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Pre-production began in Spring 1985. The BBC staff director assigned to the project was Mandie Fletcher who had eight years experience in theatre work and had directed episodes of Butterflies, The Fainthearted Feminist and had just completed the first season of Three Up, Two Down.
Of the regular cast to join Atkinson, Tony Robinson - who played Baldrick - had now become part of the regular line-up on Channel 4's late-night sketch show Who Dares Wins which had started with a special in November 1983 and returned with a full series in May 1984; a further series was planned to broadcast from November 1985.
Percy's alter-ego Tim Mclnnerny, had filmed a new prestige BBC drama called 'Magnox' (latterly Edge of Darkness) which was due for transmission that autumn.
Miranda Richardson was selected to play Queen Elizabeth because of her performance as Ruth Ellis - the last woman to be executed in England - in the 1985 film Dance With A Stranger and had also appeared in the mini-series A Woman of Substance.
Stephen Fry, who had emerged from the 1981 Cambridge Footlights, had worked with Elton on Alfresco and appeared in editions of The Young Ones; he was cast as Melchett with his writing and performing partner Hugh Laurie also given two guest roles in the series.
Several cast members from the previous series also returned in guest roles including Bill Wallis, Patrick Duncan, Miriam Margolyes, Mark Arden, Barbara Miller and Elton's old colleague from The Young Ones Rik Mayall.
A single day's filming was performed on Thursday 30 May 1985, prior to studio rehearsals. Fletcher took a film crew out to Wilton House in Wiltshire to shoot the closing credit sequences featuring Atkinson and an annoying beggar played by Tony Aitken, along with a romantic interlude between Edmund and Kate in Bells (which had to be trimmed in the finished programme). Appearing as Kate was Gabrielle Glaister, who had been at school with Elton. Studio recordings in front of a live audience began on Sunday 9 June with the recording of Head in TC6. Many of the studio warm-ups for these shows were handled by Elton himself, only months away from his first spell of compering Saturday Night Live.
The remaining episodes were then recorded at weekly intervals in the sequence Bells (in TC3), Potato (in TC4), Money (in TCI), Beer (in TC6) and Chains (again in TC6) Fletcher wanted to keep the action as fluid as possible for the live audience and was averse to complex costume changes or special effects which required recording to be halted. Some such items were pre-recorded in the afternoon - notably the single shot in which the cross-dressing Flashheart and Kate made their explosive departure at the end of Bells. As Fletcher explained during production: "It's a bit like doing Shakespeare in front of an audience - it's not at all like doing sitcom." In her direction she aimed to make the settings look beautiful -and then have the sharp dialogue distinctly at odds with its surroundings in a collision of ancient and modern. She very much wanted to "move on from all that undergraduate camping it up".
At the time, Atkinson was fairly sure that Black-Adder II would probably be the final appearance of Edmund and the gang, commenting: "I think we really wanted to do this second series to make some of the failings of the first series into strengths and also because there was enough life still in the storyline to make it worthwhile. Edmund's the great loser, but this time he's not quite such a fool, he does get out of things in the end." Even before the series was transmitted, there was talk about making a third series, but Atkinson was still cautious. "We felt there was mileage to be exploited in doing another series," he explained, "but to do yet another smacks to me of the American way where successful, fresh concepts and ideas are taken and ruthlessly exploited until there's nothing left. It's far better to do a few and leave well alone after that - progress to the next thing."
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