|
|
Who is he?
How about some
personal details?
What has he done since?
Television
Stage
Books
Other information and quotes
His agent
Acknowledgements
A British comedian and actor, he became famous co-starring with Rik Mayall in the hit BBC sitcom, The Young Ones. Since then, he's co-starred again with Rik Mayall in Bottom, as well as writing the odd novel, and popping up in various TV shows.
How about some personal details?
He was born on January 24 1957 in Bradford. He lived with his father, who taught abroad for the Armed Forces. At the age of 12 he entered Pocklington Public (i.e. privately funded) boarding school, and afterwards went to Manchester University to study drama. There, he met Rik Mayall, and apparently went around with him chanting "We're going to become stars. He eventually got a 2-1 (equivalent to a B)
Adrian trained in studio drama at Manchester University, where he met Rik Mayall and formed the partnership that was to become Twentieth Century Coyote. In 1977 he took a one-man show to the National Student Drama Festival, and Twentieth Century Coyote appeared at the Edinburgh Festival to great critical acclaim and media interest; the show was recorded for Radio 4.
After Edinburgh came a period of touring with various woman shows throughout Britain, until Adrian joined the number of talented artists then appearing at London's Comedy Store. Throughout 1979 and 1980, Ade made numerous appearances on the growing comedy circuit before going on to co-found The Comic Strip at the Boulevard Theatre in late 1980.
After their hugely successful premiere at the Boulevard, The Comic Strip made an album and a short film in the summer of 1981 and set out on a national tour in September. In 1982 they toured Australia, including a two-week season at the Adelaide Festival of the Arts.
Adrian played leading parts in all episodes of The Comic Strip Presents, seen on Channel 4. He went on to play Vyvyan in BBC TV's hugely successful The Young Ones written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, and Lisa Mayer. He also appeared in Friday Night, Saturday morning and Boom Boom, Out Go The Lights before going on to film his first starring role in Sandy Johnson's The Magnificent One.
In 1983, Adrian toured in Kevin Turvey And The Bastard Squad for Pola Jones Associates, and then played Trofimov and Gayev in The White Glove at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.
After another series of The Young Ones and appearances in The Lenny Henry Show and in two further episodes of The Comic Strip, Adrian went on to play the title role in The Comic Strip feature film Supergrass, released in 1985.
Early in 1985, Adrian played the lead role of Alan in Honest, Decent
And True, a play devised by Les Blair and produced by Graham Benson.
Happy Families was first transmitted on 17 October 1985 on BBC1.
Ade and Rik Mayall then wrote ten episodes of The Dangerous Brothers,
a strand within a ten week series of Saturday Night Live, and co-starred
in Filthy Rich And Catflap another Paul Jackson production for BBC TV.
In the same year, he played Tiny in Central TV's Hardwicke House.
In 1989, Adrian starred alongside John Gordon-Sinclair in Lawrence Marks and Maurice Gran's Snakes And Ladders, a six-part series for Yorkshire TV directed by Baz Taylor, before playing a guest lead, Baron Von Richtofen, in BBC TV's Blackadder Goes Forth.
Adrian co-starred, this time with Alison Steadman, in News Hounds, directed
by Les Blair for Working Title and BBC TV, which won the British Academy
of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Single Television Drama of 1990.
Later that year, Adrian starred as Brad In Robin Lefevre's West End revival
of the cult hit The Rocky Horror Show at the Piccadilly Theatre, before
going to Yugoslavia to film The Pope Must Die (called The Pope Must Diet
in the USA), directed by Peter Richardson for Palace Pictures.
They co-starred in the 1991 West End production of Samuel Beckett's
Waiting For Godot at the Queen's Theatre. In June 1992, Adrian appeared
with the Ballet du Rhin at Sadlers Wells Theatre as narrator of Carnival
Of The Animals.
Adrian and Rik Mayall have written and starred in two (now three) series
of Bottom, a six-part series produced and directed by Ed Bye for BBC TV.
Adrian started a film company with other leading members of The Comic
Strip, for which he has written and directed
Bad News, More Bad News and Private Enterprise. He wrote Consuela and
Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, both of which were directed by Stephen Frears.
He also starred in and wrote Dirty Movie.
He played John Major in The Red Nose Of Courage, screened (after the
polls closed) on election night In 1992.
In another development Adrian has also directed several successful pop
videos including the controversial Prime Mover for Zodiac Mindwarp and
the Love Reaction, Hourglass, Trust Me To Open My Mouth and 853 5937
for Squeeze, The Pogues' Fiesta, Sandie Shaw's Please Help The Cause
Against Loneliness and Like The Weather by 10,000 Maniacs
Three series of Bottom, co-written and co-starring with Rik Mayall.
These are available on BBC Video. The last series was screened in Autumn
1995.
Absolutely Fabulous as a food reviewer. His wife is Jennifer Saunders...
If You See God, Tell Him (a 1993 sitcom) with Richard Briers.
The Cook's Tale, an Anna Lee mystery, as . The Cook.
He has also appeared in numerous Comic Strip films, Eat The Rich, Bad
News and More Bad News - with Rik Mayall and Nigel Planer. In the Bad News
films, Adrian played Vim Fuego (otherwise known as Alan Metcalf), lead
guitarist and vocalist in the heavy metal band Bad News - basically, a
British version of Spinal Tap.
Three seperate stage productions of Bottom which are available on VVL Video. Bottom Live, Bottom Live The Big Number Two Tour and Bottom Live Hooligans Island.
The Gobbler, his first novel. The blurb at the front reads:
"Julian Mann, the hard drinking, preening and sexually provocative star of the hit TV sitcom Richard The Nerd, feels caught on the horns of a dilemma: should he be concentrating on his career, which is on the slide after an unseemly bout of fisticuffs at the BAFTA awards; or following his baser instincts and bedding every young girl in sight?
His twin dreams of comic immortality and a penhouse flat full of booze and young models seem to be frustrated by his wife and children by Tom, his wife's best friend from University days, a pretentious 'National Theatre player' who appears to be competing with Julian on the small screen and in the bedroom; by the tax man, who's chasing him for sixty thousand pounds; and by Lillith, a psychotic fan, and member of a strange Herculean cult whose eight-year-cycle of death and regeneration might augur Julian's imminent nemesis..."
He started writing the book after he decided to take six months off, and ended up playing Sim City and hoovering most of that time. Apparently, it was to be originally called Wild Turkey, but it got changed to The Gobbler, which still has a turkey reference in it, as well as a crass reference to oral sex... In a book reading, Adrian also commented that Richard The Nerd was a bit like Blackadder. The ISBN Number is 0-7493-2233-0
How To Be A Complete B*Stard, co-written with Mark Leigh and Mike Lepine.
Talking to a bookseller in New Zealand.
Ade said "The thing with all the characters me and Rik play is, and
you might have noticed this, they're all the f**king same just a different
setting." He also mentioned that he and Rik had tried to write a new series
of Bottom in January 1996, but realised that there wasn't much more that
they could do as there was nothing left in the kitchen that they could
hit each other with! It turns out that he's been on the Internet for 3
years, but was previously unaware of the FAQ. So if he's reading this,
hi! He also once appeared on stage at the Hysteria AIDS benefit gig with
the words "You might remember me ... I used to be very funny."
As far as I know, his agent is:
Jonathan Altaras
Jonathan Altaras Association Limited
2 Goodwins Court
LONDON WC2N 4LL
United Kingdom
Tel : +44 (0) 171 497 8878
Fax : +44 (0) 171 497 8876
Thanks go to Adam Davies, Damon Shawcross and Simon Young for supplementary information.
If you're after any of Ade's books or tapes, might I recommend Bookpages, a British based Internet bookstore. They accept credit cards and will send to anywhere in the world. Also, by buying from them you'll be helping to support this site. For videos and CDs delivered to your door, you can't do much better than the British based Internet Music and Video Shop.
