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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.

British comics win at New York radio awards

Golds for Darren Harriott, Mary Bourke, Adrian Edmondson and The Skewer

Shows from Darren Harriott, Mary Bourke and Adrian Edmondson were among the gold winners at the New York Festivals Radio Awards.

The Skewer, Radio 4’s satirical audio mash-up programme, was named best comedy, and scooped two other ‘gold towers’ for sound art and editing.

It is the brainchild of broadcaster Jon Holmes and is made through his production company Unusual, which had a good night at the ceremony.

The firm also made Darren Harriott’s Father Figuring, which won gold in the social issues category, and Mary Bourke’s Who Cares?. which won in the health and medical category. The latter examined he world of being a carer that the comedian was plunged into when her husband, fellow stand-up Simon Clayton, had a stroke.

Fantasy Park: 50 Years On, a documentary about a fictional 48-hour music festival genuinely aired by nearly 200 US radio stations, won another gold for Unusual, this time in the arts and culture section.

Meanwhile, Edmondson’s play Waiting For Waiting For Godot – pictured – won a gold for audio drama.

The piece revolved around a group of actors waiting to go on stage to perform the Samuel Beckett classic, but left in limbo when Boris Johnson urges people to stay at home because of the growing threat of Covid. And the one person who can answer questions about the fate of the stage production isn’t showing up.

It also starred Simon Callow, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Edmondson’s erstwhile Young Ones co-star Christopher Ryan and was directed and produced by Caroline Raphael for Dora Productions.

All the winners mentioned here were made for Radio 4 and are still available on BBC Sounds, while Bourke’s Who Cares? begins a repeat run on Radio 4 from 9.45am tomorrow.

Published: 24 May 2026