Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The reader will always understand that to read an autobiography at times will leave them curious as well as informed. The willingness to immerse yourself into another life through the painted verbal tales is one of sharing, of commitment, perhaps a smidgen of questioning interest at the beans they wish to spill on their time at top, but you never expect to be completely broken by a passage that becomes the backbone of the book.

Adrian Edmondson’s Berserker is arguably one that focuses on a truth, on many truths and admittances, and for a hero of a generation, a man to whom has played both wit and wonder in equal measure on screen, who has provided some of the most brilliant adaptions of punk classics as part of The Bad Shepherds, the inevitable lead up to his time with Rick Mayall as his comedic partner, will all be left by the reader as a reveal of his father is understood; that for Generation X and those that followed in the rigorous determination of the church to install a false premise of life in their hearts from their Victorian and Edwardian raised parents and grandparents, time has been one of the ultimate steal, of a forgery they had to deal with and rebel against, but one with a heavy price to pay.

There is no doubt that Adrian Edmonson’s name will live on in the pantheon of comedy, the dues paid attest to that, but it is one that is shrouded in a sadness, of unknown abuse at the hands of private schooling, of knowing that the world is an oyster if your parents are installed with adventurous soul; or maybe one that is willing to disappear from the path imagined and laid down by a mindset best long left in the past.

From humble beginnings a humble man will emerge, and yet the stories of life in Pocklington as a boarder in dire need of artistic intent, to time served at Manchester University and beyond, the life and times of one of Britain’s finest comedians, of an actor worth every salt grain that can be packed into a human soul, the world and his words fall with ease, and yet it is the in between where the emotions and the scars can be felt, and for every moment of high, the understanding that it comes from a low point, that sadness and joy are not the relative strangers they appear to be, is one that carries the autobiography past the heroic and into the beauty of being human.

Prepare to be amused, to laugh, and ultimately feel the shock of empathy you feel well up in your stomach, a volcano of emotional resonance that initially destroys but which becomes the backdrop for growth, of renewal, of fightback in every way possible. This is the inspiration, a journey, and a regret that explodes into the sky and falls with love back to Earth.

Berserker is a tale of triumph in the midst of adversity brought on by a system that has claimed many a victim, but to survive you must, like Mr. Edmonson be willing to play its fool with wit and fierce drive.

Ian D. Hall