BBC – 13th August 1999
Sky TV claims to have “poached” the Blackadder special.

The BBC and Sky TV are at loggerheads over which of the broadcasters owns the rights to screen a special millennium edition of the hit comedy show Blackadder.

Time for Blackadder, starring show regulars Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson and Tim McInnerny and including cameos from the likes of Kate Moss and Colin Firth, will be part of the year-long celebrations at the Millennium Dome.

The film will first play in the Dome’s Sky-sponsored entertainment venue – Skyscape.

The feature, penned by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, was in development before Sky offered to fund the millennium event.

Sky television claims to have bought the one-off film for £4m. The satellite broadcaster says this deal gives it “exclusive” rights to air the programme on TV. The BBC, which has made four series of the acclaimed historical sitcom, rubbishes suggestions that the half-hour millennium show will not be seen on the station.
Blackadder not “lost”.

“It is certainly not the case that we have lost Blackadder,” said a BBC spokeswoman. “The stars agreed to do it on the basis that it would be on BBC One.”

However, the corporation has conceded that the stand-alone film, which follows Blackadder and his trusty sidekick Baldrick as they hurtle through time, may be screened first by its satellite rival.

Sky ‘has a deal’

“We have a deal,” insisted a Sky publicist in response. “The BBC are obviously having trouble coming to terms with their loss.”

The company behind the Dome says neither broadcaster has yet secured rights to the show.

“We are currently in discussions with both Sky and the BBC as to the broadcasting of the film after the exhibition closes,” said a spokesman for the New Millennium Experience Company.

If Sky can block the BBC from showing the special, the loss could prove doubly embarrassing for the corporation.

Not only has the BBC been home to the show, which made household names of its stars, since 1983, but this latest disputed episode was produced by the station’s head of comedy Geoffrey Perkins.

The row has surfaced after a number of high-profile defections have dented BBC prestige. The departure of sports presenter Des Lynam to ITV last week has been seen as a particular blow for the company.

The corporation lost film critic Barry Norman to Sky last year. Norman’s 26 years with the BBC had made him one of the station’s most familiar faces.

Some great news from fellow Blackadder fan Chris S. – Date: 26/06/1999The filming of Blackadder (the new film or the millennium thing?) is currently taking place on Hankley Common, Elstead near Farnham, Surrey, UK.

The scenes being shot involve a time machine (appears to be made of hessian with a large clock face), a Roman wall defended by centurions and a horde of ancient Britons attempting to storm the same. There are also Roman chariots and horses involved.

Article printed in the Sunday Times 17th January 1999
by Nicholas Hellen and Tim Tezisler

THE comedian Rowan Atkinson, who played the dastardly television character Edmund Blackadder, has hatched his most cunning plan: to rewrite British history for an official film marking the year 2000 that will be shown at the dome in Greenwich, southeast London.

He submitted a written proposal last week to Jenny Page, chief executive of the dome company, for a comic tour from the Roman occupation of Britain to the present day. The project was endorsed by Michael Grade, chairman of the dome’s creative advisory panel. The short movie, which will be screened at hourly intervals to the dome’s visitors, will feature the best of the nation’s comic talent, alongside the cast of Blackadder, the acclaimed 1980s BBC comedy series.

Atkinson will be the central figure of the film, according to the two-page proposal under consideration by the dome organisers, the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC), because of the international popularity of his Mr Bean character. He is to appear in character as Blackadder in the opening and closing scenes, accompanied by his pea-brained sidekick, Baldrick, played by Tony Robinson. But through much of the movie he will play other roles, as he travels through time from one farcical scene to another. Atkinson’s popularity is at odds with the Labour party’s public image. His Mr Bean character is a socially inept mute. When Atkinson is away from the cameras he is resolutely unfunny, living quietly with his wife Sunetra and their two children.

One insider said there was no danger that the film would be hijacked by Labour to “preach” an approved version of history. “I can guarantee that anybody who watches our film will know that little bit less about our history than they did before,” said the source. In the television series, Richard III, played by Peter Cook, was accidentally beheaded by Blackadder. He replaced the severed head and pumped his arms vigorously in a futile attempt to breathe life back into the king. In another scene, when the action had moved to Elizabethan times, Baldrick attempted to go into dockyard prostitution in an effort to save himself from being cauterised with a hot poker.

Grade has invested considerable effort in persuading Atkinson and the Blackadder team to get together again in his search for the crucial “wow” factor that is deemed to be necessary to make the dome a success. For years in showbusiness circles, the prospect of a new venture for Blackadder has been dismissed as being as unlikely as reuniting the surviving Beatles. Tensions between the Blackadder team, which also included Stephen Fry, the actor, and Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, the script writers, led to its demise in 1989 at the height of its popularity. In the last tragi-comic episode, set in the trenches during the first world war, Hugh Laurie, as Lieutenant the Honourable George Colthurst St Barleigh, requested: “Permission to wobble bottom lip, sir?”, before marching off to his death. Rumours over the past decade that Blackadder might return in the guise of a 1960s hippie, a Conservative MP or an astronaut all proved unfounded. Several members of the team achieved international success, complicating still further any ambition to re-form. Atkinson earned millions from his portrayal of Mr Bean, scripted by Curtis, who also wrote the box office hit, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Elton became a playwright and a bestselling novelist.

Delicate negotiations to persuade the comics to reunite began last November. Talks were led by Grade, who as controller of BBC1 once threatened to axe Blackadder because it did not provide “enough laughs to the pound”, and two fellow advisers to the dome, Matthew Freud, the publicist, and Alan Yentob, the BBC executive.

Several reserve plans were developed, in case the project collapsed, including a reworking of the BBC1 sitcom, Only Fools and Horses, starring David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst. This may still be incorporated into the film. An insider said: “We are well on the way to getting a line-up appealing equally to overseas visitors as to coach parties from Accrington.”

Blackadder’s 30-minute millennium film is to be screened in the “Baby Dome”, an auditorium attached to the main building and housing two 2,500-seat cinemas, which is being sponsored for £12m by BSkyB, the satellite channel in which the publisher of The Sunday Times has a 40% stake. Although the comedy characters were first aired on the BBC, BSkyB will put up a strong fight to screen the film once its dome run is over. A spokesman for NMEC said: “The 30-minute film shown in Sky’s zone will be based on one of Britain’s greatest cultural exports – our sense of humour.”

Article printed in the Sunday Mirror 17th January 1999
BLACKADDER is to go forth into the 21st century – at the Millennium Dome.
Rowan Atkinson, who travelled down the ages as the dastardly TV hero,
is to star in a specially-made film charting British history since Roman times.
The film, co-starring a host of British comic talent, will be screened hourly
at the Dome in Greenwich.

Article prined in the Sunday Telegraph on 8th November 1998
By Jacqui Thornton

MILLENNIUM Dome chiefs have a cunning plan to attract visitors: a welcome by the caddish and conniving Edmund Blackadder. The television comedy character created by Rowan Atkinson is being wooed to welcome visitors in a 20-minute film to be shown at the Baby Dome, the entertainment centre next to the exhibition. It is thought that the historical nature of Blackadder, who appeared on television screens in four different centuries, would be an ideal and entertaining introduction to the exhibition.

Although nothing has been signed, negotiations have started and it is understood that the comedian is the first choice of Millennium Dome executives. A senior director said last week: “It will be hilarious.” Blackadder and his sidekick Baldrick, played by Tony Robinson, have appeared in four series, set in medieval, Elizabethan and Georgian times and the First World War.

It is undecided which of these would be used in the film, but the historical nature of the characters is understood to be fitting for the theme of time chosen for the Millennium celebrations. It has already been mooted that Blackadder could be resurrected for the Millennium. The comedian is understood to be in talks with Richard Curtis, who wrote the show with Ben Elton, for a biblical setting. The Dome film would be an ideal way of promoting it. It is not known whether the BBC would make the film or whether it would go to BSkyB, the satellite television channel which is sponsoring the Baby Dome.

Last month the company transferred its £12 million funding from the Serious Play zone. Twelve million people are expected to visit the Baby Dome in the year 2000. Its two 2,500-seat cinemas will be used to explain to visitors what they are about to see in the main exhibition. A spokesman for the New Millennium Experience Company said nothing had been decided about the film, but one source involved in the production said: “There is a cunning plan, and using Rowan is a distinct possibility.” A BBC spokesman said: “If the writers and performers of Blackadder wanted to do something special the BBC would be delighted and look forward to seeing them reach some sort of agreement.”

This article was posted in the May 15th edition of Publishing news

Penguin’s cunning plan for Christmas sales success – as Baldrick might put it – is to publish, for the first time, the complete scripts of the four Blackadder series. The Blackadder Chronicles will be a Michael Joseph hardback and will also include new material written by the series’ creators Richard Curtis, John Lloyd and Ben Elton. All royalties will go to Comic Relief and actors from the series will help promote the title. Publisher Louise Moore commented, “Penguin are delighted to be publishing this unique book and know we will have tremendous fun in the process. But we do not see this as a single project. The hardback will be just the start of a long and illustrious life for the material.

Evening Standard (West End final ed.)- 29th July 1997

Blackadder set for film role in the millennium
By Tim Cooper
Rowan Atkinson is set to follow his Mr. Bean film by bringing Blackadder to the big screen in a special new “movie for the millennium”. The comedy star, whose Bean film opens here next week, is now planning to revive his role as Edmund Blackadder. The fourth and last TV series finished in 1990 with the promise that there would be no more. However, talks are now under way with the original writer Richard Curtis, who also scripted Bean: the ultimate disaster movie, to revive him in a feature film. Curtis said: “I don’t think there will be another series of Blackadder but, with the turning of the millennium, there are rumblings that we might bring him back in another way.” Atkinson added: “Blackadder could have an interesting perspective on the millennium and the last 2000 years of British history, so we are working on something together. At the moment, we are just having meetings but we would love to do something.” The film would be Atkinson’s next project after taking a year off to focus on family life and his hobby of racing cars.