Adrian died at age 69 from a heart attack, at his and Lister's home, Smarkham Orchard, Shamley Green, near Guildford, Surrey, after returning from the television studios where he had been recording Bertolt Brecht's "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" for the BBC. At his memorial service, at which the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography said the great names of British theatre paid tribute to Max Adrian's style and professionalism, the lessons were read by Alec Guinness and Laurence Olivier and the eulogy was given by Joyce Grenfell.