I loved the time I had with Rik, but we were stuck in a rut
Adrian Edmondson is breaking Bard playing Shakespeare. MARION McMULLEN finds out about the comedy star’s search for new adventures
Your comedy partnership with Rik Mayall included The Young Ones and Bottom and now you’re acting in the new Star Wars movie and TV thriller Bancroft. Do you like the variety? I’M enjoying not being responsible. I loved the time I had with Rik, but we were stuck in a rut having to keep making more of that stuff. I think we did a good job, but I don’t have that pressure now. I’m looking for new adventures. Does that include working with the Royal Shakespeare Company? (LAUGHS) I always thought I was going to be an actor and I thought I’d be at the RSC in two or three years ... it’s taken me 42 years. It’s a bit like going to university again. I feel like I’m staying in university digs.
Director Chris Luscombe makes the comedy very clear and the production is certainly not boring.
Sometimes the audience is very, very old. We can come out on a Monday and I don’t think anyone is under 75, but it does get progressively younger throughout the week. What’s it like playing steward Malvolio in Twelfth Night? THE only way to do it is not to think of it as a famous character. I have five costume changes and I had a new dresser the other night and I was just getting ready for what we call the potting shed scene, where Sir Toby Belch visits Malvolio in jail, and she said: “It’s my favourite scene in the play. I always used to cry when Antony Sher did it.’ (Wails) Oh, f***, Antony Sher. Don’t tell me that just as I’ve got to go on and play it. What was your first acting experience? I WAS in four Nativities in a row at four different schools as a kid. I always played Angel Gabriel because I had blond hair. I played the role so often I ended up keeping my wings from one year to the next. My mum would put them under a carpet to keep them flat. What was your introduction to Shakespeare? I DID Hamlet at school when I was 17 or 18 and I really enjoyed it. We did others things as well like The Taming Of The Shrew. It was an all-boys school so some had to play the female roles. They had a hard time afterwards. You are a past winner of Celebrity MasterChef. Do you still find time to cook? I DO. I’ve just made little chocolate fancies and my MasterChef trophy sits on the bookshelf with my cookbooks. When MasterChef came along, I just thought I’d give it a go. What else is keeping you busy? I’VE just written a play. I’ve always written and I’ve written this with Nigel Planer.
We enjoy each other’s company and we wrote this three-hander about two actors and a female third assistant director set on a glacier in Iceland. By deduction, they come to the conclusion that one of them might be her father. Are you a grandad now as well? I AM. I have two boys and girl and they are very jolly. People say ‘Oh, the best thing is you can spend time with your grandchildren and then you can let go of them at the end of the day.’
I don’t want them to go. I’m content with them being around. They live nearby – just up the road and round the corner. Twelfth Night is being broadcast in cinemas on Valentine’s Day. Are you a romantic? I THINK romance is a very private thing. Twelfth Night is all about sexual mores and unrequited love. Would you like to do more Shakespeare? SHAKESPEARE is just a very good writer.
I sometimes think there’s too much Shakespeare. We could ration other production (laughs) ... as long as I can do the roles I don’t mind. There is a line at end of Hamlet about him being fat and scant of breath. Hamlet is always played by a young, dashing and romantic leading man like David Tennant, but he should be a fat, older, b ***** d. I could be a fat, elderly, crotchety Hamlet.
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Twelfth Night is being broadcast to cinemas across the country on February 14. Go to rsc.org.uk/twelfth-night/ in-cinemas for details.