Arise Sir…. Baldrick?

In what can only be described as the most cunning of all the cunning plans ever devised, and on today, the 30th anniversary of The Black Adder being shown on the tellybox, Blackadder star Tony Robinson has been knighted in the Queen’s recent birthday honours list. And that’s not all; in a cruel twist of irony (a bit like goldy but less err, gold), Baldrick’s long-suffering master, Blackadder (played most effectively by the British actor Rowan Atkinson) has ONLY been awarded a CBE – oh the shame of it.

Awarded in recognition of his public and political service, Sir Tony Robinson said “I’ll use my new title with abandon to highlight the causes I believe in, particularly the importance of culture, the arts and heritage in our society, and the plight of the infirm elderly and their carers,” said the former host of C4’s Time Team, which was axed last year.

“I also pledge that from this day on I’ll slaughter all unruly dragons, and rescue any damsels in distress who request my help,” he joked.

He also said that he was “thrilled, flattered and a little gob-smacked” at the recognition.”

While slightly less noble, but no less thrilling or deserved, Rowan has been awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for services to drama and charity. Of this, Rowan said the CBE came as a “genuine surprise” and a “great honour”.

Speaking exclusively to Blackadder Hall via his translator, Blackadder creator Richard (where’s MY bloody knighthood) Curtis said “Congratulations to sir Sodoff Baldrick. And commiserations to Lord Blackadder on his puzzling demotion.”

It’s all rather exciting and I offer my utmost congratulations to them both.

As Prince George would say “Huzzah!”

Rare Blackadder Christmas Script Goes Under The Hammer

Source: Coastal Scene 24

A signed 22-page draft for an unfilmed Blackadder Christmas special was a star attraction at a recent fundraising auction held at Bruisyard Hall, near Framlingham.

It was bought by the venue’s Paul Rous, who was delighted to have secured the manuscript.

“I have always thoroughly enjoyed the Blackadder series and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to own a piece of something I grew up with and have such fond memories of,” he said. “I feel the connection between Blackadder and Bruisyard Hall is a very relevant one given that one highlights the significant periods of British history since the 1400s and the other has lived through them.”

The script comes with a note from Mr Curtis, who has a home in Walberswick and is a great supporter of The Suffolk Foundation.

In it he says the draft was started in 1988 by himself and fellow writer Ben Elton but was abandoned because they feared it might cause too much offence and they had another idea about Blackadder’s Christmas Carol that they wanted to pursue instead. Mr Curtis describes the Christmas special that never was as a “strange mix between Fawlty Towers and the Life of Brian” and finishes by saying: “I hope you enjoy it a bit – but don’t get too excited – for one thing it just stops – it has no end at all.”

The auction – held at Bruisyard Hall as part of a masquerade ball and helmed by Steven Stockton of Bonhams – raised more than £4,000 for The Suffolk Foundation, which distributes grants to charities and community groups across the county.

Biblical Blackadder Uncovered in NEW Book!

source: BBC.co.uk

A draft script for a Christmas episode of Blackadder has come to light during research for a new book about the BBC’s classic comedy series.

Blackadder in Bethlehem sees Rowan Atkinson’s character as the owner of the inn where Joseph and Mary seek a bed for the night.

The story also features Baldrick, the Three Kings – and a talking turkey.

Written in 1988, the script was given to comedy historian Jem Roberts by writer Richard Curtis.

Roberts describes it as “completely unofficial Blackadder”.

Fragments of the unfinished script appear in his book, The History of the Black Adder, which is published later this week.

In the book, Curtis that he abandoned the idea “for fear it would cause too much offence”.

Instead, it was the Dickensian-themed Blackadder’s Christmas Carol that went into production, and was broadcast on 23 December 1988.

Blackadder ran for four series between 1983 and 1989, starring Atkinson as Blackadder and Tony Robinson as his dogsbody Baldrick.

There were also some stand-alone stories, the last of which was Blackadder: Back and Forth in 1999.

“When you write a book about a comedy world, there is a dream that you’ll be invited into this Ali Baba’s cave of unbelievable archive material,” Roberts told the BBC. “I always presumed that would never be the case with Blackadder.”

But Roberts was amazed when he was handed the previously unseen script while interviewing Curtis at his offices in Notting Hill.

“He printed out a document from his computer and said, ‘see what you want to do with this’.

“My jaw dropped when I saw I was holding a lost Blackadder script.

Roberts added: “He wrote on the script that one of the reasons it didn’t get used was because it was a strange cross between Fawlty Towers and Life of Brian.

“He didn’t think he was going to make it compare to either of them. That’s his reason for it never getting any further than it did.”

Set on 24 December at the Blackadder Inn in Bethlehem, the opening scene features an exchange in the foyer between Blackadder and Baldrick about getting a turkey for the “most important night in the history of this hotel”.

In the next scene, Baldrick is in the kitchen with a turkey which starts to remonstrate with him about being plucked and eaten.

Later, Joseph arrives looking for a room. Blackadder offers him Baldrick’s lodgings.

BLACKADDER: How about I offer you this young man’s room?

JOSEPH: That sounds excellent.

BLACKADDER: Yes. It’s not that excellent – less of a room, more of a manger.

“It wasn’t a huge script, there were massive amounts missing,” explains Roberts. “It’s the rough workings of a comic genius.”

The author said he wanted to write the history of Blackadder from the point of view of a “devoted fan”, to mark the 30th anniversary of the first pilot episode of The Black Adder.

The book was written with the co-operation of writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, producer John Lloyd and the cast and crew.

Roberts’s previous book was The Fully Authorised History of ‘I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’.

But what did Roberts think of the talking turkey scene in Curtis’s re-discovered script?

“In the Blackadder universe there are ghosts and witches, so there could have been talking turkeys – why not?”

“If they had made Blackadder in Bethlehem, it would have been very off-the-wall.”