Or at least Adrian Edmondson will be, with a series of essays

Whatever would Vyvyan Basterd say?

The psychopathic punk of The Young Ones is heading to the erudite uplands of Radio 3… or at least his creator Adrian Edmondson is.

The comedian is to present a series of five essays for the BBC’s classical radio station, to air next month.

And he suggests the autobiographical series,  entitled Signs Of Life, might be a precursor to his memoirs, saying: ‘There is an autobiographical urge somewhere inside me.’

The series, produced and directed by former Radio 4 comedy commissioner Caroline Raphael through her company Dora Productions, is not Edmondson’s first foray into the Radio 3 essay slot.

Last year he was one of five comedians taking about their craft, recalling how rudeness and silliness inspired his career in an episode still available on BBC Sounds.

Nor is he a stranger to high culture, having played series Malvolio in the Royal Shakepeare Company’s version of Twelfth Night in 2017. He has also appeared in the BBC adaptation of War and Peace as well as  EastEnders.

The essays, in which  Edmondson considers moments of personal and social change will be stripped across the week starting on July 5 at 10.45pm nightly.

Here is the full episode guide:

Ep 1:  Sugar Sugar

"So, it’s the end of the 60s, and while the rest of the world is flailing around in an orgy of free love, self-expression and hallucinogenic drugs, I’m trapped in a small prison learning to repress my emotions. Turns out I’m bloody good at it! If the 11 plus had been about repression I would have passed no problem."

Unhappy at boarding school in England, his family far away in Africa, Adrian remembers his first dance at the school disco and the moment that signalled the end of his childhood.

Ep 2:  Smoked Out

"We struggle through power cuts, algebra and the three day week and the only constant is cigarettes. We sit in Jasper’s Folly, a café at the end of Market Place, thinking up new words for ennui and seeing how long we can burn our fingers with a lighter before we can’t stand it anymore."

Adrian celebrates a long love affair with cigarettes that came to an end when he found everything he had been missing.

Ep 3:  Fegato Per Due

"I’m working at The Comic Strip. ‘Evening Vernon, Evening Ray!’ I shout. ‘Evening Nigel,’ they shout back. Well, perhaps they don’t know me as well as I think they do, but at least they think they know me."

Adrian remembers the glorious feeling of belonging in the early days of working in Soho at The Comic Strip and eating at the Italian restaurant where the waiters know his name, and his favourite dish.

Ep 4:  It’s One Rule For Them

"It became a game really, to see how quickly we could break them ... If the rules hadn’t been there, we might have been better behaved."

Adrian has always struggled with rules be they rules at school, dress codes or codes of conduct that that create different rules for different people. In this essay he remembers a particular incident that occurred when he appeared on stage with The Who.

Ep 5: A Boy Named Sue

"No one knows what to call me. Even me. People say ‘Do we call you Ade or Adrian?’ And I usually say, ‘Whatever you can manage’".

At various stages in his life Adrian Edmondson has attempted to change his name. He ponders his family history and how he came to be called Adrian. He was ribbed at school for having what was thought of as a girl’s name.

Published: 7 Jun 2021