The True History of the Blackadder (47 page)

As the doomed soldiers waited for dawn, there was the traditional excess of jokes which would be trimmed out of the broadcast version, such as the celebrated debut of Baldrick as war poet:

‘When Ben gave me the script with Baldrick’s poem on it, I just went, “Thank you!”’ Robinson grins, and Fry adds, of the Tommy’s proud rendition of the word ‘Boom’ fourteen times, ‘It is fine poetry; this was the age of modernism, after all. So Baldrick was perhaps the leading modern poet of his age.’

Then there was the high-level debate as to how the war began, and what it was all for, showing once again Baldrick’s Bolshevik tendencies, finally demanding to know why they can’t all just stop killing and go home:

Of course, Darling was as doomed as anybody, and it’s a testament to McInnerny’s performance that even a blotter-jotter as detestable as he could win the audience’s sympathy, as Melchett’s final brainless/heartless act was to send him to his death. The actor says, ‘My final scene with Stephen, before going to the front line, was brilliant. It is very funny, but it’s
awful
. And it was also beautifully shot. I mean, long shadows and high camera angles, which added to the whole drama of it.’ ‘Tim’s a very, very fine actor,’ Richard adds, ‘and so’s Stephen, and just that idea of definitely condemning a man to death and him not being able to object, was moving. There are a few things in that final episode that feel very apt … Someone in Rowan’s office once told me that 93 per cent of the mail he got – I can’t believe he even got a hundred letters, but anyway – 93 per cent was about the final five minutes of
Goes Forth
. 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 …’

Lloyd continues, ‘Suddenly they’re all together, except for Melchett, and enmities have to be patched up, because at the end of the day, they’re all probably going to get killed. The comedy starts to drain out of it in the most horrific way, there was this very odd feeling that you’ve lost control of it.’ Right up until the very final few lines, with the four unlikely comrades lined up before the trench ladders, there’s still hope that a typical Blackadder – or even Baldrick – cunning plan could be waiting around the corner (conceivably, in 1989, each character could even have still been alive), until Darling’s breathtakingly tragic
outpouring of misplaced joy, ‘Thank God! We lived through it! The Great War: 1914 to 1917 …’ finally knocks the wind out of the hopeful viewer.

For the final big push, an extra £10,000 had been spent on creating No Man’s Land in a separate studio, away from the audience who could only watch on the monitors. Lloyd remembers, ‘The actors were alone, in the dark, with a single assistant floor manager, and had to go over the top, with real explosions going off around them. After the first, shocking take, the studio audience and the production team were stunned into silence, but Richard Boden and I felt it could be done a bit better.’ Robinson says the polystyrene scenery was at least partly to blame, as each actor bounced as soon as they hit the ground. It was five to ten, and they had one last chance to get the shot right. John spoke into the floor manager’s earpiece, but the reply came from Rowan himself, in ‘shattered’ tones: ‘I’m sorry,’ came the voice, ‘b-but we can’t do another one, it’s just too horrible.’ ‘What do you mean, you’re not going to do it?’ ‘It’s really the most frightening thing I’ve ever done, and we’ve all agreed we’re not going to do it, and I’m very sorry.’ And with that, the line went dead.

‘It was one of the lowest points, I think, of my television career,’ John admits, ‘thinking, “The end of this amazing series, and I’ve just screwed it up!”’ Seeing the raw footage of the cast stumbling towards the camera, awkwardly striding towards eternity, it’s easy to see why the editing team had worries. However, John says, ‘Each person in that room, as I remember, made at least one contribution to the ending sequence.’ Chris Wadsworth was chief among them. ‘It was so obvious that we had so little material to work with, we had to really slow the pictures right down in order to stretch them in time, but that produced an incredibly good effect with the flashes which were going over on the right of the picture, and the debris that falls over Rowan. In slow motion, this suddenly achieved a grandeur which was not obvious in the full motion.’ ‘We didn’t know if they were supposed to die or
not. It was meant to be ambiguous,’ Lloyd continues. ‘In the editing suite we played the tape of Howard Goodall playing the theme on a piano, recorded in a gymnasium; a liquid, lonely sound. Then the editor said, “What if we played this shot in slo-mo?” “Oh, that’s a good idea.” “And if the music’s slowed down as well it suddenly becomes stronger.” Someone then suggested taking out the colour, draining it out to black and white. And the production secretary said, “I know. We could have some poppies. I know where there’s a slide of poppies.”’ Boden had always hoped to end on a poppy motif, and helped to select just the right still of bucolic peace, while someone from sound selected birdsong to complete the effect. Wadsworth recalls the first time he mixed between the drained battlefield and the poppy field, and says, ‘It was a Yes immediately – this was a
moment
.’ So, John proudly says, ‘There were about five or six people contributing bits and when you put it all together, blow me down, it’s the most moving thing you’ve ever seen. It’s something no one person can claim credit for. It was a group effort, a well-knitted, bonded team of people who really believed in what they were doing. And luck, too. You watch it and it’s like being in church. There’s the sudden sense that you’ve touched something that isn’t usually touched. A kind of epiphany, I suppose. It’s extraordinary and to this day I feel a fantastic privilege that I was allowed, as it were, in the room where something as wonderful as that happened.

‘When I cut the last episode, I took it home to show my then girlfriend, now wife, Sarah. She watched it sitting with her back to me as I watched it in the kitchen of our little open-plan flat, watching over her shoulder. When the episode finished, the tape simply ran out, and she simply sat, unmoving. Fearing that I’d shocked or offended her (or worse, that she’d dozed off), I crept round to look. She was sitting silently, shoulders shaking, looking out into space, her face streaming with tears.’ Tim felt similarly moved. ‘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
was a very odd feeling … I thought it was a kind of groundbreaking thing for comedy.’

And so, with the series beginning broadcast just as these final touches were being put in place, the team could breathe a sigh of relief that the
Blackadder
legacy would not be tarnished – but they couldn’t have predicted the unparalleled reaction
Goes Forth
would get from the British public, who hadn’t anticipated that the series would reach its apotheosis on such a note of pathos and sincerity. ‘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,’ Lloyd says, ‘but I don’t think we ever decided that it would be the last series. And I suppose in many ways,’ he adds, ‘we still haven’t decided.’

We Will Remember Them

Richard Curtis had helped to prepare the public for Blackadder’s last outing by penning a special war diary ‘discovered’ by the
Radio Times
, setting the scene for episode one.

September 1914
Arrived at the front today. Made contact with General Hogmanay Melchett – a very curious cove. To describe him as mad as a hatter would be to cast an unforgivable slur upon the mental state of hatters all over the world. He is accompanied by an irritating aide-de-camp called Darling. I have resolved to see as little of them as possible. Melchett’s idea of a good wheeze is walking slowly towards the German guns in broad daylight wearing a sign saying ‘Boo Sucks To You Fritz!’ The rumour is that the war should be over by Christmas. The rumour-mongers, however, neglect to tell us which Christmas. The only good news is that I am to be joined by a truly remarkable young batman. His name is Private Baldrick. I look forward to his arrival.

October 1914
Sorry to note the continued existence of Private Baldrick … without doubt the least well-equipped human being on God’s earth. All I can say, to his credit, is that since this is the worst, ugliest, and vilest place on God’s earth, he is at least the right man in the right place at the right time. Must stop now. Rat stroganoff for dinner. With boiled potatoes. Or are they? The only light at the end of the tunnel is that I am to be joined by a splendid young lieutenant, the Hon. George Something-or-Other. Can’t wait for his arrival.

December 1914
Just thought I’d grab a spare moment, away from the mindless chatter of George Blancmange-for-Brains. He is the definitive example of English inbreeding. If English aristocratic families don’t stop making a point of pointing their members at other members of the family, all will be lost …

December 1916
Two years of war – and if I ever knew what we were fighting for, I’ve forgotten long ago. I’m now fighting for the right not to spend any more time with General Melchett, Captain Darling, Lieutenant George and Private Baldrick. Surely that’s not too much to ask?

•

Six weeks later, the same periodical was to reflect the astonishing audience reaction to Blackadder’s last push, with one of many letters speaking especial volumes – that the writer was one John Lloyd, the producer’s namesake from West Lothian, was pure coincidence: ‘It certainly touched the teenagers in the school where I teach, many of them were stunned at the sad ending to the characters with whom they empathised. This comedy, more than any serious programme they had watched on the Great War, affected them deeply. It was a great moment in television history. The impact on young people in “Poppy
Week” can only be guessed at.’ It is true that a generation of youths now gazed up at World War I memorials with a new respect and curiosity, but the sacrifice of Blackadder touched a nerve with every age, right up to the last remaining veterans of the Somme. Elton concedes, ‘Clearly it is an absolute nonsense, but it has a certain historical integrity, and is done with a great love of British history.
Blackadder
does remind us that there is so much colour and splendour in our history, how filled with madness, love, hate and intrigue it is.’

Over the years, videos and DVDs of the show have been used as teaching aids for History, English and Drama teachers, with episodes being shown as rewards or on the last day of term as a treat. Curtis says, ‘I think
Blackadder
is taught in schools, definitely the World War I series is. I think
teaching
might be a slightly rich interpretation of it; I think it is background atmosphere. I’ve got a feeling that when they do the Regency or the Elizabethan period, at some point after exams or a particularly hard prep, the DVDs go on. What is great is that they don’t think, “Oh, here’s a hideously old-fashioned thing with people with mullet haircuts.” They think, “Here’s some comedy I like set hundreds of years ago.”’
Blackadder
surfaces in other areas of education too, Richard continues. ‘I was judging a poetry competition at my son’s school – 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 ‘War’, by S. Baldrick,” and just said “Boom!” ten times. I felt very proud, I didn’t realise that I’d contributed to English culture in that way. Well, me or Ben or whoever came up with it. That feeling, that you’ve left something behind, that was a pleasure to do a long time ago, and it’s still rumbling on, is a nice thing.’