GO LONDON newsletter Bringing our city to your living room Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive the best London offers and activities every week, by email Update newsletter preferences

"You're quite stupid aren’t you?” Adrian Edmondson says to his daughter Beattie. The 59-year-old co-creator of The Comic Strip Presents..., The Young Ones and Bottom means this as a compliment. Beattie is the second of Edmondson’s three daughters with Jennifer Saunders — his wife of 31 years and the creator of Absolutely Fabulous — and the only one of their offspring to go into the family business of comedy, with her semi-improvising, audience-involving trio Birthday Girls. Their new show at Soho Theatre, Sh!t Hot Party Legends is, she concedes, “raucous and booze-fuelled, and basically just really silly and crude”.

While Beattie, 29, embraces the label of “comedian”, Ade bridles slightly at it. “I’ve always thought I’m a comedy actor who can write,” he says, mildly. Fair enough: his career also includes partly improvised TV made with Les Blair for BBC’s Screen One and Screen Two, regular roles on Holby City and Jonathan Creek, several gentle daytime TV travelogues and a splendid turn as Count Ilya Rostov in last year’s War and Peace on BBC1. As if further to illustrate the different generational approach, he will be performing a one-man tragicomedy, Bits of Me are Falling Apart, based on William Leith’s lacerating memoir of failure and societal disconnection, in Soho Theatre while his daughter is clowning about in Soho Downstairs, the cabaret space downstairs.

“I’m a bit embarrassed for her, having her old dad around,” he says. “I feel like I’m impinging on her space.” Beattie demurs and fondly bats his arm. The Edmondsons are a famously close bunch. When eldest daughter Ella, a musician, moved to Notting Hill and had two sons of her own and Beattie and her younger sister Freya, a costume curator, graduated from university and moved in together in Clerkenwell, Ade and Jennifer sold their properties in Devon and Richmond and moved to Paddington, to stay close to them all.

But he’s not really impinging on Beattie’s space in Soho, which is his “manor”. After meeting at Manchester University, he and Rik Mayall performed together as 20th Century Coyote at the embryonic Comedy Store in Meard Street, alongside the groundbreaking female double act of Saunders and Dawn French. The four of them then formed The Comic Strip with Peter Richardson, Nigel Planer and Alexei Sayle, which debuted at the Raymond Revuebar in Walker’s Court and progressed to anarchic comic films, written in an office in Berwick Street, for the newly launched Channel 4. The rest is comedy history. With a bit of seriousness mixed in. And romance: Ade was married and Jennifer was seeing someone else when they first met but eight years later, and divorced, he asked her: “Will you marry me and can we have children?”

Beattie says she wasn’t aware what her parents did when she was growing up. “I remember asking my mum if she was Jennifer Saunders, because kids at school were asking me,” she says. That was in the heyday of Ab Fab, when Ade and Rik were making the puerile Bottom — “it didn’t seem right to show that to six-year-olds”. Ade says he and Jennifer were “terrified when Beattie first said she was doing comedy and invited us up to a show. We thought, how are we going to react if it’s shit?”

Fortunately, Beattie’s troupe — initially a sixsome called Lady Garden that was renamed after some members left — were successful straight out of the gate. Her surname was a hindrance rather than a help, apparently, with people always harping on about her famous dad. “Lucky you’re an Edmondson, not a Saunders,” says Ade. Like Lenny Henry when he was married to Dawn French, Edmondson is in no doubt that the female half of the partnership is funnier than the male. “Our house is full of Baftas and Emmys,” he smiles. “And none of them are mine. So that point is pretty well conceded.”

The other great partnership of his life was with Mayall, who died in 2014 of a suspected heart attack. “I miss him when certain jokes or phrases come to my mind that I know he’d laugh at,” says Edmondson. “Jennifer gets 95 per cent of my jokes, but there’s that little section of humour that [only] he got. When we met, we were the same person: we had performed the same function at separate schools — the person who did the plays — and we turned up [at Manchester] with the same record collection and the same dressing gown. We had both done Waiting for Godot at school and we both thought it was a comedy. I miss the outrageous laughter that we had: I haven’t experienced that again.”

Arts picks of the week: 24th-30th October 10 show all Arts picks of the week: 24th-30th October 1/10 Lazarus



October 25 - January 22, King's Cross Theatre; Lazarus promises to be a spine-tingling occasion – it’s the last thing David Bowie made before he died. The play, featuring songs from his career, features Michael C Hall and was written alongside Irish playwright Enda Walsh.October 25 - January 22, King's Cross Theatre; lazarusmusical.com 2/10 Paul Nash



October 26 - March 5, 2017, Tate; You’ll probably know the artist Paul Nash for his iconic war paintings, but a new exhibition at the Tate shows him to be one of the greatest painters of English landscapes. Educated at the famous Slade School of Fine Arts, Nash was fascinated by the mystical side of England and its past.October 26 - March 5, 2017, Tate; tate.org.uk 3/10 South Africa



October 27 - February 26, British Museum; It may be hard to get your head around this, the British Museum’s new South Africa exhibition promises trace 100,000 years of history told through the country’s art. It will be full of beautiful objects from the earliest moments to contemporary South African art.October 27 - February 26, British Museum; britishmuseum.org 4/10 Amadeus



Until February 1 National Theatre; Peter Shaffer’s big play about Mozart is coming back to the place where it premiered in 1979. After two new openings last week, the National Theatre’s Olivier stage is alive again with Lucian Msamati taking the title role. Director Michael Longhurst promises a big show, with live orchestral accompaniment from Southbank Sinfonia.Until February 1 National Theatre; nationaltheatre.org.uk 5/10 Museums at Night Festival



October 27-29, across London; Fancy seeing your favourite museum in a different light (quite literally)? For two nights this week, museums and galleries will stay open after hours to encourage visitors to come along and get involved. Bedwyr Williams hosts an open mic night at Somerset House, and there’s an after dark Hallowe’en special at the Charles Dickens Museum.October 27-29, across London; museumsatnight.org.uk 6/10 Phone Home



October 21-30, Shoreditch Town Hall; Want to watch a show that links up London with Munich and Athens? This transnational project tells true stories of refugees with a video conferencing link, bringing audiences and performers together across Europe.October 21-30, Shoreditch Town Hall; shoreditchtownhall.com 7/10 National Gallery Hallowe'en Late



October 28, National Gallery; The National Gallery celebrate the darker side of their Beyond Caravaggio exhibition this Hallowe’en, with the gallery staying open late for all sorts of macabre goings on. Goings on include face-painting, folk music, and a chance to do a bit of divination, alongside themed cocktails.October 28, National Gallery; nationalgallery.org.uk 8/10 The Poetry Hour Stop all the clocks so that you can go to the Poetry Hour at the British Library this week, where actress Lily James will be joined by Melvyn Bragg to read the poems of WH Auden.



October 27, British Library 9/10 #NoFaceLikePhone Do you have nomophobia? That’s the fear of not havig your phone, and there’s probably plenty of us who suffer from it. Artist PINS has made an exhibition about it, with lots of art facing our very contemporary fear.



Until October 26, Gallery Different 10/10 Last chance to see: Georgia O’Keeffe



Until October 30, Tate; You don’t want to miss one of the biggest exhibitions of the year, and if you got this week, you don’t have to. American pioneer Georgia O’Keeffe changed the landscape, and the Tate’s retrospective closes this week, so be sure to get down there.Until October 30, Tate; tate.org.uk 1/10 Lazarus



October 25 - January 22, King's Cross Theatre; Lazarus promises to be a spine-tingling occasion – it’s the last thing David Bowie made before he died. The play, featuring songs from his career, features Michael C Hall and was written alongside Irish playwright Enda Walsh.October 25 - January 22, King's Cross Theatre; lazarusmusical.com 2/10 Paul Nash



October 26 - March 5, 2017, Tate; You’ll probably know the artist Paul Nash for his iconic war paintings, but a new exhibition at the Tate shows him to be one of the greatest painters of English landscapes. Educated at the famous Slade School of Fine Arts, Nash was fascinated by the mystical side of England and its past.October 26 - March 5, 2017, Tate; tate.org.uk 3/10 South Africa



October 27 - February 26, British Museum; It may be hard to get your head around this, the British Museum’s new South Africa exhibition promises trace 100,000 years of history told through the country’s art. It will be full of beautiful objects from the earliest moments to contemporary South African art.October 27 - February 26, British Museum; britishmuseum.org 4/10 Amadeus



Until February 1 National Theatre; Peter Shaffer’s big play about Mozart is coming back to the place where it premiered in 1979. After two new openings last week, the National Theatre’s Olivier stage is alive again with Lucian Msamati taking the title role. Director Michael Longhurst promises a big show, with live orchestral accompaniment from Southbank Sinfonia.Until February 1 National Theatre; nationaltheatre.org.uk 5/10 Museums at Night Festival



October 27-29, across London; Fancy seeing your favourite museum in a different light (quite literally)? For two nights this week, museums and galleries will stay open after hours to encourage visitors to come along and get involved. Bedwyr Williams hosts an open mic night at Somerset House, and there’s an after dark Hallowe’en special at the Charles Dickens Museum.October 27-29, across London; museumsatnight.org.uk 6/10 Phone Home



October 21-30, Shoreditch Town Hall; Want to watch a show that links up London with Munich and Athens? This transnational project tells true stories of refugees with a video conferencing link, bringing audiences and performers together across Europe.October 21-30, Shoreditch Town Hall; shoreditchtownhall.com 7/10 National Gallery Hallowe'en Late



October 28, National Gallery; The National Gallery celebrate the darker side of their Beyond Caravaggio exhibition this Hallowe’en, with the gallery staying open late for all sorts of macabre goings on. Goings on include face-painting, folk music, and a chance to do a bit of divination, alongside themed cocktails.October 28, National Gallery; nationalgallery.org.uk 8/10 The Poetry Hour Stop all the clocks so that you can go to the Poetry Hour at the British Library this week, where actress Lily James will be joined by Melvyn Bragg to read the poems of WH Auden.



October 27, British Library 9/10 #NoFaceLikePhone Do you have nomophobia? That’s the fear of not havig your phone, and there’s probably plenty of us who suffer from it. Artist PINS has made an exhibition about it, with lots of art facing our very contemporary fear.



Until October 26, Gallery Different 10/10 Last chance to see: Georgia O’Keeffe



Until October 30, Tate; You don’t want to miss one of the biggest exhibitions of the year, and if you got this week, you don’t have to. American pioneer Georgia O’Keeffe changed the landscape, and the Tate’s retrospective closes this week, so be sure to get down there.Until October 30, Tate; tate.org.uk

This solemn note seems a good time to turn to his solo show (by this point Beattie has departed, to record a BBC radio series based on Katharine Whitehorn’s Cooking in a Bedsitter). Leith’s book deals with the loss of his home, his girlfriend, and contact with their son through poverty and addictive behaviour that he ascribes to a greater dislocation from the modern world. “It’s about stuff that I agree with, about the world becoming a less pleasant place, a more corporate place, the effect of economics on the way people live and relate to each other,” says Edmondson.

The title has resonance for a man of 59 who has had copious intimations of mortality: apart from Mayall’s death and the equally shocking loss of Victoria Wood, whom he knew well, Edmondson lost two friends to suicide recently. Saunders had breast cancer in 2009 and having grandchildren, however delightful, is a sure sign that one is nearer the end than the beginning of life. “That’s why the show rings true to me,” he says. “We are falling apart. I’m reasonably fit for a man of my age, but I really want to do the walk along the rooftop of the Alps, the Eagle’s Way in Austria. Ben Elton’s a close friend and we want to do it together, and I keep saying, well we have to do it soon, or my knees are going to give out. But he’s three years younger than me and he can’t understand the impending... stoppage.”

Like many professionally funny people, Edmondson is not that funny in person, but he’s also not the gloomy chap the previous paragraphs possibly make him sound. If anything he exudes contentment. The son of an internationally peripatetic teacher in the armed forces, educated at a grammar school he hated, he has fashioned a warm and tight family unit of his own with Saunders, with whom he clearly remains besotted. “Our lives are spent watching the telly and carping and amusing each other,” he says. “We keep thinking we should be on Gogglebox.” I ask him the secret of a long relationship and he says: “I know the secret and the secret is not to talk about it.”

He may not wish to be defined by his work with Mayall, but does he remember some of it fondly? “I’m proudest of Bottom really,” he says. “Bottom was our thing. It was very badly reviewed when it came out, although it was the most popular programme on BBC2 at the time. Until The X Files came along.” He smiles. “And then Ab Fab. I never sit at home watching episodes of things I have done, because that’s the road to madness. But I did watch some of Bottom the other month, on the anniversary of Rik’s death, and I thought, ‘That’s f***ing funny’.”

Bits of Me are Falling Apart, Nov 2-Dec 3, and Sh!t Hot Party Legends, Nov 15-19, are at Soho Theatre, W1 (sohotheatre.com)

Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout