British comedy star Tim McInnery will feature in an upcoming episode of the hit sci-fi series, the BBC announced.

McInnery, best known for his portrayals of eccentric characters such as Captain Kevin Darling and Lord Percy Percy throughout four seasons of Blackadder, will also star in an episode later in the series.

Previously, Clive Swift from Keeping Up Appearances and Geoffrey Palmer, who has also appeared in Blackadder Goes Forth from have filmed roles for the Christmas Special.

ACTOR Tony Robinson met a guinea pig called Baldrick, named after his much-loved character in the TV series Blackadder, during a visit to Crabbs Cross.

Hopper Haven and Littlefoot Sanctuary welcomed the celebrity, who also presents Channel 4’s Time Team, last week so he could meet volunteers and find out about the important work the refuge does in finding new homes for rescued guinea pigs and rabbits.

The sanctuary is always keen to hear from residents who could provide a home for one of the animals.

For more details, call 07949 657268.

Source: buddytv.com
Actor Hugh Laurie has built an impressive career in the entertainment industry, and in May, he received another high recognition for his work.

According to the Associated Press, the 48-year old actor was given membership to the Order of the British Empire, the first level in the British order of chivalry. The honour, which is given to accomplished individuals of the United Kingdom, was bestowed upon Laurie by Queen Elizabeth II herself.

Laurie, who has also worked as a comedian and writer, first rose to fame with his performance in the annual revue, The Cellar Tapes. He, along with co-stars Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, Paul Shearer and Penny Dwyer, were the recipients of the first Perrier Comedy Award. The revue began airing on television in 1982, and from there, Laurie continued to work with Fry, most notably on the Blackadder series.

Currently, he is known among the television world as crabby diagnostician, Gregory House. His portrayal has earned him 2006 and 2007 Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a Television Drama and a 2007 Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Male Actor in a Drama Series.

House has been a favourite among viewers since its debut in 2004. The show has also been a recipient of many prestigious awards, including a 2006 Peabody Award and a 2005 writing Emmy for the show’s creator, David Shore, for the episode “Three Stories.”

Source: Timesonline

Book early to avoid disappointment. Stephen Fry has written a pantomime version of Cinderella to be staged next Christmas at the Old Vic theatre in London. Oh yes he has.

Fry is not just a comic actor and raconteur. Oh no he isn’t. An accomplished writer, he is responsible for a large handful of books. He also earned tidy sums with his reworking in 1983 of Me and My Girl, the musical, which gives him tried and tested stage script credentials. Oh yes it does. Fry has no difficulty meriting a place in our pantheon of national treasures. Oh no he doesn’t. For all his plummy locution and toffish mannerisms, Fry’s appearances in Blackadder, Jeeves and Wooster, and as compere of the Baftas, has wide appeal. He is well placed to take the pantomime formula and improve it. Oh yes he is.

The cross-dressing tradition of pantomime dames, coupled with Fry’s own tendency to delve into the language of the sewer for gags and bons mots, provides no shortage of openings for tasteless double entendres and savvy smut. These could also become tedious and appeal more to a knowing adult audience than impressionable youth. Oh yes they could. There is, happily for Fry and his doting public, little chance that another unfortunate episode of melancholia will strike Fry and prompt him to leave audiences in the lurch as he did in 1995 by fleeing to Belgium instead of treading West End boards.

So is Fry’s Cinderella set to be a Christmas cracker? As long as the naughtiness is nicely framed, and the deft Fry uses this most English of dramatic forms to display refined examples of his wonderful English wit, success is almost guaranteed. Oh yes it is.

Having proved his status again as a worldwide draw even without mastering American auds, “Mr. Bean’s Holiday” star Rowan Atkinson is set to reunite with his “Johnny English” director Peter Howitt for a version of Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield.”

“Holiday” has made $157 million overseas but won’t open in the U.S. until Aug. 31.

The $30 million “Copperfield” project is being lined up to shoot in early 2008. Howitt and his producing partner Richard Johns are making the film through their production company Flaming Pie Films.

Simon Crowe’s financing and sales company Velvet Octopus will start pre-sales at the Cannes market this month. The U.K. Film Council’s Premiere Fund is also lining up to back the project.

In “Copperfield,” Atkinson will play Mr. Micawber, Copperfield’s landlord and one of Dickens’ most famous comic characters, eternally and irrationally optimistic as he slides toward financial ruin.

Micawber was played by W.C. Fields in George Cukor’s 1935 movie. That pic was the last bigscreen adaptation of the novel, although it has been made numerous times since for TV.

Howitt, who co-wrote the “Copperfield” script with Douglas McFerran, originally developed the project under his first-look deal with Miramax and Intermedia just after his debut hit with “Sliding Doors” in 1998. It subsequently came back to him in turnaround.

“This is a very fresh adaptation of the novel, not the chocolate-boxy, stolid version of Dickens that we are used to,” Johns said. “It won’t be mannered or reverential. With Dickens, filmmakers have been trapped in this place where you have caricatured characters, but Peter wants to deal with them like real people.”

Howitt has just finished shooting “Dangerous Parking,” a low-budget Brit comedy financed by the cast, crew and private investors. Velvet Octopus is handling international sales for the movie, which will premiere at the London U.K. Film Focus in June.

source: http://www.variety.com/

Hi, folks…A belated Happy New Year to all Blackadder fans everywhere.
So, uh, first things first: the Blackadder Hall website is gone. It disappeared a few months ago. I don’t know whether its owner & proprietor, Mad Gerald, decided to do away with it, or if it just sort of happened and he didn’t have the time or energy to correct the situation, being the busy boy he is. Either way, I haven’t heard from MG, but he did elect to make me a full fledged contributor to this blog when he created it, and now that there’s actually something to contribute, I may as well do the honors.

Ben Elton is arranging a charity show to benefit HIV victims next month (March 18th, to be precise). The same story was carried in the following sources: ITV.com, ITN News and Channel 4 News. For our purposes, the particular item of interest is in the last two lines, which I now quote: “Ben is back in Britain after a spell living Down Under with his Australian wife and he has not ruled out the possibility of a fifth series of Blackadder. He said: “I think one day the Adder will be back in some form.”

I know, I know: Not much, is it? Still, it’s the sort of thing this blog was created for, so here it is. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any other such notices as the date for this charity event gets closer, and if Elton’s inclined to make further remarks, I’ll post them here. It’s also worth noting that Comic Relief 2007 is just around the corner, so there should be plenty of gas from Richard Curtis (and possibly Rowan Atkinson) in the media over the next few weeks as well.