British comedy veteran of ‘The Young Ones’ and ‘Bottom’ fame Adrian Edmondson sits down with Andrew Mueller to talk about his memoir ‘Berserker!’, his often violent skits with late collaborator Rik Mayall and using humour to deal with trauma. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There are two psychological schools of thought, aren't there?
One is that we're formed by the past and one is that we have our own destiny and we can shape it any way we like.
I think we are formed by the past.
It was very brutal.
It just was brutal.
I spent six years in this place and was beaten up quite regularly by crowed men with sticks.
You have to develop an attitude to it, otherwise you'll sink.
I developed the attitude that it was ridiculous and funny that somehow made me the winner over these brutal men.
Hello and welcome to the Big Interview.
Our guest this week has been a familiar fixture of British comedy for more than 40 years and was half of one of its best loved double acts of all time.
Adrian Edmondson and his longtime collaborator, the late Rick Mayall, were launched to fame by the alternative comedy boom of the early 1980s as members of influential ensemble the Comic Strip and as stars of the uproarious and innovative sitcom the Young Ones, in which Edmondson played Vivian, a lovably psychotic punk rocker.
Edmondson and Mayall later created and starred in the much loved series and stage show Bottom, chronicling the travails of two hapless Hammersmith deadbeats, of which Edmondson's character, Edward Elizabeth Hitler, was marginally the more self aware.
Edmondson has more recently starred in film and television, played in bands and written a memoir of an eventful career entitled Berserker.
I'm Andrew Muller and I spoke to Adrian Edmondson for the Big Interview.
Adrian Edmondson, welcome to the Big Interview.
Well, thank you very much.
Well done for saying my name.
I've been working on that for days.
Do people still get that wrong?
It's just very hard to say.