Adrian Edmondson

Adrian Charles Edmondson (born 24 January 1957) is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter. He was part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s and had roles in the television series The Young Ones (1982–1984) and Bottom (1991–1995), which he wrote together with his collaborator Rik Mayall. Edmondson also appeared in The Comic Strip Presents... series of films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. For one episode of this he created the spoof heavy metal band Bad News, and for another he 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 numerous TV programmes in drama roles including Jonathan Creek, Holby City, Miss Austen Regrets, as himself on Hell's Kitchen and created the sitcom Teenage Kicks. Since 2006, Edmondson has concentrated increasingly on music instead of acting. He formed a folk punk band, the Bad Shepherds, singing and playing mandola and mandolin, and performed and wrote for the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. In 2011, he presented a series of shows for ITV: The Dales, which focused on people working in the Yorkshire 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, and from 2019 to 2020, he appeared in the BBC soap opera EastEnders as Daniel Cook. In 2022, he also played Ebenezer Scrooge in the current run of 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 armed forces. In the mid-1980s, his father became the deputy headmaster at the former Drummond Middle School in Manningham, Bradford. Edmondson attended Pocklington School, East Riding of Yorkshire from 1968 to 1975. In an interview with the Times Educational Supplement, he stated that he did not enjoy his education at Pocklington.