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
BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast.
Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
And for rights reasons the music is shorter than the original broadcast.
I hope you enjoy listening.
My castaway this week is the comic actor and musician Adrian Edmondson.
He rose to fame in the BBC sitcom the Young Ones and as part of the creative team behind the comic strip.
Along with friends and co stars Alexi Sale, Ben Elton and Jennifer Saunders, who he later married, he ushered in a new wave of British comedy and his anarchic chemistry with Rick Mayall made him a star.
After the Young Ones, they dialed up the slapstick and created something even grottier bottom Some critics were horrified, but the show was, appropriately enough considering the amount of frying pan based violence it depicted, a big hit.
The Beckett like bleakness of their double act was no accident.
The two had bonded over the playwright when they first met as drama students.
In more recent years, Adrian has returned to acting with TV roles in War and Peace, a Spy Among Friends and a much acclaimed appearance as Scrooge for the rsc.
He says it's an enormous pressure being funny.
There are rewards and getting laughs is very nice, but there is a price you pay.
Adrian Edmondson, welcome to Desert Hiding.
Thank you very much indeed.
So Adrian, you've created some memorable comic roles in your career.
I wonder who your comedy heroes were when you were growing up.
Laurel and Hardy.
Laurel and Hardy.
Spike, Milligan, Flanders and Swan.