The True History of the Blackadder (73 page)
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man’s a mushroom, et cetera – not to say, ‘Wibble’ and similar gobbledegook.
‘To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call “nuts” to Scrooge’ – and it suited most of the Blackadder family equally well.
The
fin de siècle
fraternity posing on-set in the summer of 1999. Rowan Atkinson’s goatee beard would go on to establish a cult all of its own.
John Lloyd recalls the creation of one of the greatest TV moments of the twentieth Century: ‘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.’
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them…
PICTURE PERMISSIONS
Plate Section 1
The Black Adder pilot frontispiece reproduced by kind permission of Geoff Posner
The Black Adder series 1 images courtesy of John Lloyd
Blackadder on a horse ©BBC Motion Gallery
Brian Blessed as the King, Mr and Mrs Adder ©BBC
Frank Finlay as the Witchsmeller Pursuivant ©BBC
Peter Cook as King Richard III ©BBC
Plate Section 2
Blackadder and Queenie ©BBC
Pictures 1 & 2 ©BBC
Young Bob and Blackadder ©BBC
,
Tom Baker as Captain Rum ©BBC Motion Gallery
John Lloyd © Peter Brooker/Rex Features
,
Hugh Laurie © Johnny Boylan/Rex Features
,
Rowan Atkinson © Gemma Levine/Getty Images
,
Ben Elton © Steve Pyke/Getty Images
,
Tony Robinson © Redferns/Getty Images
Perrier Awards image ©Perrier/Penguin
Baldrick, Blackadder and Percy ©BBC
Baldrick and Arthur the Sailor ©BBC
,
Tony Robinson (Comic Relief) © Victor Watts / Rex Features
Plate Section 3
Hugh Laurie as the Prince of Wales ©BBC
Pitt the Younger, Blackadder, Baldrick and Vincent Hanna ©BBC Motion Gallery
Baldrick ©BBC
The Prince and Blackadder ©BBC
,
Stephen Fry as the Duke of Wellington ©BBC Motion Gallery
Nigel Planer as Lord Smedly and Helen Atkinson Wood as Mrs Miggins ©BBC
Robbie Coltrane as Dr Johnson with the Prince and McAdder ©BBC Motion Gallery
The Actors and the Highway(wo)man ©BBC Motion Gallery
Blackadder ©BBC
Plate Section 4
Baldrick, Blackadder and Ade Edmonson as Manfred von Richtofen, Gabrielle Glaister as Bob and Hugh Laurie ©BBC
Baldrick and Blackadder, and Tim McInnerney as Captain Darling and Stephen Fry as General Melchett ©BBC
Rik Mayall as Flashheart ©BBC
Miranda Richardson as Nurse Mary and Bill Wallis as Brigadier Smith, Tim McInnerney and George ©BBC
George, Blackadder and Baldrick ©BBC
Blackadder’s Christmas Carol
©Tim Roney/Getty Images
,
The Cast of
Blackadder Back and Forth
©Terry O’Neill/Getty Images
The final Cunning Plan ©BBC Motion Gallery
Over the top and closing credits ©BBC Motion Gallery
While every effort has been made to contact copyright holders, the author and publisher would be grateful for information about any material where they have been unable to trace the source, and would be glad to make amendments in further editions.
Epilogue
THE BLACK ADDENDUM
‘Here lies Edmund Blackadder – and he’s BLOODY annoyed …’
The Black Adder is a villainous reptile, who twists and turns like a you-know-what. That this ‘True History’ could only end on a safe ellipsis was never in doubt, but that an all-new member of the Blackadder family would slither onto the public stage within months of these i’s being dotted does rather take the proverbial fluid.
As at any stage in our comedy history, the back end of 2012 and beyond was steeped with frenzied activity from our ‘Adder alumni. Atkinson made history twice, both with the jaw-dropping insurance pay-out for another crash in his beloved McLaren F1, and being instrumental in helping to trounce another free-speech-denting law, which sought to ban ‘insulting words and behaviour’.
fn1
He also returned to live theatre, getting to have his turn in a play by the late Simon Gray, taking the title role in a box-office-busting revival of
Quartermaine’s Terms
. Meanwhile, besides QI surging along in mid-run form and presenting the eponymous Channel 4 series
Gadget Man
, Stephen Fry similarly returned to the stage at last, continuing this history’s obsessive links with
Twelfth Night
by finally slipping into Malvolio’s yellow stockings to great acclaim, alongside the Shakespeare’s Globe company. He followed this up by
decamping to LA to begin work as a comedy butler to superhero Rupert Grint in his first US sitcom pilot – being sure to call in on his colleague Hugh as he put the finishing touches to his second album,
Didn’t It Rain?
Ben Elton, simultaneously, was back in Blighty – indeed, back up in Manchester, with most of the BBC decamped to Salford – putting together a full series of his first sitcom in a decade, now retitled
The Wright Way
.
fn2
Richard Curtis’s plate remained equally crammed, with the 25th anniversary of Red Nose Day coinciding with post-production work on two films at once, the time-travelling romance
About Time
and a considerably less gag-filled TV film about the tragedies left behind by malaria,
Mary & Martha
…
There was very little to hint at such a thing, therefore, but on Thursday 29th of November 2012, the British people awoke to news of a fresh cunning plan to carry the Blackadder family stamp – this time, unfortunately, one plotted behind closed doors. Once again, it was a royal edict by way of The Prince’s Trust that commanded another bow from the hideous carbuncle on the British Establishment, as part of the comedy gala
We Are Most Amused
, which had taken place the previous evening at the Royal Albert Hall. Sadly, this all-new topical hiccup from the Blackadder Chronicles was neither broadcast nor even professionally recorded.
Elton recalls that he had been contacted by the Trust, ‘asking that I do a gala for them, and if possible to include Rowan. Row kindly agreed, as long as I was prepared to write something for him, so when I offered up the ‘Adder idea, he was happy! I did a draft that Dick gave me notes on, as did Row. Two or three drafts later the sketch was done, with Dick happy to okay it at a distance …’