Through the ages, our great
nation has been littered
with power-mad kings...
Who told you that?
Bloodthirsty queens...
I'm going to knock your block off.
And the odd nutty prince.
And in that time, one dastardly
dynasty has managed to survive
on their wits, craftiness
and the odd cunning plan.
A man may fight for many things; his
country, his principles, his friends.
The glistening tear
on the cheek of a golden child.
But personally, I'd
mud-wrestle my own mother
for a ton of cash, an amusing clock
and a sack of French p*rn.
You're on! Hoorah!
It's years since Blackadder
burst on to our screens
and blew away its comedy rivals.
Tonight we're celebrating
this monumental,
multi-award-winning sitcom in
all its magnificent glory.
You've really worked out
your banter, haven't you?
Not really.
This is a different thing.
It's spontaneous
and it's called wit.
years of Blackadder -
it's, first of all it's...
very depressing that it's
years ago that we started doing it.
I do remember whistling on the way
to work. It was very good fun...
to sit in a room and
try and make each other laugh.
Blackadder was, was tremendously
enjoyable from the point of view
of a shared responsibility. The fact
that it's not all on your shoulders.
I think I just feel lucky, you know.
You do your best that you can in
your s to try and do the thing
that you think is funniest
and it's a fluke and a miracle
if it turns out that the one
that you wrote has lasted.
I was nearly when we did the
first episode, er, of Blackadder.
It transformed my career and,
and my life.
You made...
Baldrick a lord?
It made household names
of its stars.
Tony Robinson has made
archaeology cool in the UK.
Stephen Fry is now the most
well-respected actor, writer
and all-round clever clogs
on telly today.
Oh! I've just had
another brilliant thought.
Hugh Laurie has become one of the most
famous faces on American TV with House.
And Blackadder himself,
Rowan Atkinson,
is the most recognisable
comedian in the world.
It also brought together two of today's
most celebrated comedy writers.
- Ben Elton and Richard Curtis,
who have since gone on to
conquer the stage and screen.
He sh*t my pigeon!
I've only just started watching
it again 'cause my kids
are sort of and and, and,
um, they're really loving it.
I'm reminded, particularly in
terms of the performances,
I actually wrote to
Stephen the other day
about Melchett just
'cause I couldn't believe how...
I mean, I knew how good it was but I,
er, it just was even better.
Tonight we reveal the exclusive
inside story of Blackadder
from the comedy greats
who made this must-see TV.
You, you twist and turn
like a twisty, turny thing.
I say you're a weedy pigeon and you
can call me Susan if it isn't so.
'I do remember'
inventing the line "you twist and
turn like a twisty, turny thing."
And since then it has become a
kind of comedy staple to do that.
First I'm going to have
a little drinky and
then I'm going to execute
the whole bally lot of you.
'I think I thought of her'
as somebody with too much
too soon, you know,
far too young.
Lucky, lucky us.
Lucky, lucky, luck,
luck, luck, la, la. La, la, la.
'Ben and Richard had written
some fantastic jokes
and some great opportunities'
to shout and pull faces,
which is sort of what I do
or what I did at the time.
I've moved on since then oh, yes.
I've grown.
This epic sitcom spanned
a decade and brought years
of British history
right into our sitting rooms.
Edmund Blackadder has
been a medieval prince... Hooray!
A pompous peer... Get stuffed.
A royal pain of a butler... Da-da!
And a conniving captain.
We're in the stickiest situation
since Sticky the stick insect
got stuck on a sticky bun.
He's an absolute bully
to the people below him
and sucks up
to the people above him.
He was a guy who was
out for all he could get.
He was sort of on the make,
er, he was a cynic.
It's a modern person
in the stupidity of ancient times.
That it be.
"Yes, it is," not "that it be".
They all had in common a belief,
a strong belief, er, almost raised to
the pitch of religiosity, that
their skin and their wellbeing
was more important than
that of anybody else.
Tell me, Edmund, do you have
someone special in your life?
Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do.
Who? Me.
And let's not forget his smelly,
turnip-loving sidekick called Baldrick.
Your brain, for example,
is so minute, Baldrick, that if
a hungry cannibal
cracked your head open
there wouldn't be enough inside
to cover a small water biscuit.
Tony Robinson was so great in
Blackadder, just so deadpan.
Name? Baldrick.
First name? Er, I'm not sure.
You must have some idea.
Well, it might be sod off.
I've never been offered a
comic character on television since
that in any way
matches up to the
comic potential of Baldrick.
We go behind the scenes with
exclusive rehearsal footage
of the supremely clever
Blackadder team at work.
On the contrary George,
we've had plenty of orders.
We've had orders for six metres
of Hungarian crushed
velvet curtain material.
Four pilau rice.
And one chicken tikka masala.
And, four pilau rice and
one chicken tikka masala.
And a cab...
for a Mr Redgrave, picking up
from Arnos Grove - ring top bell.
With the passing of the years
an, any sort of anguish
or difficulty or tiredness
or you know, panic,
frequent panic has
sort of melted away
and all I can remember was
all the jokes, you know.
And the fact
how much fun it was to do.
And we re-live those memorable
scenes that marked Blackadder out
as one of Britain's
best loved comedies.
This book, sir, contains every
word in our beloved language.
Every single one, sir?
Every single word, sir.
Oh, well in that case, sir,
I hope you will not object
if I also offer the doctor
my most enthusiastic
contrafibularities?
What's that?
Contrafibularities, sir?
It is a common word down our way.
Damn!
Coming up, a unique insight
into how Blackadder was born.
Fawlty Towers seemed so
perfect to us at that point
that the idea of writing a
modern sitcom was too demoralising.
How it nearly never made it
to a second series.
Michael Grade had just come,
become controller of BBC and he'd
looked at what was on commission
and he obviously decided
he didn't want The Black Adder.
And how one of the greatest comedy
writing partnerships was created.
As far as I know, they never wrote
a line together in the same room.
Ben would write
three of each series
and Richard would write
the other three and then
they'd swap them over and change
about % of each other's work.
So stay tuned for the exclusive story
of Blackadder in all its rotten glory.
Ha, ha, ha - very amusing.
years after its debut,
Blackadder is now
the most successful
historical sitcom ever.
And this tale of skulduggery began
in when two Oxford University
students, Richard Curtis
and Rowan Atkinson, met.
I saw this little advert in the
university newspaper saying,
you know, we're thinking of
getting a comedy revue together,
meetings at University College
at a certain time.
So I thought I'd beetle along because
I felt as though I had an interest.
And, um, and Richard was there.
He was one of the sort of six or
eight of us I used to meet every
Thursday evening or
something to plan a show
which we did at the
Oxford Playhouse.
The first time I met Rowan
I thought he was a...
piece of furniture - he didn't
say anything at all for two hours.
And then the first time
I saw him perform
it was instantly clear
that he was a real genius.
My daughter could not have chosen
a more delightful, charming,
witty, responsible,
wealthy - let's not deny it -
well placed, good looking
and fertile
young man...
than Martin as her husband.
And I therefore ask the question,
why the hell did she marry Gerald?
The first time I saw Rowan
was one of the great moments
of my life.
I, I don't mince my words.
I was a young Radio producer doing
a show called Late Night Extra
and every year we used to go
to the Edinburgh Festival
and cover the shows there.
And me and a young sound
recordist called John Whitehall
went to see what was billed
as The Oxford Revue,
er, which I understood originally
had six or eight undergraduates in it.
But Rowan had decided that
they weren't terribly funny
but Richard Curtis was funny
and so the two of them ended up
doing the revue on their own.
And then several years later when I
was starting Not the O'Clock News,
obviously he had to be the man.
His timing is the thing
that makes it superb.
Er, he could time something
musically -
a mime or, or an attitude or
there'd be a flicker in his face
that would turn something that
would be seemingly not very funny,
someone playing a scale,
into something hilarious.
He is the rubber-faced clown that
we all used to call him at that time.
He has a kind of feline physicality
about him
which I've never seen reproduced
by any of our other comics.
Rowan just creates
a whole, bizarre, weird world.
The comedy performance of the year
winner, Mr Rowan Atkinson.
With the -year-old's career
climbing, Rowan Atkinson,
accompanied by Richard Curtis,
turned his hand to the British
comedy staple of sitcom.
The reason we wrote Blackadder
was because of Fawlty towers.
Fawlty Towers seemed so perfect
to us at that point
that the idea of writing a
modern sitcom was too demoralising.
So the first thing I did was
try and write a detective sitcom.
I thought it'd be fun to do something
which had a real plot where there was
a m*rder or something like that
so it wouldn't be an incident
in a domestic situation but would have
some kind of extra dimension to it.
I couldn't make that work.
And so the next thought
to try and avoid this almighty
shadow of Fawlty Towers was to do
something set back in, in history.
The first script that I saw,
King Edmund and his two friends,
I thought was very, um, er...
soft and a bit sentimental.
I couldn't see the point of it, really.
My sort of contribution, if I might
call it that, was to try and say
"this should be set in real history"
so that you've never heard
of Blackadder or Baldrick
but you've heard of all
the people around them.
So that's why the first series
was set in this mythical...
piece of forgotten history
between Richard III and Henry VII.
And I think they'd got the title
Blackadder not from Dr Blackadder,
the BBC doctor, as he sometimes likes
to claim, but from, I think it was
The Black Knight of Falworth,
which was a Tony Curtis movie.
It was those sort of medieval
Hollywood type movies that, that
seemed to have the word
black or the colour red -
The Red Badge Of Courage
or whatever - in front of it.
And then,
God knows where adder comes from.
As I shall be known from now on.
The Black Vegetable.
My Lord?
Wouldn't something like The Black
Adder sound better? No.
Wait.
I think I have a better idea.
What about The Black Adder?
Written by Curtis and Atkinson,
The Black Adder hit our screens in
and took us back to the bloody and
debauched days of
and medieval England
to tell the tale of Prince Edmund,
the first Blackadder.
What's his name?
Edmund. EDNA!
Fight you with us on the morrow?
No, no, I thought
I'd fight with the enemy.
'I remember it being sort of loose.'
It was kind of, er, big and
sprawling. It looked incredibly...
extravagant and it was
exciting, actually,
it was exciting to see people
doing, er, anything comic
outside an ordinary sitting room
with a sofa and two chairs.
You're, er, not putting him
anywhere near me, are you?
Oh, no, no... He'll be
somewhere amongst the rabble.
Oh, arrow fodder.
Precisely. Yes.
What a little turd.
'One of the pleasures of, er...'
the very first Blackadder
was that it had Peter Cook in it.
It gave it a kind of blessing
from the original god
of this kind of comedy.
So to have him...
dying in the first episode
is like a...
passing on, as it were, of the
great, er, comedy tradition.
Rowan had to be on his toes
quite a lot because, er, Peter
wasn't content with doing
the lines as written on the page.
He would, um, there was quite a
lot of improvisation going on.
Er, so Rowan had to get over his
shyness quite quickly with Peter.
Frankly... Yes?
Well, well, well, frankly, er,
gosh, you look well.
Frankly what? Spit it out,
you horrid little scabby reptile.
Um, well frankly,
everyone thought you were dead.
Well, frankly...
I am.
'We thought the funniest thing
in the first series was,
um, Jim Broadbent
as the, er, Spanish translator and I've
never worked out why it's so perfect.
But I think it's that he
mis-stresses every single word.
It's just a sort of astonishing
technical feat to get the rhythms of
the English language
so completely wrong.
Edmundo. Que tales?
Now Edmund, what HE like?
Well, I told you...
HE MURMURS
No, no, no, en la camba?
No, what he LIKE in BED?
Yeah, well in bed
he likes hot milk
with just a litle touch of cinnamon.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
What is...
HE...
like?
Well, he's like
a little rabbit really.
SPANISH
I'm embarrassed to say that I had
no, um, idea really of what a
Spanish accent was so I just came up
with this thing which I suppose
is a very bad cod-Italian accent.
But, er, it's, it's seemed to be
funny and nobody questioned it
and, er, but I'm embarrassed now
because I should have done my research.
Oh, mummy, mummy,
how much I love him.
In many ways, the first series was
the most ambitious of all the series.
There was at least five minutes
of film in every episode,
it wasn't sh*t
in front of a live audience.
For that reason,
I think it should be cherished.
Having said that, it was kind of rough
and messy, and some things didn't work.
The first series was ghastly.
I...I... I can't think of another word
for it, it was, er, really difficult.
We were young,
we'd just won a Bafta for
Not The O'Clock News, we really
thought we knew what we were doing.
And we bit off far more
than we could chew.
My memory of it was that it
was very, very expensive
and that it had some fantastic things in
it which I remember as being fun in it
but I'm a bit scared to watch whole
episodes in case they're not perfect.
Thin on laughs and with
its star, Rowan Atkinson,
not wanting to co-write a second
series, a radical overhaul was needed
to stop The Black Adder hanging
up his codpiece forever.
Enter a -year-old
motormouth comic.
Wow wacky!
It's amazing! Anything could
happen on this programme. It's fab!
'I got involved with Blackadder
because of Richard Curtis.'
He'd contacted me with an idea
that we should work together
after he'd seen The Young Ones.
We decided to do a sitcom about
Madness which we actually
did try and do but we came in just a
little bit late in Madness's career.
At some point we thought
that if he were to do
another Blackadder, we should
try and write it together.
My sort of memory of it
is him basically saying
"Look, it sort of
only half worked,"
we think we got a lot of it right
and a lot of it wrong
and would you like to come in
and, and we'll write it?
And of course I
thought fantastic,
the opportunity to write
lines for Rowan Atkinson.
So we set about writing
six episodes together.
You are safe
and I am a prince of the realm.
Ben Elton, coming from a completely
different direction, a comedy direction
had said "The problem with it
is you see, there's no focus.
"There are all these horses
and outdoor scenes
and castles and guards. You
don't want any of that.
"You just want
the people at the centre."
Dear Big Boy,
sail south, as you know
your galleon is always assured
a warm welcome in my harbour.
So Ben was really keen to reduce it.
As it happened,
what he wanted to do in comic terms
also meant that it would have
a drastically slashed budget.
And at the point
the bombshell dropped.
Michael Grade had just become
Controller of BBC
and he'd taken a look at
what was on commission
and he obviously decided he
didn't want The Black Adder.
'I felt the show was kind of
indulgent and a bit lost, er,
but I could see there was something
there and I wanted to do it again
and I laid down the condition
that I would do another series
provided they came in to the studio
with audience, got the show on its feet,
sh*t it in sequence
and they'd find out what they had.
Which I didn't think
they did on location.
My memory is that the
scripts were written,
they were basically finished and
the decision to go into studio,
er, and to avoid the big
filmic sort of vibe of the previous
series was one that we took on,
Richard and I took on day one.
The idea that it was a financially
canny executive that sort of pushed us
back into the studio is not true.
I'm pretty sure that Ben's
version of events is right
which is that we wrote
a new series on spec,
um, that they then
made up their minds not to do it.
And then when we showed them
what we were actually going to
do which was a studio sitcom
at half the price with twice as many
gags that they changed their minds.
Thankfully, the filthy genes
of the Blackadder family
bubbled back on
to our screens
on the th of January , a full
three years after the first series.
Lord Edmund, a pompous peer,
reappeared in Elizabethan England.
That was a terrific joke, wasn't it?
Oh, magnificent.
That was so naughty.
What, my lady?
I do know why I wanted to see you
and I just pretended I didn't
and I fooled you and it worked
brilliantly, didn't it?
It was terrific, madam.
I thank God I wore my corset
because I think my sides have split.
The first series, we thought
originally was a funny period.
And when that didn't really
work and Ben came on board
he said I hate that period, it's
muddy and filthy and horrible
and we should do the Elizabethan
thing which is dead sexy.
Hello there.
Edmund, you didn't tell me
we were expecting guests.
And such a pretty one, too.
Oh, God.
We'd kind of talked
Elizabethan period through and
come up with a number of things -
discovery, disease, tobacco,
beheading, that sort of thing.
And we felt instinctively we were on
the right track for touching certain
sort of half-remembered school
history memories with people.
And yet actually, you know, playing
very fast and loose with them.
Using text book history
as a backbone, a new Edmund
was needed to plot and connive his
way through the Elizabethan court.
Bloody explorers, ponce up to
mumbo jumbo land, come home with
a tropical disease, a sun tan and
a bag of brown lumpy things and
Bob's your uncle, everyone's got
a picture of them in the lavatory.
What about the people
who do all the work?
The servants? No, me! I'm the people
who do all the work.
Ben and I sort of went through
the vocabulary of the first series
and then went through what
we knew Rowan could do.
And decided that someone that
sharp and sarcastic would be fun.
Between us we decided
to reverse the dynamic
and make Baldrick the idiot
and Rowan the cunning one.
Baldrick I would advise you
to make the explanation
you were about to give
phenomenally good.
You said get the door.
Not good enough, you're fired.
But my Lord, I've been in
your family since .
So has syphilis, now get out.
Still to come - we look at
the method behind the madness.
I know that I was referencing
a friend I had at school.
Splice me, Sir Walter, it's bucko
to see you, oh, matey!
And reveal an insight in
to the writing partnership
that would make Blackadder
a sitcom legend.
I can't imagine I will ever have
a more satisfactory or satisfying,
um, you know, artistic
experience with anyone else.
He may have started as a
snivelling, blithering cretin,
but the latest Blackadder descendent
was rather more debonair.
Farewell.
And, er,
don't wait up.
Gosh!
I think series two, Rowan
wanted to be handsome.
He's the court favourite, he has to
be dashing, he's wearing an earring.
And he carried it off,
I have to say.
The moment that Rowan stepped out of
the makeup caravan at Wilton House
dressed in all that garb
and all us girls went, "ooh!"
Oh, Edmund - you're so naughty.
Well, I try Madam.
And then ten minutes later,
when I've got my breath back,
I'll try again.
Unfortunately for Edmund, he's still
saddled with the same brainless servant.
If I have two beans and then I add
two more beans. What do I have?
Some beans.
Yes.
And no. Let's try again, shall we?
I have two beans,
then I add two more beans.
What does that make?
A very small casserole.
It wasn't until the second series
when Ben Elton joined the writing
team that he had this idea,
why don't we turn Baldrick into the
stupidest most brain-dead creature
that has existed in the whole
course of human history.
And the clever thing
about that is that it meant
that Blackadder could be as stupid
as the scriptwriters wanted him to be
but there would always be someone who
was even more stupid than Blackadder.
Do you have a Kn*fe? Yeah.
Good. Because I wish to quickly send
off some party invitations and to
make them look particularly tough,
I wish to write them in blood.
Your blood, to be precise.
How much blood will you
actually be requiring, my Lord?
Oh, nothing much -
just a small puddle.
Oh. Will you be wanting
me to cut anything off?
Er, an arm or a leg, for instance?
Oh, good Lord no,
a little prick should do.
Very well my Lord,
I am your bondsman and must obey.
Oh, for God's sake Baldrick, I
meant a little prick on your finger.
I haven't got one there.
Oh, forget it, forget it. Personally,
I think Percy's my favourite character.
Bob, this is Percy - a dimwit I
don't seem to be able to shake off.
He's like the runt of the litter.
You want to kick him just because
he's so desperate to please
that you just want to go,
"oh, go away."
Simpering twit, wasn't he?
He was great, fantastic.
Um, Blackadder. Just, er,
so pleased with himself.
He's just such a prat.
I mean, poor love.
Edmund - come quickly, the Queen
wants to see you. What...?
I said Edmund, come quickly,
the Queen wants to see you.
Please let me finish. What are
you wearing round your neck?
Ah! It's my new ruff.
You look like a bird who's
swallowed a plate, Percy.
It's the latest fashion actually
and as a matter of fact
it makes me look rather sexy.
To another plate-swallowing bird,
perhaps.
I remember people asking me at
the time
whether Percy
was actually based on anybody.
He just naturally grew out of the
writing and the rhythm of the writing.
Every time you looked at a
page of Richard's writing,
it was just there
and very clear.
I'm very aware of the fact that Percy is
Sir Andrew Aguecheek from Twelfth Night.
I did a production of Twelfth
Night, I used to find that sort
of mixture between arrogance and
insecurity of Aguecheek very funny.
I must say, Edmund, it was jolly
nice of you to ask me to share
your breakfast before the rigours
of the day begin.
Well, it is said Percy that
civilised man seeks out
good and intelligent company, so
that through learned discourse
he may rise above the
savage and closer to God.
Yes, I'd heard that.
Personally however,
I like to start the day
with a total BLEEP head,
to remind me I'm best.
One of my favourite moments
is him trying to get
Blackadder out of his financial
difficulties and...
discovering the secret of alchemy.
Behold!
Percy, it's green.
That's right, my Lord.
Yes, Percy - I don't want
to be pedantic or anything
but the colour of gold is gold.
That's why it's called gold.
What you have discovered,
if it has a name, is some green.
Ah, Edmund!
Can it be true
that I hold here in my mortal hand
a nugget of purest green?
Indeed you do Percy, except of
course it's not really a nugget,
is it, it's more of a splat.
Percy was so thrilled to
have created this, this thing.
We could actually probably have made
a fortune by creating lots of bits
of green and selling
them to the public.
Maybe I could still do that now?
Of course you know what your great
discovery means, don't you, Percy?
Perhaps, my Lord.
That you, Percy,
Lord Percy...are an utter berk.
Having two stupid sidekicks was the
least of Edmunds worries when facing
the thr*at of losing his head
to a rather psychotic queen.
I only didn't laugh at loud
because I was afraid if I did,
then my head would have fallen off.
If you don't start soon,
your head will fall off!
Glenda Jackson,
Helen Mirren, Cate Blanchett,
Judy Dench have all played
Queen Elizabeth I.
None of them played her as well
as Miranda Richardson.
SHE SQUEAKS
The essence of caprice in a monarch that
she played as the young Queen Elizabeth,
it is one of the most joyous
experiences of my life would be
standing next to her, watching
these incredible contortions
and writhing and hearing
these phenomenal squeaks
and squeals and noises come
out of this incredible woman.
It was really remarkable
performance, I think.
Do you know what I'm going to do?
What?
I'm going to go along
and find out exactly
what happens at
these boys' nights.
Oh, good idea, poppet.
And I'll wear a cloak with a cowl
so no-one will recognise me.
Oh, that's another good idea.
You're so clever today you better be
careful your foot doesn't fall off.
I thought of her as somebody with too
much too soon, you know, far too young.
She's just got so much power
you know, she can just like,
snip off somebody's head
if she feels a bit moody that day
and you know, she's a
girl, girls get moody.
Grey, I suspect, Majesty.
I think you'll find it
was orange, Lord Melchett.
Grey is more usual, Ma'am.
Who's queen?
Yes, yes, Majesty. Er, there were
these magnificent orange elephants.
She takes the character and, and of
course looks terrific in the costume
and then makes the contrast as sharp
as possible with the real person.
The real person was a,
was a fantastic politician
and a tremendous figure in British
history, no doubt about that.
The Elizabethan age, she
gave her name to an age.
Well, you don't do that by speaking
as a five-year-old child.
The other day there was this
enormous tree
and I was sitting right on top of it.
And then I dreamt once
that I was a sausage roll.
Majesty... Sorry.
So exciting.
Don't know what I'm saying.
I know that I was referencing
a friend I had at school.
We'd sort of talk in this sort of
silly language to each other and...
Going just sort of you know,
sort of exacerbated
small girl kind of voice.
Just tell me one thing.
Is her nose as pretty as mine?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, Ma'am.
Oh, good! Because otherwise
I would have cut it off
and then you'd have had to marry
someone without a nose
and that wouldn't be very nice,
would it? No, Ma'am. No.
I mean, imagine the mess
when she got a cold - yuk!
She gave a performance
of sustained imagination
and she's just so clever.
Helping Queenie rule were a
sycophantic Lord Chamberlain
and a very jolly podgy
nursemaid named Nursie.
I had three sisters and they were
called Donald, Eric and Basil.
Then why is your name Nursie?
That isn't my real name. Isn't it?
No. What is your real name then?
Ha! Bernard.
Suits you, actually.
It ought to have been deeply
weird, pervy, peculiar, wrong
in Queenie's relationship
with Nursie but it,
instead of making the Queen less
dignified, it somehow made her more so.
I added just a little kind of, um,
colouring.
She's an earthy character and I think
you've got to have a certain
roundness perhaps to the vowels.
Or she would probably think more
of the bowels than the vowels.
A tush and fi my tiddly. You didn't
always make such pretty speeches.
Oh, lor. Twas but
the twinkling of a toe
since you could say nothing
but, "Lizzie go plop, plop."
"Lizzie go..."
Well, put a bung in it, Nursie.
It was close knit and, er, we
knew how one another worked.
It was a family of characters and a team
of actors who got on extremely well.
It's extraordinary how if you
grow a beard it doesn't really...
irritate you but when it's
applied, it's absolutely maddening.
The Melchett of series two was
was a rather a cowardly double
dealing political sort of figure
who was a flatterer essentially,
a sycophant of the queen.
Um, whom the queen
put up with because
a part of the queen liked having
people saying nice things to her.
But the other part of
her of course realised
that Melchett was just
silly old Melchett.
Oh, but I must profess, madam,
I am astonished that
Blackadder could possibly have eyes
for any other woman than yourself.
Good point.
Though slightly grovelly.
And he was someone to be
made fun of by Blackadder.
Er, there was a definite
rivalry between them.
Blackadder would always win in terms
of style but Melchett would always
be secure in terms of you
know, political face-saving.
Ah Melty, you really are a beginner,
you're not even wearing
a pair of comedy breasts.
Au contraire, Blackadder.
Combining toilet humour and great
plots, the newly formed writing team
took Blackadder from
strength to strength.
Richard and I had I think
the best imaginable,
um, writing collaboration.
We, we very quickly, um,
evolved a work method
that stood with us
through all three series.
As far as I know they never wrote
a line together in the same room.
Ben would write three of each series
and Richard write the other three
and then they'd swap them over
and change
about % of each other's work.
Basically it was a relationship
based on the handing over
of those square computer disks.
And the fantastic thing was that, um,
you end up morphing in to each other
you know, you end up actually trying
to write to please the other person.
So you might think that I was
in charge of plots and history
and Ben was in charge of
knob gags but in fact, er,
I used to write jokes to
try and make Ben laugh,
and Ben used to try and write
plots in order to impress me.
We had a sort of rule that we would
not question the other's edits, ie,
you wouldn't fight for a line that had
been cut which was quite difficult,
'cause often Richard would cut stuff
I thought was good and vice versa.
The theory was you don't
tell a joke at dinner
and then if no-one laughs say, wait
a minute, you weren't listening.
I've just said something really
funny. You just move on.
So that was very relaxing,
not having to rake back through
the stuff you did before.
If he'd read it before,
if I'd read it before,
um, it was, and not
laughed, it was out.
This collaboration together with
Rowan's rather peculiar pronunciation
created one of the most mimicked
names of the second series.
What do they call you? Kate.
Isn't that a bit of a girl's name?
Oh, it's, um, short for, um, Bob.
Bob? Yes.
Well...Bob - welcome on board.
Rowan won't mind me saying that
he has in real life a slight
and entirely erotically splendid,
stutter or stammer -
I never know quite which is which.
Um, and particularly on the letter B
which makes him saying words
like Bob, very funny.
The way that he combats that -
as a lot of stutterers do -
is to in his mind, as he comes up to
that word that's got the plosive B
or P in it, just to visualise it
and then say it.
So that rather than just say
the word "Bob", he'll go "...Bob."
Well, Bob we're a couple of
fine lads together, aren't we.
Let's get ratted
and talk about girls, eh?
B-O-B.
It is an absolute joy
to hear how much he can get
from those three letters.
But as I say, the O, I think
I've known other people that can
do better O's but his B's,
beginning and ending B's...
un...beatable.
I find you curiously
pleasant company, young Bob.
There was a famous moment in Blackadder
where his stammer came to, er, into play
where he had the line, "God it's
like Battersea Dog's Home in here."
And he got stuck on the Ba...
Battersea and he couldn't say it
and we did about takes
in front of the live audience.
And I got on to the earpiece and
said tell him to say Crufts instead.
Woof! Woof!
God, it's like Crufts in here.
And of course the audience
goes insane.
But isn't that brilliant
on the part of John Lloyd?
What other line is there,
except for Battersea Dog's Home?
Crufts was the answer.
Superb on-the-wing producing.
Coming up, the man
who not only stole
Blackadder's bride, but
also stole the best lines.
Flash by name, flash by nature.
Hooray. Rick, he said, "I'm not
coming in unless every single line
"is much funnier than every line
that Rowan has in the whole series."
And we leap forward in time
to when our great nation
was ruled by a
complete foppish fool.
What a pair of trousers. I shall
be the belle of the Embassy ball.
The first series may have
been light on laughs
but the latest Blackadder proved
to be a rip roaring success,
packed with gags and
unforgettable characters,
including a scene-stealing
performance from this flash git.
It's me.
Flash by name, flash by nature.
Hooray! ALL: Hooray!
Of course I have a particularly
fond memory
of Rick Mayall's
creation of Flashheart.
I was working with Rick very closely
at the time on The Young Ones and
Filthy Rich and Cat Flap and
it was written very specifically
with him in mind.
I thought it was quite brilliant.
I remember meeting Rick and he said,
"I'll do your scuzzy series
"as long as every single line
is much funnier
"than every line that Rowan
has in the whole series."
Thanks bridesmaid, like the beard.
Gives me something to hang on to.
Whenever he, er, arrives in
something, he always, um,
gives it a good kick up the behind
so everybody has to look up
and pay attention and,
and actually, er,
look to their own game plan
and, er, improve it.
All through rehearsal he played it
as the dashing character.
But on the night, my goodness,
he gave it rock all
and if you look at the scene
you will see that everyone's
standing around on that set
looking completely amazed
at what's the force of
nature that's just arrived.
And Melchy.
Still worshipping God? My Lord.
Last thing I heard
he started worshipping me.
A-ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
ALL: A-ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ruh! Nursie!
I like it firm and fruity.
Am I pleased to see you or did
I just put a canoe in my pocket?
Down boy, down.
And now,
where's this amazing bird?
The sheer opposite nature of
his character from Rowan's
both in the narrative terms
and as performers made it
a fabulous contrast.
Two of the most talented comic
performers of their day
facing off against each other,
er, using their different styles.
Rowan just gently stepped
back during those weeks
and did his homework in private
while we indulged Rick's magnificent,
um, firework personality.
So long suckers, next time
you get bored of your lives,
give me a call and I'll
come round and k*ll you.
Bye Edmund and thanks for everything.
Hooray!
Um, it is customary on these occasions
for the groom to marry the bridesmaid.
I presume you intend
to honour this, um?
I do.
Someone once said a
very sweet thing to me
about liking, um, the second
series because of all the IE's.
And I said, what's that mean?
And he said well, it was Nursie,
Queenie, Melchy, Percy -
that it was the cosiest of series,
that they were like a,
they were really like a family
and a family that played with
each other and teased each other.
And I think there is a warmth about
that series which makes it unique.
After six episodes and with more than
ten million viewers tuning in weekly,
the series ended in spectacular style
when Hugh Laurie popped up
as a mad German Prince.
I shall return and reek my rewengey.
And massacred all of
our favourite characters.
I won't take much credit for
much of Blackadder but I will
take credit for the closing
title sequence on the series two.
We had a day's filming down
in Wilson House in Salisbury
and this was
His Lordship's back garden.
We put the camera back to
the window, locked it off
and everyone came up with an idea
of what the minstrel could do
and what Rowan could
do to the minstrel.
And it just worked a treat.
These credits were accompanied
by the now iconic tune
created by an old uni mate
of Richard and Rowan's.
They were fun doing those songs at
the end although my memory is that,
er, Richard would give us the lyric
about a minute before
it had to be recorded.
So it was always a bit tense
to be honest 'cause, um,
we were never quite ready to do it.
I feel slightly nostalgic about it
because these days you couldn't do that.
Firstly you're only allowed
a tiny amount of time
at the end of the programme
and secondly,
they show you the next programme
over the credits and talk over it.
So, I look back on it rather
with sort of familiarity,
how nice it was that we were able
to do that extra gag,
bonus gags,
um, during the final credits.
Da-daa.
By , the next reincarnation of
Blackadder had not only slipped
down the social scale
from Lord to butler...
Something wrong, Mr B?
I've had it up to here
with that prince.
One more insult and I'll
be handing in my notice.
Ooh, does that mean I'll be butler?
But had lost his faithful and
dim-witted friend, Lord Percy.
The idea of it being fun and
friends together making something,
you know, that we'd enjoy
even if other people
didn't had snowballed into
such a huge success that,
um, I felt it was getting
in the way of, of my, er,
of the public perception of me and
my perception of myself as an actor.
And I didn't want it to, er,
overpower other things I was doing.
When I heard that Tim
wasn't going to do it,
you think oh, dear,
this is a bit of a disaster
because he'd become so much
part of the second series.
And if Tim had wanted to do the
third series and had he been free,
he might well have played
the Hugh Laurie part.
But there's always
an advantage to it.
Actually, in some ways, Hugh
Laurie's character is a sort of,
a sort of Percy,
similar sort of twittish type.
We took Percy who hadn't been clever
and, and scooped out the final
teaspoonful of brains and,
and presented, um, Hugh Laurie.
We now find ourselves in
th century England during
the reign of mad King George III
and his dotty son the Prince Regent.
I was conscious of filling
the great Tim McInnerny's shoes
and that's, um... And he takes,
in comic terms, a size .
He's, er, very big-footed comically.
I suppose George was
sufficiently different,
um, rather than being a
sidekick of Blackadder's,
he was his you know, the actual
dynamic of it was different.
Oh, oh, oh, Blackadder, Blackadder!
Your Highness.
Wha... What what time is it?
Three o'clock in the afternoon,
your highness.
Oh, thank God for that -
I thought I'd overslept.
Ben and Richard had written
some fantastic jokes
and some great opportunities
to shout and pull faces
which is what I do or
what I did at the time.
I've moved on since then.
Oh, yes - I've grown, um, matured.
But at the time, shouting was
very good fun, very enjoyable.
Marry? Never.
I'm a gay bachelor, Blackadder.
I'm a roarer, a rogerer,
a gorger and a puker.
I can't marry. I'm young,
I'm firm-buttocked, I'm...
Broke.
Well, yes, I suppose so.
I found shouting very easy. Talking
quietly I find extremely difficult.
Not now, but in front of an audience
it just makes me want to shout.
I think its nerves.
Hugh wears his heart on his sleeve,
you know, he doesn't conceal anything.
If Hugh is nervous or depressed, you
see it, it's all over him, you know.
Hugh would be b*ating himself up
going, "oh, God, God, oh, God,
"I'm so unfunny, I'm the least funny
person in the world."
They must throttle him
on the House, mustn't they?
Now come on Blackadder,
let's get packing.
I want to look my best for those
fabulous French birds.
He never thinks he's good enough.
But really honestly I think
the prince is just
such a fantastic buffoon and he's
so consistently buffoon-like
in the characterisation,
he works a treat.
I think Hugh is being a little
self-deprecating there.
Honestly Blackadder I don't know
why I'm bothering to get dressed.
Soon as I get to the
Naughty Hellfire Club
I'll be de-bagged and radished
for non-payment of debts.
Radished, sir?
Yes, they pull your britches down and
push a large radish right up...
Yes, yes, yes, all right.
There's no need to hammer it home.
As a matter of fact, they do often...
No, no!
I thought he was dreadful.
I couldn't bare,
I couldn't bare watching... No!
Um, I thought it was brilliant and
I thought it worked terribly well
and it wasn't the same as Percy anyway.
Hugh's Prince Regent I think perhaps
you know, should be celebrated more.
I mean a truly brilliant performance
of a foppish regency idiot.
Thank God you're here, we desperately
need you. Who, me sir?
Mr thicky Black thicky Adder thicky?
Oh, this nonsense.
Just the hopelessly drivelly can't
write for toffee crappy butler...
Yes, well... Mr brilliantly
undervalued butler
who hasn't had a raise
in a fortnight?
Take an extra , .
Guineas, per month?
All right, what's your problem?
Underlying all this stupidity
there's a desperate loneliness.
The reason I think why he
craves Blackadder so much
is it's somebody to talk to and
somebody who'll talk to him
on a level that won't make
him feel too threatened.
Even though Blackadder is
manipulating him shamelessly.
It was an absolutely perfect triangle
really that Blackadder has a...
...a cretin, as a master
and a cretin as a servant.
Then he's stuck in
a cretinous triangle.
You made...
Baldrick a Lord?
Oh, yes. One who has
recently done sterling work
matching the political
machinations of the evil Pitt.
Good old Lord Baldrick.
It's all right, Blackadder - you
don't have to curtsey or anything.
Sir, might I let loose
a short, violent exclamation?
Oh, why certainly.
DAMN! (Thank you, sir.)
Even though Edmund is reduced
to serving and saving the skin
of a bumbling Prince Regent, he does
have his faithful dogsbody to bully.
MIAOW! ]
Oh, sir -
poor little Mildred the cat.
What's he ever done to you?
It is the way of the world Baldrick,
the abused always kick downwards.
I am annoyed and so I kick the cat.
The cat... SQUEAK! ...pounces on the
mouse and finally the mouse... Ah!
...Bites you on the behind.
Baldrick puts up with all the
physical and mental t*rture that
he receives from Blackadder 'cause he
thinks that's the way of the world.
He suffers pain and he accepts it
because that's what people
do to people like Baldrick.
Um, he doesn't notice it
most of the time.
Takes a very long time for pain
to get from any part of his body
er, up to his brain and
by the time it gets there
it's tired and doesn't
really register very much.
And what do I do? Nothing, you
are last in God's great chain.
Unless of course there's
an earwig around here
that you'd like to victimise?
However, for all his stupidity,
Baldrick did come up with the
show's only catchphrase.
Don't worry Mr B, I have a
cunning plan to solve the problem.
Yes, Baldrick, let us not forget
that you tried to solve the problem
of your mother's low ceiling
by cutting off her head.
Ben Elton wrote this line which was
I have a plan, for me.
And I said, can I not say,
"I have a CUNNING plan?"
'Cause that way "I have a plan"
is rather a flat line,
but "I have a cunning plan",
you dwell on it, it's so exciting,
it's so sexy this plan, that
it's bound to be fantastically good.
Am I jumping the g*n, Baldrick, or are
the words, "I have a cunning plan"
marching with ill-deserved confidence
in the direction of this conversation?
You certainly are.
Well, forgive me if I don't
jump up and down with glee.
Your record in this department
is not exactly %.
So what's the plan? We do nothing.
Yes, it's another world-beater.
The phrase "I have a cunning plan"
seems to have lasted and I always feel
a sort of strange sense of warmth
when I use it in a letter.
'Cause I think oh, I'm allowed to.
Some people would get bored when they
had that called to them in the street
ten times a day, but it
never fails to amuse me.
The Duke of Wellington.
Have I the honour of...
A familiar face from the
second series reappeared
to fill a rather large
pair of Wellington boots.
Take my hat at once, unless you wish
to feel my boot in your throat
and be quicker than you were
with the door. Yes, my Lord.
I'm a duke, not a lord.
There wasn't even a part for me
in all of Blackadder the Third
but they did offer me this part
of Wellington in the last episode
which I was delighted to play.
Especially as it involved
hitting Hugh Laurie
which is the thing that I
had become very expert at.
I remember him arriving to
do this, the violent stuff,
the slapstick stuff
with some trepidation
because I've done things with
Stephen before, physical things,
where he's had to act punching me and
his acting... Well, how can I put it?
He's punched me basically,
he's just punched me.
As anybody who's ever done
that kind of slapstick knows,
the skill is not in the person
punching or throwing the slap,
it's always in the
person receiving it.
Anyone can do that or that.
It's the timing of your "ow!"
And Hugh is an absolute genius
at being hit.
And something about those enormous
blue lagoons of eyes,
um, and their sorrowfulness,
um, makes it all the funnier
because he doesn't really
understand why he's being hit.
Oh, hell and buckshot, here's that
tiresome servant of yours again.
Oh, budge up, budge up.
How dare you sit, sir, in the
presence of your betters? Get up!
Oh, Christ yes, I forgot, I'm so sorry.
You speak when you're spoken to.
Unless you'd rather be flayed
across a g*n carriage. Well?
Sir, I fear you have
been too long a soldier.
We no longer treat servants
that way in London society.
Why, I hardly touched the man.
I think you hit him very hard.
Nonsense! THAT would
have been a hard hit.
I just hit him like that.
No, sir.
A soft hit would be like this.
Whereas you hit him like this.
Mercy.
I, um, I wonder if I might be
excused your highness, your highness?
Most certainly. Both Rowan and I had
a great time punching him in one scene
and kicking him and generally, um,
yelling at him, shouting at him.
Um, very enjoyable.
Coming up, Blackadder is given
the ultimate accolade by the BBC.
Your series has made it if you are asked
to do a one-hour Christmas special.
[ Humbug.
Humbug, Mr Baldrick?
Oh, thank you very much.
And an exclusive glimpse
into the rehearsal rooms
where the Blackadder magic was created.
A wandering minstrel wandered.
It was very, er, you know,
difficult and testing,
but the pain in the BLEEP about it
was that it was effective.
Medieval madness, Elizabethan glory
and Regency pomp. Tally-ho, Blackadder.
By , Blackadder had wiped
the floor with its sitcom rivals
as its third series picked up
a Bafta for Best Comedy.
Well - hoorah for that.
Building on this success,
Blackadder's Christmas Special
delved into Victorian history
and saw our anti-hero completely muck
up Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol.
There is a sense in which
a Christmas Special is
a kind of accolade,
er, it is a kind of decoration.
Your series has made it if you are asked
to do a one-hour Christmas Special.
You may not do it, but you
want to be asked to do it.
They in fact did deliver,
which was great.
Um, so it was kind of mark of,
you've arrived,
you've been asked to do a Christmas
one-hour special.
That's pretty important.
[ Humbug! Humbug!
Humbug, Mr Baldrick?
Ah, thank you very much.
The Christmas Blackadder,
again a brilliant Richard idea,
we, why don't we play
Christmas Carol in reverse -
let's make him start
off good and turn horrible.
A brilliant plotting idea and
I think we wrote a great script.
Baldrick, I want you to take this
and go out and buy a turkey so large
you'd think its mother had
been rogered by an omnibus.
I'm going to have a party
and no-one's invited but me.
Between us, and it really was
an ensemble piece,
between us we produced some
pretty good bits of comedy.
Almost million viewers tuned
in to Blackadder's Christmas Carol.
What are you doing Albert? Nothing.
Oh, yes, you are,
you naughty German sausage.
Tell me what you're doing?
I just said, I'm not doing anything!
Woman, when you're busy ruling India
you don't tell me what you are doing
so why should I tell you what
I am doing when I am busy
wrapping up this cushion for
your surprise Christmas present?
Damn!
Now I have only two
surprise presents for you.
Oh, dear Alby -
don't worry, I don't mind.
Building on the success of my,
er, my Spanish,
I thought I could do a German accent
and God knows what I did
for, for, er, Albert.
It probably wasn't German or
any other recognisable accent.
I love surprises.
Christmas without surprises is
like ze nuts wizout the nutcrack.
Which is why I have bought you
this surprise nutcracker for...
Damn!
Damn!
Richard and I share a huge love of
history, I know that Stephen and Hugh
love history, er, and John,
I'm certain of that.
I think it gave us a a rich...
I think history gave us
a rich comic you know,
smorgasbord to pluck from.
Blackadder is a bit like taking a
bunch of guys who got history GCSE
and just letting them run wild with a
budget and lots of really good actors,
right the way through
British history.
Although they went to enormous
lengths to construct
this historical setting and
the props
and the incidents, er,
and the backdrop are historical,
the joke of the whole thing is that
the attitudes are the same.
The attitudes are contemporary -
some things never change,
people never change.
But the backdrop changed
dramatically for the th series
when Blackadder moved to modern
history and confined itself
in the claustrophobic trenches
of the First World w*r.
All of those of us who were
performing in Blackadder had this
ambition that we would do a series
which was a genuine situation comedy.
In other words, you would
just have the characters
who were your main characters. They
would be trapped in an environment.
And in a way, the trenches was the
perfect place for that to happen.
We wanted a place and a time that
could reproduce to a certain extent
the claustrophobia and the, er,
the sordidness of medieval England.
And the best way to do that is
to set it in the middle of a w*r.
Baldrick,
what are you doing out there?
I'm carving something on this
b*llet, sir. What are you carving?
I'm carving "Baldrick", sir.
Why? It's a cunning plan, actually.
Of course it is. You see,
you know they say
that somewhere there's a
b*llet with your name on it?
Yes... Well, I thought if I owned
the b*llet with my name on it
I'd never get hit by it.
'Cause I won't ever sh**t myself.
Oh, shame.
I was very anxious to do the
First World w*r period,
it's a period I'm very interested
in and have read a lot about
and both my grandfathers served in
it on either side as it happened.
From the beginning, Richard
and I were absolutely committed
to being extremely
respectful and aware
of the unimaginable human tragedy
that the First World w*r was.
Do you know, we did
a lot of research.
Ben knew it all, I read a few books
and they were interesting all the
books about the First World w*r
because all the stuff we'd wanted to
write about, the clash of the classes
and getting stuck and everything in
a small confined space, were funny.
There was a lot of funny stuff
and then you just had the
astonishing tragedy at the end.
Er, so we felt it was
OK on the condition
that we ended the series
the way we ended it.
That was the feeling that,
er, it was quite true,
but it had to be very
harsh at the end.
Sir? Yes, Lieutenant?
I'm...scared, sir.
I'm scared too, sir.
I mean I'm the last of the
Tiddlywinking leapfroggers
from the Golden Summer of .
I don't want to die.
Really, not over-keen
on dying at all, sir.
How are you feeling, Darling?
There was, as far as I know, no
complaints apart from famously my uncle
who's a, was a famous historian
and had served in the British army
and had felt very, very committed
to Britain and the army
as a Jewish refugee from
n*zi Germany and he felt
that I was being disrespectful
to the British armed services.
And he quickly changed his mind,
he was oh, it was only one
episode and I changed.
He actually totally agreed
that it was, respectful to all.
And yes, we had some fun with the
old lines led by donkeys idea, um,
but you know, that's legitimately
part of our world experience
as Britons and Europeans
inheriting the memories
and the history of our forefathers
of the First World w*r.
At this very moment over three
quarters of a million Germans
are leaving the Russian front
and coming over here
with the express purpose of using
my nipples for target practice.
There's only one thing for it,
I'm going to have to desert and
I'm going to do it right now.
Are you leaving us, Blackadder?
No, sir.
Well, I'm relieved to hear it,
because I need you to help me
sh**t some deserters later on.
Throughout it, Blackadder's
endlessly trying to find a way
of not going to fight.
Everybody watching that
is sort of with him on that one,
understanding why you would not
want to go through with that.
He was the person that could see
the madness all around
whilst everybody else, particularly
Hugh's character there,
who was always sort of saying, "yes,
certain su1c1de, I'll volunteer, sir."
And Baldrick was Baldrick.
He saw the madness
in his own trench,
let alone what was going on
outside and into No Man's Land.
My instincts lead me to deduce that we
are at last about to go over the top.
Great Scott, sir, you mean...you
mean the moment's finally arrived
for us to give Harry Hun a darn
good British-style thrashing,
six of the best, trousers down?
If you mean are we all going to
get k*lled, yes.
George's sort of happy-go-lucky
home-in-time-for-tea attitude
was especially tragic.
Don't forget your stick, Lieutenant.
Rather, sir. Wouldn't want to face
a machine g*n without this.
His ideas about w*r come from games.
George could only see real
warfare in those terms.
He genuinely was
a lamb to the slaughter.
Yes? And how are all the boys now?
Oh, well, er, Jocko and the Badger
bought it at the first Ypres
unfortunately. Quite a shock that.
I remember Bumfluff's housemaster
wrote and told me that Sticky had
been out for a duck and McGubber
had snitched a parcel sausage end
and gone goose over stump frog side.
Meaning?
I don't know, sir, but I read in The
Times that they'd both been k*lled.
And Bumfluff himself?
Copped a packet at Gallipoli
with the Aussies.
So did Drippy and Strangely Brown.
I think the kinship of stupidity
between Baldrick and George
was a very
heart-warming one.
They were companions
on the great road of idiocy.
Oh, now sir, I will not have that.
Baldrick and I will always
be more stupid than you.
Isn't that right, Baldrick?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Yeah stupidy, stupidy, stupidy.
Stupidest stupids in the whole
history of stupidityness.
Although written by Richard Curtis
and Ben Elton, the scripts were
given added comedy value by
its cast behind the scenes.
One of the great things
about Blackadder was
you used to go whistling to work
'cause it was so funny in rehearsal.
What would happen was just
so very, very entertaining
and the rehearsal was often
funnier than the show.
Every single line in the rehearsal
script was challenged, always.
Tim or Stephen or Hugh or Rowan
would be asking questions of it.
How can we make
this better?
It was really, really rigorous
and incredibly frustrating
when we could all see
that something was wrong
and weren't quite sure
how to make it right.
I hate to raise this having
worked on it for three hours,
but do you think it's a very good
joke this, since you suggested it?
Richard took the brunt of that...
We'd say well, I mean this doesn't
work and then re-writing it.
Um, or not or arguing as to
why it did work.
It was very exasperating
because you'd say,
actually this scene will
work if you act it out.
It's a scene about one person
talking very loud to a person
on a balcony while another
person whispers to them.
You won't be able to understand the
scene until we do it like that.
And they'd say no,
no, no - but surely
he should say this thing
about that and the other.
So sometimes it was frustrating
'cause the actors didn't get on
their feet as much as you'd like.
No, hang on, hang on,
there's something wrong here.
Because surely if you're ordering
a cab for a Mr Redgrave...
"From Arnot's Grove",
in that case it should be,
rather than "to
Arnot's Grove".
I thought it was Mr Redgrave who
was ordering the cab, when in fact
what you're saying is
that Mr Redgrave is the person
who's going to be picked up
and who's on the top bell.
We were working with an extraordinarily
creative group of people
and, you know, to expect,
Stephen and Hugh not to chip in,
"Wouldn't this be a good idea or
wouldn't that be a good idea?"
would be madness. Obviously,
the actors had a real part to play.
It's a good joke.
So because they come right
at the end of the word...
But an order for six lengths of Hungarian
crushed velvet curtain material.
You know, it's something. Six
lengths of Hungarian crushed velvet.
This is after the...
Curtain material. In cerise,
in cerise and banana.
The legendary coffee
scene is an example
of the improvisation that we all
used to do in the rehearsal rooms.
Because in the original script,
the only line was about the fact
that the coffee was made out
of mud and then somebody said,
"Why don't you have
sugar, er, dandruff?"
And we all giggled like the naughty
late adolescents we really were.
Baldrick, fix us
some coffee, will you?
And try to make it taste
slightly less like mud this time.
Not easy, I'm afraid, Captain.
Why is this? 'Cause it is mud.
We ran out of coffee months ago.
So every time I've drunk
your coffee since,
I have in fact been
drinking hot mud?
With sugar. Which of course
makes all the difference.
Well, it would do if
we had any sugar,
but unfortunately, we ran
out New Year's Eve, .
Since when,
I've been using sugar substitute.
Which is? Dandruff.
Brilliant.
Still, I could add some milk
this time.
Well, saliva.
It was very, you know,
difficult and testing
but the pain in the BEEP
about it was that it was effective.
On the contrary, George,
we've had plenty of orders.
We've had orders for six metres
of Hungarian crushed
velvet curtain material.
Four rock salmon
and a ha'p'orth of chips.
And a cab for a Mr Redgrave.
Picking up from Arnot's Grove,
ring top bell.
One of the examples of how
everyone would join in
with ideas and
suggestions would be in
those long Baldrick or
Blackadder similes of sort of,
"Baldrick, you are as much use as a..."
and then you could go on for ages.
We're in the stickiest situation
since sticky the stick insect
got stuck on a sticky bun.
The more these things got laughs
in front of the audience,
the more it got
ridiculously overblown.
It was an area where real creative
madness could go on and on
and then it was the trick
of trying to find
which were the best little
aspects of that simile
and pull it back so it
wasn't over-weighted.
Baldrick. Captain B?
This is a crisis. A large crisis.
In fact, if you've got a moment,
it's a -storey crisis with
a magnificent entrance hall,
carpeting throughout,
-hour porterage
and an enormous sign on the roof
saying, "This is a large crisis."
I remember saying to Hugh
and to Rowan and to John Lloyd,
I said, "What will happen
in six months' time
"when a taxi driver says to you,
'Oh, those Blackadders,
"'I bet they're fun to make,
aren't they?'
"Will you go,
'Yes, they're marvellous fun'"?
And they all said,
"No, we'll be honest
and say they're hell,
they're absolute hell."
Wibble.
Still to come, we reveal how these
barking mad characters were created.
It was done as much as anything
to amuse Rowan and Hugh,
to do this rather bizarre
way of speaking.
Um, and of barking.
And how Britain's smelliest underdog
became a national hero.
The healthy humour
of the honest Tommy.
Somebody once told me that more
than half the regimental goats
in the British Army
are now called Baldrick.
Over four series, the Blackadder family
have fumbled their way through history.
The latest conniving kinsman
is desperate to flee the trenches.
I'm going to have to desert
and I'm going to do it right now.
And escape the commands
of a totally incompetent general.
What have we here? Name?
Permission to speak. Baldrick, sir.
Oh, tally-ho, yibbidy dap
and zing-zang spillet.
Looking forward to
bullying off for the final chukka?
Permission to speak.
Answer the General, Baldrick.
I can't answer him, sir, I don't
know what he's talking about.
Ha-ha.
Are you looking
forward to the big push?
No, sir, I'm absolutely terrified.
The healthy humour
of the honest Tommy. Ha ha!
The Melchett in Series was a very
different character to the one in .
He was much, much more aggressive,
much more insane, much more powerful.
He was really for almost the
entire series, THE source of power.
He represents the
absolute insanity of the w*r.
Our battles are directed, sir?
Of course they are, Blackadder,
directed according to the grand plan.
Would that be the plan to continue with
total slaughter until everyone's dead
except Field Marshal Hague,
Lady Hague and their tortoise, Alan?
Great Scott! Even you know it!
With Stephen playing
General Melchett,
he had this madness in the character
and he started to develop the madness.
And that sometimes just came out
as being extraneous noises
that he would put on at
the end of a sequence.
So he would say, "Off we go Blackadder,
baa!" and then that would be off.
And you'd think, "What was that?"
Ha, ha, ah!
And it was done as much as anything
to amuse Rowan and Hugh,
to do this rather bizarre way
of speaking.
Um, and of barking.
So that you knew he was coming
just because you heard a
noise somewhere in the background.
Ah, Blackadder, so you escaped?
Yes, sir.
Bravo. Don't slouch, Darling.
I was wondering whether having
been tortured by the German army,
I might be allowed a week's
leave to recuperate, sir?
Excellent idea.
Your commanding officer
would have to be stark
raving mad to refuse you.
Well, YOU are my commanding officer.
Well?
Can I have a week's
leave to recuperate, sir?
Certainly not. Thank you, sir.
One of the things I gave him,
that just sounds ridiculous,
was the idea that he had piles
so that every time I sat down,
he went, "Ah!"
Right, ooh, ah!
And I would try and make Rowan laugh
by sometimes sitting down like that
and going, "Urgh!" like that
and only Rowan knew it was
'cause I had these apparent piles.
Ooh, ah! So, any news of the spy,
Blackadder?
Yes, sir. Excellent. The Germans
seem to know every move we make.
I had a letter from Jerry yesterday.
It said, "Isn't it about time you
changed your shirts, Walrus face?"
Even though we of course were
the same age, or very often older
than the characters we
were playing, slightly older,
Stephen seemed
to be more like Melchett
than the real Melchett ever could be.
He just physically carried off that
sort of wine-soaked barking fascist
more convincingly than a real wine-
soaked barking fascist could ever do.
The court is now in session.
General Sir Anthony Cecil
Hogmanay Melchett in the chair.
The case before us
is that of the Crown
versus Captain Edmund Blackadder,
the Flanders pigeon m*rder*r.
My favourite episode was probably
the court martial episode, Corporal
Punishment, for all kinds of reasons.
Personal ones, it was one of the
best ones to play Melchett in.
He had the full range
of shuddering emotions.
The Lear-like, I like
to think, response
to the death of his favourite
pigeon, Speckled Jim.
General, did you own a lovely, plump
speckly pigeon...
...called Speckled Jim which
you hand-reared from a chick
and which was your
only childhood friend?
Yes! Yes, I did.
And did Captain Blackadder sh**t the
aforementioned pigeon? Yes, he did.
Can you see Captain Blackadder
anywhere in this courtroom?
That's him,
that's him, that's the man!
Argh! No more questions, sir.
Excellent, first class.
Aiding General Melchett is the pencil-
pushing Staff Officer, Captain Darling.
What do you want, Darling?
The reincarnation of Percy
as Kevin Darling was masterful.
The whole idea of doing
the fourth series,
I mean, it took a great deal of
thought as far as I was concerned
but doing Darling
was a way of hoping
people might forget a
little bit about Percy.
Come on, Darling.
Just give me an application form.
It's out of the question. This is simply
a ruse to waste five months of training
after which you'll claim
you can't fly after all
because it makes
your ears go pop.
I wasn't born yesterday, Blackadder.
Pity - we could have started
your personality from scratch.
To play Darling, who hated Blackadder
and throughout the series wanted him
to go on the front line
and be k*lled, is quite extreme.
And would love
when he was in a position
to mock and ridicule him,
was great.
Good luck, Blackadder.
Why, thank you, Darling.
And what's your big job here today?
Straightening chairs?
No, in fact, I'm appearing
for the prosecution.
I wouldn't raise your hopes too much
- you're guilty as hell,
you haven't got a chance.
Why, thank you, Darling.
And I hope your mother dies
in a freak yachting accident.
One thing I always give credit
for is, as far as I recall,
it was Stephen who came up
with the name Darling,
which I think is one
of the truly great Blackadder jokes.
Next to me, Darling. Thank you, sir.
I can remember the very first
read-through of the first episode
of the last series, Blackadder .
Tim was a bit distressed, 'cause
his character seemed to be nothing.
He was called Cartwright and I suggested
in a rare moment of brilliance
that maybe he should have a name
that was a constant torment to him.
For the next three days, his
name was changed to Darling
and we all, you know, fell about.
How dare you, Darling.
And then I remember we actually
had a vote and said,
"Is this Darling joke going to run
very dry and is it going to seem
really embarrassing after the third
episode or will it sustain?"
And Tim said,
"No, please let me keep it."
Because Tim being the wonderful
actor he is knew how to play someone
who all his life had been
called Darling in a sarcastic way.
We thought the name
Darling was funny,
but it really didn't occur to us
that people would pick it up
in the way that they did.
Which is very stupid
of us obviously, but
the idea that in every single scene,
whenever Melchett called me Darling,
that there was a double entendre
there.
We just thought it was
a silly, embarrassing name,
we didn't realise what it would mean
for the other character.
What is the matter
with you today, Darling?!
I'm so sorry, Blackadder.
Come on, Darling, we're leaving.
The fact that Tim was able to play
a sort of annoyance at his own
name, it was sort of Tim,
he sort of twitched at the use
of his own name as if it still...
it was a dagger in his ribs.
The twitch stayed with me
for months, actually.
It was really difficult.
I did actually get quite scared
that it was never going to go.
I'll deal with this, Darling.
Delicate touch needed, I fancy.
The scene when Melchett is getting
ready for dinner with Georgina,
who is of course you know
Hugh Laurie anyway,
and the whole misunderstanding
of him practising his speech
to her and calling her "darling"
but at the same time, I think he's
talking to me, I think is brilliant.
I think it's a
fantastic piece of writing.
God, it's a spankingly beautiful
world and tonight's my night.
I know exactly what I'll say to her.
Darling. Yes, sir?
Um, I don't know, sir.
Well, don't butt in. Sorry, sir.
I want to make you happy, darling.
Well, that's very kind of you, sir.
Will you kindly stop interrupting?
If you don't listen, how can
you tell me what you think?
I want to make you happy, darling,
I want to build a nest
for your tiny toes,
I want to cover every inch of
your gorgeous body in pepper
and then sneeze all over you.
Really, sir!
I must protest. What is the
matter with you, Darling?
Well, it's just all so sudden, sir,
and I mean the nest bit's fine, but
the pepper business is definitely out.
How dare you tell me how I may or
may not treat my beloved Georgina?
Georgina?
Yes. I'm working out what
I want to say to her this evening.
Oh, yes, of course.
Thank God. All right?
Yes, sir, listening, sir.
Honestly, Darling, you really are
the most graceless, dim-witted
bumpkin I ever met.
I don't think you should
say that to her, sir.
One of the things I love about
Series is that strangely,
I think Baldrick
gained meaning.
You know, he'd just
been a fool and a butt
the whole way through but
there was a remarkable thing
I think happened right
at the end of that series
when he did suddenly seem to
represent the working man.
We've been stuck here
for three flipping years.
We haven't moved.
All me friends are dead.
My pet spider, Sammy.
Katie the worm.
Bertie the bird.
Everyone except
Neville the fat hamster.
I'm afraid Neville
bought it too, Baldrick.
Baldrick is the hero really because
wherever you go, every school,
organisation, every company, every
shop, whatever, has got a Baldrick.
They just loved that character.
Baldrick, I love you!
There's such affection for
Baldrick, it's quite amazing.
I spy with my little eye
something beginning with M.
Er, um. Mm.
Ma, ma, ma.
M... M...
Mug!
Oh, I say. Well done, sir, your turn.
I spy with my bored little eye,
something beginning with T.
Breakfast! What?
My breakfast always begins with tea.
Then I have a little sausage. Then
an egg with some little soldiers.
I think Baldrick has got stupider and
stupider as the centuries have gone on.
In the first series, he was
actually the brightest
out of Baldrick, Percy
and Blackadder.
Um, and then he got a bit stupider
and now he's terminally stupid.
Right, my turn again, what
starts with a "come here"
and ends with "ow"?
Don't know. Come here.
Well done.
Who would have thought that this
smelly, turnip-loving sidekick
would become the nation's
favourite underdog?
Even the armed forces
fell for Baldrick and Blackadder.
It does seem to be the
case that the Army, or at least
an awful lot of people in the Army
love the fourth series.
And I think that's probably
because it expresses
a part of their experience which
isn't allowed to be expressed.
You've got it, mwah!
Well, if I've got it,
you've got it too now.
Blackadder was so funny because it
reflected so many aspects of army life.
So many of the words now have gone
in to sort of Army vocabulary
and we use them on operations,
for example.
Wibble wobble.
Cunning plan.
We use them all the time.
I used them all the time when I was
in Bosnia or in Northern Ireland.
In the first Gulf w*r, many of the
emplacements and headquarters buildings
around Iraq were named
after characters in Blackadder.
There's the Melchett lines
and the Baldrick lines and so on.
And somebody once told me that more
than half the regimental goats
in the British Army
are now called Baldrick.
So that's a rather an honour.
Right, so what do we do now?
Shall I do my w*r poem?
How hurt would you be if
I gave the honest answer
which is, "No, I'd rather
French kiss a skunk?"
So would I, sir.
All right, fire away, Baldrick.
Hear the words I sing
w*r's a horrid thing
So I sing, sing, sing
Ding-a-ling-a-ling.
Ah, bravo, yes, yes.
Yes. Well, it started badly and
it tailed off a little in the middle
and the less said about the end, the
better. But apart from that, excellent.
Shall I do another one, sir?
No, we wouldn't want to exhaust you.
I could go on all night. Not with a
bayonet through your neck, you couldn't.
This one is called The German g*ns.
Oh, spiffing, yes, let's hear that.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom?
How did you guess, sir?
I say, sir, that is spooky.
I'm sorry,
I think I've got to get out of here.
I just had a touching thing the
other day, I might have been judging
a poetry competition
at my son's school.
And one of the boys,
they were doing,
you know, Rudyard Kipling
and Roger McGough
and lots of other serious long poems.
And then one of the boys
stood up and said,
"This poem is called
w*r, by S Baldrick."
And just said "boom" times.
Boom, boom, boom, boo...
I've forgotten the rest of it.
Still to come, an insight
into how one of the greatest scenes
in sitcom history was created.
I just cried.
Er, partly because it was so
beautifully done, it was as well done
as any scene like that in a drama.
And you're also saying goodbye to
your character at the same time.
And Blackadder leaps
to the big screen.
'The final guest of honour
arrives at the Dome.
'Many of the crowds have been here for
up to hours waiting for this moment.
'But I'm sure they
won't be disappointed.'
This multi-award winning sitcom
produced some of the best-
loved moments in comedy.
I want to be remembered
when I'm dead.
I want books written about me,
I want songs sung about me
and then hundreds
of years from now,
I want episodes from my life to be
played out weekly at half past nine
by some great heroic actor
of the age.
But perhaps the finest and most
poignant episode was saved until last.
Hello, the Somme public baths.
No running, shouting
or piddling in the shallow end.
Ah, Captain Darling.
Tomorrow at dawn.
Oh, excellent.
See you later, then. Bye.
The luxury of the final episode
is that we were allowed to start
to play with emotion
and we made an effort to do that.
Clearly, the atmosphere
of the last episode
was deliberately
thought provoking.
I mean, the whole idea you
have to be mad to be in it.
And I hope that the tone was
set not just by the script
but by the fantastic
performances.
Captain Darling.
Captain Blackadder.
Here to join us for the last waltz?
Um, yes.
Tired of folding
the General's pyjamas.
Well, this is splendid comradely news.
Together we'll fight
for king and country
and be sucking sausages
in Berlin by teatime.
Did feel immensely sad
at times, immensely sad.
Sad that these characters who we
all liked were going to die, but sad
because we were representing the deaths
of, you know, even for comic effect,
we were representing the deaths of
many hundreds of thousands of people.
Don't forget your stick, Lieutenant.
Rather, sir. Wouldn't want to
face a machine g*n without this.
Someone in Rowan's office
once told me that % of the mail
that he got, I can't believe he ever
got letters but anyway,
% of the mail they got
was about the final five minutes.
And I do think it was one of those lucky
occasions where we got it mainly right
and where each of the little lines
that come before they go over the top
has a particular point
to do with defeatism and optimism.
And then the final twist when he says
it's the end of the w*r
and it's and you know
that that's not right.
Listen, our g*ns have stopped.
You don't think?
Maybe the w*r's over.
Maybe it's peace.
Oh, hurrah! The big nobs
have got round the table
and yanked the iron out of the fire.
Thank God. We lived through it.
The Great w*r, to .
Hip-hip, hooray!
I'm afraid not.
The g*ns have stopped
because we're about to att*ck.
Not even our generals are mad
enough to shell their own men.
They think it's far more
sporting to let the Germans do it.
The icing on the cake, if such a
sort of naff expression can be used
for such an intensely moving
bit of television,
was this brilliant
freeze frame and fade to poppies.
I think John and Richard between
them, Richard Boden, produced
one of arguably the greatest or one of
the greatest moments in the Blackadder.
That scene came out by accident
because we'd built this enormous
set in the other studio
and the actors went over the top
in pitch darkness
with pyrotechnics going off
and it wasn't a very good take.
So I just got on to the PA and said
they've got to do a take two.
And Rowan got on the line he said
"I'm sorry, we're we're not
going to do that, John."
I said, "What do you mean?"
He said, "It's really the most
frightening thing I've ever done
and we all agreed we're not going
to do it, I'm very, very sorry."
Clicked off the mike.
So I turned to Richard the director
and, "Ooh, blimey, this is a disaster,
'cause it was going so well,
it was so good,
the acting was so
good in that episode
and we've got this awful
end which doesn't work."
When we came to the
editing of the show,
we then started investigating
with slightly slow motion.
And that we would then
freeze the slow motion
of them going across no man's
land with the explosions.
It was very poignant, very moving.
And I had always had
an image in my mind
from the First World w*r
of the poppy fields.
Richard Boden went up to
the news library in the BBC
and found a still
of a poppy field.
And as I mixed between the
sh*ts just to sort of, you know,
just see what it looked like,
it was a yes immediately.
This was a moment.
Good luck, everyone.
WHISTLES BLOW
SHOUTING, g*nf*re
I just cried. Partly because
it was so beautifully done.
It was as well done as
any scene like that in a drama.
And you're also saying goodbye to
your character at the same time.
It's a very odd feeling.
I thought it was absolutely
brilliantly done
and I thought it was kind of
groundbreaking for comedy.
I think it was always the idea
that that last episode would be
this kind of tragic thing with all the
colour draining out of it slowly.
But I don't think we ever
decided it would be the last series
and I suppose in many ways,
we still haven't decided.
These final moments
helped bag Blackadder
two Baftas for Best Comedy
and Best Performance by Atkinson.
And apart from a short Millennium
film shown exclusively at the Dome,
a fifth series is yet to be made.
Look, lads,
we've captured Lord Blackadder!
The possibilities for Blackadder
going, you know, further back
into the past or into the future,
or to other continents.
I mean, there are
always possibilities, because
Richard Curtis and Ben Elton
are immensely talented writers
and they could make, you know, an awful
lot of different kinds of thing work.
There was a great idea that
was around at one time
which was that it would
be a s Blackadder
with Rowan as the bastard
son of Queen Elizabeth.
Um, but he's also a loose swinging
' s type who hangs round
in the King's Road
and he's got this rock band
with a drummer with
no hair in it called Bald Rick.
I would love us to do that one.
We once thought of doing
one set in a university
and everybody would
be there as dons
and they would just hate
all the students.
Um, so I think that we might, I think we
might, you know, do one when we're old.
But Tony Robinson is so old now,
I mean, he's in his early s now.
I'm not sure he'll be alive
when we want to go back to work.
I have a cunning plan.
Oh, ... off, Baldrick!