Find Live comedy

Live Comedy in London |
Manchester | Scotland

Adrian Edmondson

Date of birth: 24-01-1957

The son of an armed forces teacher, Edmondson attended Yorkshire’s Pocklington School, before going on to study drama at Manchester University, where he met Rik Mayall and formed the partnership that was to become Twentieth Century Coyote. The pair took a show to the Edinburgh Festival in 1977 and on to London’s fledgling alternative comedy scene at the Comedy Store Comic Strip.

The comedians from that latter venue went on to make The Comic Strip Presents shows for the new Channel 4, and Edmondson starred in their 1985 feature film Supergrass.

That year, he also married fellow Comic Strip performer Jennifer Saunders and the couple now have three children: Eleanor, Beatrice and Freya.

His most famous role is of Vyvyan in The Young Ones, written by co-star Mayall, Ben Elton and Lise Mayer. And in 1983, Adrian toured with Mayall in Kevin Turvey and The Bastard Squad, and their double act The Dangerous Brothers was also a regular strand of Saturday Night Live.

Other credits with Mayall include Filthy, Rich and Catflap, three series of Bottom and the subsequent live tour and in 1991 appeared in the West End production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot.

And solo he appeared in Lawrence Marks and Maurice Gran's Snakes and Ladders, Doctors and Nurses and Jonathan Creek. In 2005, he joined the cast of hospital drama Holby City.

In 1996, he wrote his first – and so far only – novel The Gobbler. And he has directed pop videos for The Pogues’s Fiesta, Zodiac Mindwarp’s Prime Mover and 10,000 Maniacs’ Like The Weather.

He has more latterly been touring the UK with his band The Bad Shepherds; and in 2014 appeared in the West End play Neville's Island.

Retweet: Second series for Adrian Edmondson's birding show

Comic reunited with Samuel West

Samuel West and Adrian Edmondson are to make a second series of their birdwatching series for 5.

Six more hour-long episodes of Sam & Ade Go Birding are now in production by programme-makers Frank Films.

Across the series, West and Edmondson will visit the hills and sea cliffs of Yorkshire, the wilds of West Wales, and the remote isles and coastlines of Scotland, encountering swifts, swallows, curlews, red kites, ospreys, woodland songbirds, puffins, guillemots and gannets.

West said: ’My dastardly plan to get Adrian Edmondson addicted to birding seems to be paying off. Ade said he wanted to see more birds, so I thought we should go and find some. I’m not particularly fond of him, but the birds are lovely.’

Edmondson added: ’More birds, more stunning views, more chats, more trips to the pub - it’s a hard life, but someone’s got to do it.’

The programme takes a leaf out of the Mortimer And Whitehouse Gone Fishing playbook and centres on the friendship between West and Edmondson, with the pair sharing stories about ageing, family and mortality alongside their birdwatching.

Kit Morey, commissioning editor at 5, described the show as a ‘beautiful, uplifting avian adventure’, adding: ‘Sam and Ade have created something truly special - warm, funny, thoughtful and full of wonder.’

Jamie Balment, executive producer at Frank Films, said: ’The first series was such a genuine joy to make, that I feel hugely lucky to have the opportunity to spot more of Britain’s birds with Sam’s knowledge and Ade’s curious eye.’

A broadcast date for series two is yet to to be announced. Rob Gill is series director.

Published: 11 Aug 2026