{"id":934,"date":"2013-06-15T11:14:50","date_gmt":"2013-06-15T10:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=934"},"modified":"2013-06-15T11:14:50","modified_gmt":"2013-06-15T10:14:50","slug":"blackadder-at-30-how-the-cunning-plan-worked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=934","title":{"rendered":"Blackadder at 30: how the cunning plan worked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: Telegraph<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018The Black Adder\u2019 began on June 15, 30 years ago. Despite a chaotic start, it became a hit. The rest, says Dominic Cavendish, is history.<\/h2>\n
\n

“It was a great lesson in vanity and egotism,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0says veteran producerJohn Lloyd<\/strong><\/a>, looking back on The Black Adder, the first series of what became simply Blackadder. June 15, 2013, brings the 30th anniversary of the first episode\u2019s broadcast on BBC One. History, the fabric of which Blackadder draws from, however tongue-in-cheekily, has started to weave the show into its own tapestry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

And yet it\u2019s worth remembering how narrowly Blackadder avoided being trampled underfoot in the onward march of televisual endeavour. Lloyd \u2013 one of Britain\u2019s most successful producers of comedy on radio andtelevision<\/a><\/strong>, responsible for Spitting Image and\u00a0QI<\/strong><\/a>, among much else \u2013 has previously admitted to the angst, setbacks and accidental saving graces that went into the programme\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Yet when I catch up with him, he\u2019s more than usually emphatic about how deficient those early episodes were: \u201cRichard [Curtis], Rowan [Atkinson] and I had come off Not the Nine O\u2019Clock News, which was a triumph \u2013 we\u2019d won two Baftas for the last series,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWe were young, we thought \u2018We\u2019re brilliant, we can do anything,\u2019 and we bit off more than we could chew.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In the documentary trip down memory lane conducted to mark the 25th anniversary, Blackadder Rides Again, Atkinson and Lloyd retrod their steps around Alnwick Castle, Northumberland \u2013 the location for the first series\u2019 mock-authentic version of late-medieval history, in which Brian Blessed\u2019s Richard, Duke of York, father to Atkinson\u2019s Edmund (\u201cThe Black Adder\u201d), gained the English throne at the Battle of Bosworth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Filming was a logistical nightmare and Lloyd shudders at the memory. \u201cI was standing there in the freezing cold, looking at the dogs and the horses, surrounded by snow, thinking \u2018What on Earth have we done?\u2019 Richard and I used to stay up all night writing the scripts. We weren\u2019t ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

The big joke about The Black Adder\u00a0<\/strong>back at Television Centre was that it was the show that looked like a million dollars \u2013 and cost a million pounds (these being the days when the pound had clout). \u201cIt took months to edit,\u201d Lloyd says. \u201cI think one of the actors died, we took so long to edit it. We had to do retakes the whole time.\u201d Although a second series was commissioned \u2013 despite mixed reviews \u2013 the arrival of Michael Grade as BBC One controller in 1984 spelt the bloody axe. He took one look at the cost and the ratings (not great), and cancelled the show.<\/p>\n

The cavalry had arrived, though, in the shape of\u00a0Ben Elton<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 nephew, it\u2019s worth noting, of the venerated Tudor historian GR Elton. Taking over as joint scriptwriter, his whizzo idea was to get out of the boggy, lice-ridden misery of the Middle Ages and cut a sexier, punkier dash in the Elizabethan era.<\/p>\n

It was a decision that, at a stroke, unlocked the show\u2019s full potential for rapier wit, silly costumes, light-of-touch satire and richly detailed characterisation built around the intricacies and hypocrisies of class and power. One frantic weekend spent lopping off anything in the scripts that would require more than a minimal budget, one concerted plea for a reprieve, and the rest is the stuff of golden memories, reissued DVDs and repeats until doomsday.<\/p>\n

Blackadder II begat Blackadder the Third \u2013 set in the Regency period \u2013 which begat Blackadder Goes Forth, bringing things from the mire and gore of the Middle Ages to the mud and blood of the First World War trenches. Lavish location shoots had given way to a studio set-up, with the scripts all the tighter and better for it. Having started out trying to subvert the traditional sitcom, the team \u2013 the talent of which no subsequent generation has yet matched \u2013 produced comedy\u2019s answer to a cathedral, robust and built to last.<\/p>\n

In explaining Blackadder\u2019s enduring power<\/strong>, aside from the fashion-proof nature of its historical settings, we should point to its unique combination of guile and guilelessness, of perfectionism and on-the-fly invention. In artistic terms, it\u2019s Edmund and Baldrick rolled into one.<\/p>\n

In a neat final twist of behind-the-scenes irony, the most hallowed moment of the series came about by accident rather than design. The haunting last scene of the final series shows Blackadder and his not so merry men \u2013 Tony Robinson\u2019s hangdog Private Baldrick, Hugh Laurie\u2019s asinine but suddenly anxious Lieutenant George and Tim McInnerny\u2019s ever-twitchy Captain Darling \u2013 getting felled by machine-gun fire as they go over the top.<\/p>\n

Time itself seems to slow to a standstill \u2013 and past laughter turns into a silent act of remembrance punctuated only by birdsong. Having begun on a parodic Shakespearean note in the very first episode \u2013 with a rewrite of Richard III, performed by Peter Cook \u2013 the magnum opus arrives at a place as poignant as anything in the Histories.<\/p>\n

The series\u2019s knowing send-up of a simplistic Ladybird view of English history grows organically into a humble indictment, in grim monochrome fading into the blood-red of a poppy field, of the supposedly educated few whose idiocy led to such senseless slaughter.<\/p>\n

Those closing moments were the result of happenstance. The final take was a rushed, botched job, with no time or inclination for another go. It was only in the editing suite that the possibilities of snatching artistic victory from the jaws of a deadly shambles dawned. Having started out biting off more than they could chew, they reached the apotheosis of \u201cless is more\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuddenly we were all standing there in awe,\u201d Lloyd remembers. \u201cMy only contribution was to say \u2018We\u2019ve touched something here. Quite by accident we\u2019ve done something extraordinary. It would be impertinent to put credits on this. We will take them off.\u2019\u201d And that\u2019s what they did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: Telegraph \u2018The Black Adder\u2019 began on June 15, 30 years ago. Despite a chaotic start, it became a hit. The rest, says Dominic Cavendish, is history. “It was a great lesson in vanity and egotism,\u201d\u00a0says veteran producerJohn Lloyd, looking back on The Black Adder, the first series of what became simply Blackadder. June 15, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4,7],"tags":[9,10,19,23,53,78,96],"class_list":["post-934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cast-crew","category-series","category-specials","tag-9","tag-30th-anniversary","tag-ben-elton","tag-blackadder","tag-john-lloyd","tag-richard-curtis","tag-the-black-adder"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p54TBn-f4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":857,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=857","url_meta":{"origin":934,"position":0},"title":"New Blackadder Book – Just in time for Xmas","author":"admin","date":"30 September 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Published on October 11th to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the first pilot episode of The Black Adder, The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated History of the Creation of a Comedy Legend\u00a0is the complete history of the series with the co-operation of writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Shop"","block_context":{"text":"Shop","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=5"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.blackadderhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/ba_book-191x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":870,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=870","url_meta":{"origin":934,"position":1},"title":"Biblical Blackadder Uncovered in NEW Book!","author":"admin","date":"7 October 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"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. 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However, time has come for me to do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Shop"","block_context":{"text":"Shop","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=5"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":927,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=927","url_meta":{"origin":934,"position":3},"title":"Arise Sir…. Baldrick?","author":"admin","date":"15 June 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"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;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cast & Crew"","block_context":{"text":"Cast & Crew","link":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"Blackadder The 2nd","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.blackadderhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/blackadder-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":613,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?p=613","url_meta":{"origin":934,"position":4},"title":"Blackadder@20 UK Gold Weekend news","author":"admin","date":"2 June 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"UK Gold will be broadcasting a Blackadder weekend in June to celebrate the 20th birthday of The Black Adder. 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