children. He has also had an award-winning music career with his band The Bad Shepherds which fused punk and folk. In September 2023 he published his autobiography, Beserker!, the wellspring of which was this series of essays for BBC Radio 3.

Written and read by Adrian Edmondson
Produced by Caroline Raphael
A Dora Production for BBC Radio 3 Show less