Funny how things turn out
Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer are back together on stage in a new comedy, Vulcan 7, which they also co-wrote. Here, they tell Jeffrey Davies how it all came about
TWO of the best-known names in British comedy, Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer are in Bath, starring in a hilarious new stage comedy they have written themselves. Vulcan 7 is about two actors - Gary Savage and Hugh Delavois - with a ‘history,’ who have achieved a varying level of success in their careers and now, in their sixties, find themselves sharing a trailer in an Icelandic wasteland on the set of a fantasy film.
Students at Rada together, Hugh has had a plodding career but landed himself with the small but regular role of Vulcan’s butler and he’s now making his seventh film for the franchise. Gary, on the other hand, is a one-time Hollywood A-lister who has fallen on lean times and he’s playing a guest monster with four hours in make-up and one word in the script.
Sparks fly inside the trailer as old wounds are opened. Meanwhile, Leela, a runner, attempts to keep peace, but outside the trailer things are not going to plan either. The director’s gone Awol, the catering truck’s on the wrong side of the ravine, and the volcanic activity is growing livelier by the minute! Sounds fun, I suggested, to a most pleasant Adrian Edmondson.
“Yes it is and I’m sure audiences will enjoy it; I hope so anyway,” Adrian, who plays Gary Savage, told me.
“Nigel and I had been thinking of doing something for a long time and had been sending each other emails of all kinds about possible things that we could do. We looked at all kinds of plays and so on but didn’t find anything we really wanted to do so we just started writing our own new comedy. And this is it!” Adrian proclaimed proudly, adding that he really enjoyed working on the new comedy with his long-term friend Nigel Planer.
“Yes I enjoyed working with Nigel again. I like working with a partner especially on comedy because you have to find out whether something is funny or not and whether they are laughing at what you have done, and vice-versa. It’s a quicker way to write comedy, I think, and more convivial as well,” Adrian answered, adding that he also likes to work on things on his own as well, even if it takes a bit longer to do.
Given a straightforward choice between acting and writing, which would Adrian choose?
“I would say that my great pleasure is the fact that I’m a jack of all trades. I really love all of the different things I do. All the variety.”
Although a versatile actor, TV presenter, musician, author and director, I told the Manchester University drama graduate, who is married to Jennifer Saunders, that I think of him as essentially a star of surreal and anarchic-type comedy sitcoms like Bottom, which he wrote with Rik Mayall, and The Young Ones. Being funny naturally and having the ability to laugh at life’s quirky side is a gift I suggested, but what is it that makes things funny? And why do some people laugh more readily and easily than others at the same thing?
“Well, comedy is basically the truth,” Bradford-born Adrian, 61, replied almost immediately. “We all laugh at something if someone puts two opposing ideas together that actually resonate. But really, Jeffrey, most comedy is about being truthful and that’s why everyone kind of gets it. If they don’t get the comedy it’s because they don’t agree with you. However, there’s also some kind of absurdist comedy that I really can’t explain,” he laughed.
No chat with one of the pioneers of the alternative comedy scene would be complete without reference to his ’80s cult sitcom The Young Ones in which Nigel Planer also starred, and whose exterior and location shots were filmed in Bristol.
“I have very fond memories of that, yes. We all stayed in this big old stately home of a place near Clifton Suspension Bridge (the Avon Gorge Hotel) and had such a great time. We were all very young and were given expenses. Yes, we all had a such a great time filming parts of that show in Bristol,” he recalled with a laugh, adding that he’s been to the ‘beautiful’ city ‘of course’ many times since then.
Adrian’s career highlights are impressive. As well as comedy, he’s dipped his toe into drama many times appearing in TV programmes such as Jonathan Creek
and the BBC adaptation of War & Peace.
On stage, Adrian has starred in The Rocky Horror Show in the West End and
Twelfth Night at the RSC. And his film roles include playing Captain Peavey in
Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Playing the role of Hugh Delavois in
Vulcan 7 is actor, comedian, novelist and playwright Nigel Planer, who is best known on TV for his role in The Young Ones playing Neil.
Enacted on the set of a fictitious film location, I suggested to a very friendly and chatty Nigel that the play’s storyline features many personal references relating to Adrian and Nigel’s own life in showbusiness.
“Yes, there are lots of details in it relating to our own experiences in the business. And we also found we had a lot in common in the intervening years too even when we didn’t work together,” a most friendly Nigel told me while relaxing on the banks of a river in Surrey on a beautiful sunny day.
“In the ’80s and ’90s we were working together all the time. Since then, Ade and I found that we’ve both done an awful lot of other things as well. Anyway when we got together again we found that we anecdoted a lot about all kinds of things we’d done and about our experiences. It was great.
“Anyway, in this new comedy I play an actor called Hugh Delavois who didn’t have much early success in his career, but is doing reasonably well now and is a butler in the Vulcan series of films. He’s an upright English ‘ac-tor,’” Nigel said with a laugh, stressing Hugh’s personal view of himself as a serious thespian and not just any old jobbing actor. Gary, who is played brilliantly by Adrian is, on the other hand, a guest actor in this seventh Vulcan film, and is something of an alcoholic now.
“Anyway Hugh and Gary meet up for the first time in many years and they have to share a trailer which is perched on the side of a volcano in Iceland. The situation becomes more and more volatile - in all ways. But I don’t want to say too much Jeffrey because it will spoil it for the audience!” Nigel remarked.
Nigel said that he always had a keen sense of comedy, but didn’t really know where it came from.
“Yes, I think I did. I do remember my Dad having a good wry sense of humour as well. But really, I can’t work it out to be honest. You know, I think when I am trying to be sincere and meaningful that’s when people usually laugh!”, he added with a laugh which in turn made me laugh. Very funny off stage as well as on, Westminster-born Nigel, 65, said he believed there are boundaries to what is and what is not acceptable in comedy.
“But I don’t think that it is possible to legislate against particularly because it depends on the intention and whether it’s well-meaning. Sometimes quite mild things can cause huge offence. Comedy, Jeffrey, is a weapon, which can be offensive to some and not others.”
Does the versatile Nigel find serious drama harder to perform than comedy?
“Speaking personally I find straight stuff harder because you have to express authentic emotion,” Nigel answered candidly, adding that his pal and work partner Adrian is ‘not bad actually’ at the straight drama.
“I saw him doing Malvolio in Twelfth Night and in that last scene where he curses everyone Adrian was brilliant, really, really good and the scene was so very touching. I find that stuff harder to do. I feel I’m in my comfort zone making people laugh which I love.”
Nigel has worked extensively in the West End with leading roles in numerous original productions including Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked, Hairspray and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for which he received an Olivier Award nomination.
Vulcan 7 is playing the Theatre Royal Bath until October 20. Tickets can be bought from the box office on 01225 448844 and online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk