Adrian Edmondson - Extended Edit

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is an extended version of a programme first broadcast on Sunday 17 September 2023.

Adrian Edmondson first shot to national fame in 1982, playing the studded punk Vyvyan in the TV sitcom The Young Ones, set in a seedy student flat. The cast largely came from the developing alternative comedy scene, and included Rik Mayall and Alexei Sayle.

Adrian was born in Bradford in 1957. He spent time as a child in Cyprus, Bahrain and Uganda, following his father who worked as a teacher for the armed forces. He attended a boarding school in Yorkshire from the age of 11, where he often rebelled against its rules and restrictions, but enjoyed performing in school plays.

He headed to Manchester University to study drama, where he soon met Rik Mayall. They bonded over their shared interests in comedy, double acts, violent slapstick and the plays of Samuel Beckett. It was the start of a long performing partnership and friendship, which included the anarchic TV comedy and long-running touring show Bottom and a production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot on the West End stage.

Adrian has also worked widely as an actor and musician, including an acclaimed appearance as Scrooge for the RSC, and performances with the reunited Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

Adrian married Jennifer Saunders in 1985, and they have three daughters.

DISC ONE: Downtown - Petula Clark DISC TWO: A Song of the Weather - Flanders & Swann DISC THREE: Sugar, Sugar - The Archies DISC FOUR: On My Radio - The Selecter DISC FIVE: Jole Blon - Vin Bruce DISC SIX: Saturday Gigs - Mott the Hoople DISC SEVEN: I’m Bored - Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band DISC EIGHT: Wide Open Spaces - The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Chicks)

BOOK CHOICE: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett LUXURY ITEM: A tab of acid CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Wide Open Spaces - The Chicks

Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.
0:06.0	I'm Siddhartha Cesset, an assistant commissioner of Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:11.0	I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of
0:13.7	podcasts on all sorts of subjects, relationships, identity, comedy, even one
0:18.9	that mixes poetry, music and inner city life. So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next
0:26.1	fact checking, a feature and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its
0:31.5	audience and maybe that's you. So if you like this
0:34.6	podcast check out some others on BBC Sounds.
0:39.4	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts.
0:43.0	PODCasts.
0:44.0	I'm Lauren Levern and this is the Desert Island Disks Podcast.
0:47.0	Every week I ask my guest to choose the 8 tracks, book and luxury
0:51.0	they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:55.2	And for Wright's reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.
0:59.7	I hope you enjoy listening. My castaway this week is the comic, actor and musician Adrian Edmondson.
1:27.0	He rose to fame in the BBC sitcom The Young Ones and as part of the creative team behind the comic strip,
1:32.8	along with friends and co-stars Alexi Seale, Ben Elton and Jennifer Saunders who he later married,
1:38.3	he ushered in a new wave of British comedy and his anarchic chemistry with rig mail made him a star.
1:44.9	After the young ones they dialed up the slapstick and created something even grottier, bottom.
1:50.6	Some critics were horrified but the show was, appropriately enough, considering the amount
1:54.6	of frying pan-based violence it depicted, a big hit. The Becket-like bleakness of their double
2:00.3	act was no accident. The two had bonded over the playwright when they first
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -151 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.