Adrian Charles Edmondson (born 24 January 1957) is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter, who came to fame as part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s. He and his comedy partner Rik Mayall starred in the television sitcoms The Young Ones (1982–1984), Filthy Rich & Catflap (1987) and Bottom (1991–1995), the last of which was written by Edmondson and Mayall, as well as the comedy feature film Guest House Paradiso (1999), which Edmondson directed and co-wrote. Edmondson and Mayall also appeared in The Comic Strip Presents... series of films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. For two episodes of this they created the spoof heavy metal band Bad News, and for another Edmondson played his nihilistic alter-ego Eddie Monsoon, an offensive South African television star.
He played the lead role in the Comic Strip's 1985 feature film The Supergrass. In the 2000s Edmondson appeared in Jonathan Creek, Holby City, Miss Austen Regrets, as himself on Hell's Kitchen, and created the sitcom Teenage Kicks. He performed and wrote for the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (2006–2007). In 2008 he formed a folk punk band, the Bad Shepherds, singing and playing mandola and mandolin. In 2011 he presented The Dales and Ade in Britain, in which he undertook a tour of numerous places in Britain. In 2013, Edmondson was crowned the winner of Celebrity Masterchef. From 2019 to 2020 he appeared in EastEnders as Daniel Cook, and in 2022 he played Ebenezer Scrooge in the Royal Shakespeare Company's adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
The second of four children, Adrian Charles Edmondson was born on 24 January 1957 in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, to Dorothy Eileen Sturgeon (born 1930) and Fred Edmondson (1929–2014). As a child, Edmondson lived with his family in a variety of places including Cyprus, Bahrain, and Uganda, where his father was a teacher in the British Armed Forces. Edmondson attended Pocklington School, East Riding of Yorkshire, from 1968 to 1975, from age 11 to 18. In an interview with the Times Educational Supplement (TES), he stated that he did not enjoy his education at Pocklington, and that his group of friends considered the school's printed booklet of "endless" behavioural rules to be "a personal challenge to break". Edmondson calculated that during his time at Pocklington, he received a total of 66 strokes of the cane as well as frequent slipperings.
By the time he was in sixth form, with his parents were working abroad, Edmondson began to enjoy himself, "which involved lots of drinking and smoking and petty acts of vandalism." He made some good friends at the school and had a favourite teacher.
Edmondson went to the University of Manchester, to study drama, where he met his future comedy partner Rik Mayall, both graduating with a BA degree in 1978. Edmondson and Mayall became best friends, during this time, they also met fellow student Ben Elton, and soon became involved in the growing alternative comedy genre.
Under the name 20th Century Coyote, Edmondson and Mayall became one of the star attractions at The Comedy Store, and joined other upcoming comedians, including Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, Alexei Sayle, and French and Saunders at The Comic Strip club. The Comic Strip soon gained a reputation as one of the most popular comedy clubs in London and soon came to the attention of Channel 4. Edmondson and the others were commissioned to act in six self-contained half-hour films, using the group as comedy actors rather than stand-up performers. The series, titled The Comic Strip Presents... debuted on 2 November 1982 (the opening night of Channel 4). The first episode to be broadcast was "Five Go Mad in Dorset", a parody of Enid Blyton's Famous Five, and Edmondson starred as one of the five.
Following this, the BBC signed Edmondson, Mayall, Richardson, Planer, and Sayle to star in The Young Ones, a sitcom of similar anarchic style and violent slapstick as The Comic Strip. Edmondson and Mayall returned to their "Coyote" dynamic in the double act the Dangerous Brothers with Edmondson as "Sir Adrian Dangerous" in Saturday Live (1985–1987).
In 1985 Edmondson starred with his wife Jennifer Saunders in Happy Families, a rural comedy drama written by Ben Elton, which appeared on the BBC and told the story of the dysfunctional Fuddle family.
In 1987, Edmondson reunited with Planer and Mayall to star in Filthy Rich & Catflap, a comic attack on showbiz, again written by Elton. He played "Edward Catflap", a coarse, drunken minder of light-entertainment nonentity "Richie Rich". In this show Edmondson displayed the same slapstick characteristics as Vyvyan in The Young Ones but was closer in personality to his later character "Eddie Hitler" in Bottom. The show was cancelled after one series. Edmondson was also slated to make a guest appearance along Mayall in the fifth episode of the ITV sitcom Hardwicke House. Due to the adverse reaction of both press and viewers, however, ITV withdrew the series after showing only two episodes and the remaining episodes – including Edmondson's scheduled guest appearance in episode 5 – have never been shown.
In 1988, Edmondson released a follow-up to How To Be A Complete Bastard called The Bastard's Book of the Worst. In 1989 he made an appearance as the Red Baron, nemesis to Mayall's character, Lord Flashheart, in an episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.
Edmondson played Brad Majors in the 1990 West End run of The Rocky Horror Show, alongside Tim McInnerny as Frank-N-Furter and Ed Tudor-Pole as Riff-Raff. He also appears on the soundtrack album of the production. In 1991, he teamed with his comedy partner Rik Mayall once more, this time co-writing and co-starring in their own sitcom, Bottom. Edmondson starred as "Edward Elizabeth Hitler" opposite Mayall's "Richard Richard". The series featured the slapstick, crude humour for which the pair had become famous but with more in-depth character analysis.
Edmondson played Estragon to Mayall's Vladimir in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot in the West End, in a production that opened at the Queen's Theatre on 30 September 1991. Bottom became very popular, but it was criticised for its often vulgar humour. The show was also turned into five UK stage tours (1993, 1995, 1997, 2001 and 2003).
In 1993, Edmondson starred alongside Richard Briers in a black comedy called If You See God, Tell Him, where Edmondson played Gordon Spry, whose uncle (Briers) is paralysed and has a greatly reduced attention span, and his erratic behaviour causes problems.
In September 1995, Edmondson released his first (comic) novel, The Gobbler. In 1996, he played the role of Ace Face/Bellboy at the Who's performance of Quadrophenia at London's Hyde Park. A video game called Animal, featuring Peperami's "the animal", was released the same year, with the character being voiced by Edmondson. From 1997 to 1998, he voiced engine stoker "Limbs" Jones, a major character in the animated series Captain Star.
In the 1998 ITV pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, Edmondson played Jack's mother Dame Dolly alongside Griff Rhys Jones, Neil Morrissey, Denise Van Outen, Paul Merton, Julian Clary and Julie Walters.
Edmondson appeared regularly as Brendan Baxter in Series 4 of the BBC mystery series Jonathan Creek, broadcast in 2003–2004. He had a lead role playing an NHS doctor in the comedy series Doctors and Nurses first broadcast in early 2004. In Surviving Disaster, a BBC docudrama about the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, broadcast at the start of 2006, Edmondson played the role of Valery Legasov. In 2005 he appeared as a celebrity model on Star Portraits with Rolf Harris. That year, he also competed on "Comic Relief Does Fame Academy" where he made it to the finale and came in 3rd place. From 2005 to 2008 he appeared as Percy "Abra" Durant in the medical drama Holby City. In 2008 he played Henry Austen in the BBC produced film Miss Austen Regrets, and Vernon in the ITV sitcom Teenage Kicks. In April 2009, he reached the final, coming second to Linda Evans in the cooking show Hell's Kitchen.