Hello and welcome as we raise a glass to the 40 greatest moments
from an exceptional sitcom.
ALL: Hooray.
The Blackadder!
Yes, indeed.
Blackadder spanned all the ages with high comedy and low farce.
Oh, my God, my ear muffs have fallen down.
But no wonder it's so good.
Just look at the people involved, all colossi of British comedy.
Is this true? Yes.
Our eponymous hero is played by Rowan Atkinson.
People should be reminded of how great Rowan is.
We did this robbery together so you get half the cash.
Oh, thank you, Mr B!
This robbery, on the other hand, I'm doing alone.
Hand it over. Your money or your life.
It featured stars like Stephen Fry...
The great thing about Blackadder
was that it played with the British idea of being British.
Operation Winkle.
Winkle? Yes.
..and was written by towering talents,
Richard Curtis and Ben Elton.
Of course, I thought, "fantastic".
The opportunity to write lines for Rowan Atkinson,
um, you know, was an incredible offer
and to work with Richard.
Hugh Laurie, too, showed some early signs of international star quality.
I simply immersed myself
in the material. I always go back...
No, I read out the very splendid words they wrote for me!
You mean the moment's arrived for us to give Harry Hun
a darn good British-style thrashing? Six of the best, trousers down?
So here's a cunning plan of the very highest order.
Excellent.
Let's take some time to luxuriate
over the 40 best moments...
We're having a good time already.
..as we relive the wittiest sitcom in history.
Prepare to be amazed.
The stars of the show are here...
Darling. Yes, sir?
Doing Darling was a kind of...
a way of hoping people might forget a little bit about Percy.
I have a cunning plan!
I'm dead chuffed to have been in it
and, of course, it transformed my career and my life.
Wicked child.
It's a mark of having arrived, in a way,
to be in Blackadder. I'm very proud of it.
..Along with a slew of celebrity devotees
who share their love for the show.
Blackadder is just ridiculous.
A wibble.
That's what's funny.
There was a lot of people being thrown through doors...
and getting punched...
which literally made me wee with laughter.
BLACKADDER THEME PLAYS
MUSIC: "Green Onions" by Booker T And The MGs
Blackadder spans over 500 years...
..so we'll have memorable moments
from some of the most colourful periods and people
in British history.
Ta-dah!
Watch as the fiendish Edmund Blackadder
and his hapless sidekick Baldrick
endure the slings and arrows of outrageous comedy.
Marvel as they make it through the whimsically hazardous Middle Ages.
Ah, Edmund.
'It's a very complicated and curious borrowing from English history.'
That's not important. What's important is it's funny.
Gasp as they grapple with a deliciously capricious Elizabeth I.
I'm going to knock your block off.
She's royalty. She can have anyone she likes.
I think about having you executed
just to see the expression on your face.
Finally, shudder as they encounter insanity on the grandest scale...
in the trenches of the first world war.
One of the best television moments you will ever see.
All the moments you will see tonight
were selected by the Blackadder family. Members of the cast...
I'll give it seven.
11 out of 10.
Members of the crew...
Nine.
Celebrity fans...
Ten.
And real Blackadders themselves.
Hi, I'm Simon Blackadder. Jackie Blackadder.
And I'm Will Blackadder.
I'm Kevin Blackadder. Hi, I'm AJ Blackadder from Perth,
Western Australia.
The long winter evenings must just fly by.
Yes, we really did round up 15 genuine Blackadders from across the land,
locked them in a screening room
and make them tell us their personal favourite moments.
What torture!
My favourite moment, definitely from Series Two,
Flashheart and "like it Nursie, firm and fruity."
Nursie, I like it firm and fruity.
All were asked to choose their favourites
and the moments are ranked according to those with the most nominations.
I'm giving ten. I'd like to give ten and a half.
Our first moment comes appropriately enough from the very first series.
It's medieval genius at number 40.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends! Once more.
It was fantastic having Peter Cook in the first series of Blackadder.
I persuaded Peter to come and be Richard III
and I think in that series, we didn't know what we were doing
and he probably thought we were all barking mad.
On Ralf! The liar's dead!
At the time his career was in a bit of the doldrums
but we all absolutely idolised him.
Your Majesty you've lost your steed, take mine.
No, no, no. I've won the battle, I've saved the kingdom.
I think I can find myself a horse.
True, my noble lord. I'll see you back at the castle.
So be it.
Horse!
HE WHISTLES
And Richard III does, of course, in Shakespeare shout,
"a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse".
My kingdom for a horse...
Ah, horsey!
'Blackadder's hiding,'
at the Battle of Bosworth Field, keeping out the way.
He's having a pee, then he turns round
and this guy's pinching his horse.
Oi, that's my horse!
That'll teach you.
You won't be doing that again now will you?
Oh, my god, it's uncle Richard.
When he realises he's cut the king's head off, who is my brother,
he puts his head back and gives him resuscitation,
moving his arms up and down which is absolutely inspired genius.
The key to Blackadder is his vaulting ambition,
utter ruthlessness and yet complete incompetence
and the scene in which he chops off Richard's head
is so perfect a demonstration of that,
that you don't need to know anything else about Blackadder. That is him.
That is the sort of stupid, venal and utterly counterproductive thing
that only someone like that would do.
Welcome back to Blackadder's Most Cunning Moments,
a compendium of comedy moments from history's favourite sitcom.
Our next moment is equal 39th, the first of several ties.
Now, where would Blackadder be
without his trusty sidekick, Baldrick?
A lot better off probably but there'd be a lot fewer laughs.
There's something British about him. The British love an underdog.
I was wondering if I might have the afternoon off.
You can have the afternoon off when you die. Not before.
My own personal market research leads me to believe
that Baldrick is the...is the hero.
I have a cunning plan...
It wasn't until the second series,
when Ben Elton joined the writing team,
that he had this idea -
Why don't we turn Baldrick into the stupidest, most brain-dead creature
that has existed in the whole course of human history?
There's a scene where he has a mousetrap on his head
and it's pure Tom and Jerry.
It could be Tom with Jerry, trying to catch Jerry
with cheese hanging there and some contraption.
Why have you got a piece of cheese tied to the end of your nose?
To catch mice, my lord.
I lie on the floor with my mouth open and hope they scurry in.
Do they? Not yet, my lord.
I'm not surprised.
Your breath comes straight from Satan's bottom, Baldrick.
I think it's funny but I also think, you know, that he was, you know,
a hero in many respects because he represented the working classes,
literally.
Sharing the dubious honour of being equal to Baldrick
is everyone's favourite pie-maker, the lovelorn Mrs Miggins.
No more sad little London for you, Balders.
From now on, you will stand out in life as an individual.
Will I? Well, of course you will. All the other slaves will be black.
LAUGHTER
Oh, Mr Blackadder! Oh, what's all this I hear
about you buying a bathing costume and 40 gallons of coconut oil?
Are you going abroad then, sir?
Yes. I'm off. Oh, sir! What a tragic end to all my dreams.
I'd always hoped that you'd settle down and marry me
and that together we might await the slither of tiny adders.
Actually it took me by surprise that Mrs Miggins, you know,
carried a candle for Blackadder.
Mrs M, if we were the last three humans on earth
I'd be trying to start a family with Baldrick.
SHE CRIES
I just love the despair and the tortured agony.
I still receive tons of fan mail for Mrs Miggins
and it just constantly amazes me, the fan base that's out there.
So much so, that I think I'm going to start thinking about opening
a cake or pie shop in the not so distance future.
The joke's on Blackadder in this Series Two moment
featuring his crafty arch-rival for the royal affection.
It's Queenie's fawning favourite, Lord Melchett,
played with consummate sliminess by Stephen Fry.
Majesty! Surely not?
You utter creep.
Melchett is tolerated. He's not very exciting.
He's sort of like a grand vizier without the wisdom, really.
He's just sort of uncle.
Bye.
A part of the queen liked having people saying nice things to her
but the other part of her realised that it was just silly old Melchett
and was not sexy like Blackadder, didn't make her scream
when he walked into a room.
Oh, silly old Edmund! He was completely fooled.
It's a brilliant trick, Melchett.
Ah, brilliant, ma'am!
And now I'm going to have you executed.
She never delivered a line the way we expected her to, never once.
They were always better.
This insane character that she produced
obviously flattered the script enormously.
The script was quite funny but without her insane Queenie,
it's obviously it couldn't possibly have been anything like as good.
It's for taking the mickey out of my beloved Edmund so cruelly.
I'm gonna knock your block off.
'Queenie's absolutely immature and she's always had her way'
and she's greedy and rapacious and threatening and everything.
Dame Flora Robson, Bette Davis,
Glenda Jackson...
Helen Mirren...
Cate Blanchett,
Judi Dench, have all played Queen Elizabeth I.
None of them played her as well as Miranda Richardson.
Oh, please! I so want to live!
HE SOBS
SHE LAUGHS
ALL LAUGH
There is that element of comeuppance
where you delight in the person
being brought down to earth.
ALL LAUGH
Oh, praise the Lord for the gift of laughter.
The look on his face when he realises he's been had
is between I want to kiss you and I want to kill you
and it's just a beautiful moment.
The Prince Regent thinks
the Duke of Wellington's after him and has a plan.
He's going to become the butler
and Blackadder will become the Prince Regent.
There's no alternative. We must swap clothes.
Oh, fantastic yes, dressing up, I love it.
It's like that story, the Prince And The Porpoise.
And The Pauper.
Oh, yes, yes. The Prince and the Porpoise and the Pauper.
LAUGHTER
He was just gorgeously stupid.
Why, my own father wouldn't recognise me!
Your own father never can, he's mad. Oh, yes. Yes.
I loved Your Highness, Your Highness
because it shows, in a very neat way,
class distinction.
Unfortunately, sir, you realise
I shall have to treat you like a servant?
Oh, I think I can cope with that, thank you!
And you have to get used to calling me Your Highness, Your Highness.
Your Highness, Your Highness.
No. Just Your Highness, Your Highness.
That's what I said. Your Highness, Your Highness.
Yes, let's just leave that for now. Complicated stuff, obviously.
When Hugh plays stupid there is nothing behind the eyes
so, you know, we took, I think we took Percy,
who hadn't been clever, and scooped out the final teaspoonful of brains
and presented, um...Hugh Laurie.
He can do this extraordinary thing in which his eyes
just take on a slight film of stupidity and you know that
no phrase you can utter, no truth you can express,
and no matter how simply done, can penetrate that film.
It's just closed.
But what...who...where...how?
Don't try to work it out, Baldrick.
Two people you know have exchanged coats
and now you don't know which is which.
I'm pretty confused myself!
It still makes me giggle because it was just clever.
ALL: Yes!
Edmund starts singing a song about a little goblin, they get distracted.
On any other day Edmund would have been scheming,
Because he's had a drink all he wants to do is sing about the goblin.
Wait...
I'm sure there was something very important
I had to do to all of you this morning.
ALL: Wahay!
Wasn't it something about ten thousand florins was it?
I think it was something about an inheritance.
Do you lot want to hear about this goblin or not?
ALL: Yes!
Right. Well, perhaps this time
I might be allowed to continue and perhaps finish with any luck.
Blackadder, drunk, singing an appalling little song
and who should appear from under Miranda's skirts
than Miriam Margolyes with her hat sort of like that.
Luck! Wahay, get it?
ALL: No.
Oh, come on. Luck.
There is a play on words at the end
which you may not be able to show before the watershed.
HE CHUCKLES
And Miriam Margolyes is back as the queen herself
in the Blackadder Christmas carol.
Queen Victoria, that is. What are you doing Albert?
Nothing. Oh, yes, you are, you naughty German sausage.
That's always an absolute treat, to work with her on and off camera.
I mean she's a complete delight.
Tell me what you're doing. I just said, I'm not doing anything.
While you're busy ruling India, you don't tell me what you're doing.
Jim Broadbent's doing a very, very good German accent.
So why should I tell you what I am doing when I am busy
wrapping up this cushion for your surprise Christmas present? Ooh!
Damn.
He is a brilliant comic artist and that has gone on,
he's, you know, he's one of our ornaments to our profession.
I love surprises.
Christmas without surprises is a nut without a nutcracker,
which is why I have bought you this surprise nutcracker...
Damn. Damn.
He's sort of... sort of stupid but he's doing it
because he adores her and he's so excited about the idea
of surprising her and it's just adorable.
HE SPEAKS GERMAN
..for it is for precisely such an outing as this
that I have brought you my finest surprise present.
This muff, which I am going to give you tomorrow... Damn.
I had no memory of filming it or having seen
it and it came as a complete surprise and it did strike me,
and I'm not, I don't laugh very readily at my own performances,
but it did actually make me laugh!
You know what would cheer you up and that's a Charlie Chaplin film.
Oh, I love old Chappers. Don't you Cap?
Unfortunately, no I don't.
You're not allowed to say that Charlie Chaplin's not funny.
Because he's a classic.
I find his films about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck
and then discovering there's a gas bill tied to it.
Funny as an arrow through the neck. That's clearly not very funny.
With a gas bill attached? Now that's good.
Let's consult the men for a casting vote. Baldrick? Sir?
Charlie Chaplin. What do you make of him?
Oh, he's as funny as a vegetable
that's grown into a rude and amusing shape, sir.
So you agree with me. Not at all funny.
Oh, come on, skipper! Play fair.
In that last film of his when he kicked that fellow in the backside,
I thought I'd die.
If that's your idea of comedy we can provide our own
without expending a ha'penny for the privilege. Do you find that funny?
One of the things I love about Series Four is that, strangely,
I think Baldrick gained meaning.
You know, he'd just been a fool and a butt the whole way through
but there was a remarkable thing happened at the end of that series
when he did suddenly seem to represent the working man,
a kind of innocent, who, due to the stupidity of everybody above him,
is going to die.
I think that was rather unexpected
in the same way and in a funny way, George also represented
the tragedy of posh people thrown to war like Rudyard Kipling's son.
Chaplin is a genius. He certainly is a genius, George.
He invented a way of getting paid a million dollars a year
for wearing a pair of stupid trousers.
Did you find that funny Baldrick? What funny, sir?
Welcome lads. Well, this is the stuff, eh?
Christmas, sherry and charades with honest manly fellows.
What can I do with a girl that I can't do with you?
I cannot conceive, sir.
Yes, well there's that I suppose.
Now, who's first? I'd asked old Horatio here
but he's out of it, so it's the little monkey fellow first, is it?
It is indeed. Oh, excellent. Oh, I love charades.
He's a clown. He is just there, trying to play.
"Oh, wouldn't this be fun.
"This is great fun, good fellows all playing together",
and he cannot get this right.
It's a book. Well, done, Mr B.
I didn't think you'd get it that quickly.
Yes, I must say, that was damn clever.
You know, it was an absolutely perfect triangle really,
that Blackadder has a...
..a cretin as a master and a cretin as a servant
and he's stuck in between this in a cretinous triangle.
Yes, another great Christmas tradition -
Explaining the rules eight times to the thicky twins.
The round hasn't in fact started yet.
Baldrick and George are pretty much the same character
by different mothers.
I think one had a royal mother,
the other one, I don't know, some sort of pig beast.
It's got to be a specific book.
If it was the Bible then I'd go like that
to indicate that there are two syllables.
Two what? Two syllables.
Two silly bulls?
Not in the Bible! I can remember a fatted calf
but as I recall that was quite a sensible animal.
Oh, ah...is it, um, Noah's ark with the two pigs, two ants
and two silly bulls?
Two syll-A-bles. What?
Look, we're getting confused. Let's start again. No, let's not.
I think the game's getting a bit sill-a to be honest.
How about a Christmas story? Oh, what a good idea, sir.
Blackadder himself, a deeply frustrated man.
A sort of lower middle class, very brilliant
but in the world of Britain, never really going to get very far.
Cleverer, in his opinion, than the people who by birth
have done better than him.
You know, some real honesty I think in the performances which is,
as I say, the key to great comedy.
Welcome back to Blackadder's Most Cunning Moments,
chosen by the cast, crew, famous fans and 15 actual Blackadders.
Yes, they really do exist.
My favourite line from Blackadder is
when he comes down the stairs and Baldrick says,
"Good morning, Mr B",
and Blackadder says, "Baldrick, if I'd wanted to talk to a vegetable
"I'd have bought one".
I thought it was very funny when Baldrick decides
to make coffee out of mud and his dandruff.
I shall require my most splendid garments for the ceremony.
Certainly, my lord. Hat, my lord?
Trojan, I think.
Boots, my lord? The Italian.
And codpiece, my lord?
Well, let's go for the black Russian.
One of the things that made Blackadder so superb was the amount
of research that went in,
both to the props and to the costumes.
There were an awful lot of extraordinary codpieces around.
STUDIO LAUGHTER
It was just wonderful to see this curly penis,
brilliantly made by costume department,
woggling on the front of Rowan.
The contradiction of a weed with a whopper.
You're dressed like a...
Like what, sorry? Well, this enormous nonsense here.
PING!
You've got this fantastic sound effect,
that should have been in a Benny Hill sketch,
of it going duh-duh-duh... Well, this enormous nonsense here.
PING!
I love, love, love Percy.
Percy? My lord? Can you think of another best man?
What happens in the second series is suddenly the dialogue
gets all very crisp and punchy
and you've got tremendous silliness but actually it's all held together
by very dignified, very strong performances.
You're going to have Rowan as this incredibly cool guy
and Percy as this ludicrous twit.
Edmund, Edmund, come quickly, the queen wants to see...
What are you wearing round your neck?
Percy, who had a very, very fine wardrobe all the way through
and it's when he comes in
with a new ruff that he says is the talk of the Court.
It's my new ruff. You look like a bird who swallowed a plate, Percy.
There were real absurd fashions at the time, where things
were taken to huge extremes so it's not so outlandish an idea.
It's the latest fashion actually
and as a matter of fact it makes me look rather sexy.
To another plate-swallowing bird perhaps.
If it was blind and hadn't had it in months.
Tim McInnerny's the only actor in Britain who can take off,
pull off, that sounds quite rude, a ruff.
He can pull off a ruff that big.
That sounds terrible,
but you know with his physicality and you know he does look like a bird.
I think you may be wrong.
You're a sad laughable figure, aren't you?
I remember Richard Curtis once saying that Tim has the mind and the voice
of Laurence Olivier but he has the face and the neck of an ostrich.
Aargghhh. What's that?
To Tilbury, me hearties!
The wind is in the sails,
the oars are in the rowlocks and we must away!
Lady, it is my captain. Long on beard, short on legs.
Captain Red Beard Rum, who's Tom Baker, who is magnificent.
He gets wheeled in. "Long on beard, short on legs".
Oh, Captain, I wish you luck from the bottom of my heart.
You have a woman's bottom, my lady!
He's my favourite Dr Who so I'm working with, you know,
it was a fabulous week. It's one of my favourite weeks.
I'll wager that sweet round pair of peaches has never been
forced 'twixt two splintered planks to plug a leak and save a ship.
Certainly hasn't and I'm quite pleased about it.
Baker's appearance is an absolute joy to behold.
That voice booming through.
Anyway, what's wrong with women's bottoms? Not big enough, ma'am.
Mine might be.
Anyone who pays attention to her in a slightly flirtatious or sexy way,
she crumbles with delight.
I think she thinks he's quite extraordinary,
even if he is legless.
I know I'm only a bluff old cove with no legs
and a beard you could lose a badger in,
but if you'll take me
I'm willing to be captain of your ship forever.
When she got overexcited she would throw,
she throws her hands to her face in a really obscure but childlike way
which is perfect for that moment.
What do you say?
Oh, yes, please.
I'll be back. We'll all be back. Ah-hah!
Mildred the cat, of course, is funny
because much of the secret of Blackadder
is built upon the idea of hierarchy.
CAT MEOWS
It is just funny, that noise. Meow! It's just funny.
CAT MEOWS
Sir, poor little Mildred the cat, what has he ever done to you?
It is the way of the world, Baldrick.
The abused always kick downwards. I'm annoyed, so I kick the cat,
the cat pounces on the mouse, and finally the mouse... Ow.
..bites you on the behind.
I think Baldrick puts up with all the physical and mental torture
that he receives from Blackadder because he thinks
that's the way of the world.
He suffers pain and he accepts it
because that's what people do to people like Baldrick.
He doesn't notice it most of the time.
It takes a very long time for pain to get from any part of his body
up to his brain and by the time it gets there it's tired
and doesn't really register very much.
What do I do? Nothing. You are last in God's great chain.
Unless, of course, there's an earwig around here you'd like to victimise.
Finally, we discover that there's somebody even lower than Baldrick.
MUSIC: "Flash" by Queen
And now, steel yourselves ladies, it's Lord Flashheart.
He blasted onto screen in Series Two but makes this surprise return
in an appropriate trench coat in Series Four.
Ah... Hah! Eat knuckle, Fritz!
How disgusting, a Boche on the sole of my boot.
The sheer opposite of his character from Rowan's,
both in the narrative terms and as performers,
made it a fabulous contrast.
Two of the most talented comic performers of their day
facing off against each other.
I'll have to find some grass to wipe it on.
I'll get shunned in the officers' mess.
"Sorry about the pong. Trod on a Boche and can't get rid of the whiff".
It was very boysie sort of stuff but I think a lot of women,
like myself, loved it too.
Do you think we could dispense
with the hilarious doggy doo metaphor for a moment?
I'm not a Boche. It's a British trench.
Is it? Oh, that's a piece of luck!
Thought I'd landed sausage side.
The imperturbable debonair suavity of Rowan's character, "oh, God",
would be his response to this enormous,
"shut up, bang 'em", from Rick.
If word gets out that I'm missing, 500 girls will kill themselves.
I wouldn't want them on my conscience -
they want to be on my face!
He's everything Blackadder wants to be.
He's a hero, he's brave, stylish,
and that's why Blackadder hates him.
I dumped the kite on the proles so send a car.
General Melchett's driver. She hangs around with the big knobs
so she'll be used to a fellow like me. Woof woof!
I was working with Rick very closely at the time on The Young Ones
and Filthy Rich and Cat Flap.
It was written specifically with him in mind
and I thought it was brilliant.
Do you think you could make your obscene phone calls somewhere else?
In another fine performance, here's Hugh Laurie acting the perfect fool
as the Prince Regent, a dim bulb indeed.
I'm a gay bachelor, Blackadder!
I'm a roarer, a rogerer, a gorger and a puker.
Hugh's Prince Regent perhaps should be celebrated more.
I mean a truly brilliant performance of a foppish regency idiot.
Right, so what's the plan?
I thought I could take her a short note
expressing your honourable intentions.
Yes. Yes, I think so too.
All right then, well take this down.
From His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales to Miss Amy Hardwood.
Prince Regent, played by Hugh Laurie so fantastically well,
was totally inept at wooing
and trying to write a love letter.
Tally-ho, my fine saucy young trollop. Your luck's in.
Trip along here with all your cash and some naughty night attire
and you'll be staring at my bedroom ceiling from now till Christmas,
you lucky tart.
Ben and Richard had written fantastic jokes
and some great opportunities to shout and pull faces
which is sort of what I do, or what I did at the time.
I've moved on since then. Oh, yes. I've grown.
Yours with the deepest respect etc, signed George.
PS - Woof woof!
That utter thickness was something that was fun
to put Blackadder against and different from Miranda's,
you know, sort of dangerous childishness.
And Hugh is so good as a performer in that.
There were bits that I once said to him in rehearsal,
"Hugh you're a genius".
I don't understand why you're not a famous Hollywood star! Now he is.
Well, what do you think? It's very moving, sir.
Would you mind if I change just one tiny aspect of it? Which one?
The words.
Hugh Laurie's utterly brilliant but utterly historically inaccurate
portrayal of the Prince Regent
is fantastic, but it's ridiculous.
The Prince Regent was 49 when he became Prince Regent
and had a 50 inch waist.
Hugh Laurie is very young and very thin.
Strangely the only thing they have in common, the things they picked up on
is the Prince Regent was almost definitely pretty thick.
He was also unbelievably profligate.
I'll leave the details to you, Blackadder.
Just make sure she knows I'm all man...
with a bit of animal thrown in!
Certainly, sir.
Think of that haggard figure in House
and you think, is it really the same guy?
But, of course, he's just a terrific actor
with a natural flair for comedy.
Now here's Hugh again, playing another prince
who might also be a little over bred -
the evil Ludwig from Series Two.
Forgive me, Herr Blackadder. I have been neglecting my duties as a host.
When he reveals himself and you see it's Hugh Laurie you get excited.
Please accept my apo-logies.
Rowan is inside a torture machine where the spikes point outwards
which must be the softest torture machine in the world.
I accept nothing from a man who imprisons his guests in a commode.
This mad German with, as ever with Hugh, he managed to find a voice
which is very unexpected.
I hope this scum...has not incon-wee-nienced you.
It takes more than a maniac trying to cut off my goolies
to incon-WEE-nience me.
It's very much like a parody, a very funny parody,
of this sort of Bond villain, you know, has trapped Bond
and he's going to say, "yes, I expect you to die",
and then there's this ludicrous kind of arch bit of dialogue between them.
Good. If he had incon-wee-nienced you
I was going to offer you his tongue.
Believe me, sir, if he had incon-wee-nienced me
you would not have a tongue with which to make such an offer.
Let me assure you, Herr Blackadder,
if I no longer had a tongue with which to make such an offer
you would no longer have a tongue with which to tell me
that if I had incon-wee-nienced you
I would no longer have a tongue with which to offer you his tongue.
Yes, well, enough of this banter.
The puritanical aunt is there
and Blackadder's terribly nervous about upsetting her
but he's been going totally out of it, playing silly games.
Blackadder arrives with the, erm,
the erm, what are they? Stag party or slapstick boobs.
Sorry about that.
HE COUGHS
Sorry, he's sick.
Leprosy. Of the brain.
What he is trying to tell you
is that you appear to be wearing a pair of devil's dumplings.
It's the only time I've ever seen someone do a double take downwards,
where he notices this pair of breasts
and then, oh, they really are breasts.
Oh, my God, my ear muffs have fallen down.
It's getting... would you like a pair?
It's getting rather cold. No thank you.
There's no doubt in my mind that Rowan is a comic genius.
Cold is God's way of telling us to burn more Catholics.
Quite. Which reminds me, Aunty...
Don't call me aunty!
An aunt is a relative and relatives are evidence of sex
and sex is hardly a fitting subject for the dinner table.
Or, indeed, any table.
Except perhaps a table in a brothel.
There is something so absurd about somebody walking around
with a pair of false boobs on their head
that if you can't, if you can't see the joke,
erm, there's something wrong with you.
Welcome back to our catwalk of cunning moments
with an early celebration of French fashion and Parisian chic.
This was way back before Dior and Chanel had made their mark.
Obviously.
If we are to stand any chance of survival in France
we shall have to dress as the smelliest lowlife imaginable.
Oh, yes? What sort of thing?
Well, sir, let me show you our Paris collection.
Baldrick is wearing a sheep's bladder jacket
with matching dung-ball accessories.
Hair by Crazy Meg of Bedlam Hell...
To have Baldrick swaying in, sashaying his way into the room
as a model in a sort of fashion show was just a lovely idea.
Notice how the overpowering aroma of rotting pilchards
has been woven cunningly into the ensemble.
Baldrick, when did you last change your trousers?
I have never changed my trousers. Thank you.
What does that say about the citizens of this country,
that they would take Baldrick to their heart?
He's not only stupid, he's incontinent.
You see the ancient Greeks, sir, wrote in legend
of a terrible container
in which all the evils of the world were trapped.
How prophetic they were. All they got wrong was the name.
They called it Pandora's box but they meant Baldrick's trousers.
They certainly can get a bit whiffy, there's no doubt about it.
Come on George. With 50,000 men getting killed a week,
who's going to miss a pigeon?
You shot my Speckled Jim!
Melchett in Series Four is a very different character
to the one in Two.
He was much, much more aggressive,
much more insane, much more powerful.
I call my first witness, General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett.
Ah, hmm.
Clever, clever!
The episode where Melchett presides over a court
is a great parody of Britishness cos we like to believe
that we play by the rules and it was all very gentlemanly
and everyone had a right to a decent trial
but actually it's just clearly as arbitrary as any mad despotism is.
So there's a court but it's just a rigged trial, it's a joke.
General...
did you own a lovely, plump, speckly pigeon
called Speckled Jim which you hand reared from a chick
and which was your only childhood friend?
Yes. Yes, I did.
Did Captain Blackadder shoot the aforementioned pigeon? Yes, he did.
Can you see Captain Blackadder anywhere in this courtroom?
That's him. That's him. That's the man!
No more questions, sir. Splendid, excellent, first class.
Howl, howl, howl. Oh, well, can't be helped.
I enjoyed those sort of turning on a sixpence emotionally things
that Melchett did.
I therefore have absolutely no hesitation
in announcing that the sentence of this court
is that you, Captain Edmund Blackadder,
be taken from this place and suffer death by shooting tomorrow at dawn.
Do you have anything to say?
Yes. Could I have an alarm call, please?
As far as I recall it was Stephen who came up with the name Darling,
which I think is one of the truly great Blackadder jokes.
What do you want, Darling?
Doing Darling was a kind of, a way of, um...
hoping people might forget a little bit about Percy.
Yes, no, that was a fruitful contribution.
One of the very few from Stephen Fry
who was generally a waste of space.
We actually had a vote just before the technical crew came in.
Is this Darling joke going to run very dry
and is it going to seem really embarrassing
after the third episode or will it sustain?
Tim said, "oh, please let me keep it."
Don't worry, Darling. I intend to interview suspects immediately.
This is ridiculous, Blackadder.
Darling is being completely unfairly interrogated and tortured
by Blackadder and, as often with Blackadder, it's extremely silly.
He's tied up in this ridiculous comedy rope
with a potty on his head.
You can't suspect me, I've just arrived!
The first rule of counter-espionage, Darling - suspect everyone.
I shall be asking myself some pretty searching questions later on.
Tell me, what is the colour of the Queen's favourite hat?
How the hell should I know? I see.
You can see the relationship between them was very strained,
had always been strained
Part of the thing that we worked on in that
was Blackadder didn't like Darling.
Darling was this horrible little spotty oik who had managed
to avoid being in the trenches.
Who is the German head of state? Kaiser Wilhelm, obviously!
So you're on first name terms with the Kaiser, are you?
What did you expect me to say?
Darling, Darling, shhh...
Cigarette?
He plays good cop for a second, Blackadder.
He gives Darling a cigarette, lights it....
Darling has a few puffs.
There's an amazing bit of comic timing
and then Blackadder bats it out of his mouth, plays bad cop again.
All right you stinking piece of crap.
I beg your pardon? Shut your cake hole, I know you.
Tell me von Darling, what finally won you over?
Was it the pumpernickel or was it the thought of hanging around
with big men in leather shorts?
I'll have you court-martialled!
For obeying the general's orders?
That may be what you do in Munich, or should I say Munchen?
But not here! You're a filthy hun spy, aren't you?
Baldrick, the cocker spaniel, please. No. No, wait...
A marvellous moment to see Blackadder doing it.
We want him to have revenge on this pencil-pushing, cowardly idiot
and he does it.
I was born in Croydon. Educated at Icklethorpe primary school.
I've got a girlfriend called Doris.
I know the words to all three verses of God Save The King.
Four verses. Four verses. I meant four verses.
Tim, being a wonderful actor, knew how to play someone
who all his life had been called Darling in a sarcastic way
and he had that look in his eye.
Good luck, Blackadder.
Why, thank you, Darling.
The twitch stayed with me for months actually. It was really difficult.
I did get quite scared it would never go
and that I'd have to write my own spin-offs
cos I couldn't get rid of the twitch and I'd never get another job.
Blackadder is expecting the Whiteadders,
who are some puritanical relations,
and there's some sort of legacy involved so he has to impress them.
Greetings! How nice to see you.
They arrive with these crosses... crosses on their heads.
Wicked child, don't lie!
Everyone hates us and you know it.
For a Jew, as I am, to be covered in crosses...
was a complex experience.
There's probably a few... popes watching that, going,
"That's not a bad idea".
May I introduce my friend, Lord Percy?
Well, well, well, Eddie!
You didn't tell me you had such a good-looking aunt.
Miriam is wonderful in that role
and then when she starts slapping people, which is completely absurd,
as if you'd be so religious that you'd go round slapping people.
I know what I like and I like what I see.
Be gone, Satan!
There's just something hilarious about the way
she gives his cheeks a pounding.
Every time Tim McInnerny opens his mouth
he gets a good slap.
I guess she would say that there's no way of really faking it.
Be gone, Satan.
But it really hurt, actually.
Wicked child!
In rehearsal Rowan got a bit fed up with this
and actually, it was very funny.
He said, "would it be all right, please, Miriam,
"if you didn't just do it quite so hard?"
Wicked child!
One of my all-time favourite episodes.
People remember it, people come up to me and quote bits of,
bits of the text, which is delightful.
What do they call you? Bob.
In our next moment, Blackadder is distressed
and confused to find himself lusting after his manservant, Bob.
But is Bob really that sort of boy?
There's something very frisky about everything to do with Bob.
It's something so hilarious
about a proud character like Blackadder making such a bad mistake.
I find you curiously pleasant company, young Bob.
Rowan won't mind me saying that he has in real life a slight
and entirely erotically splendid, stutter, or stammer,
I never know quite which is which,
and particularly on the letter B
which makes him say words like "Bob" very funny.
Good night, Bob.
Good night, my lord.
I've known people who can do better Os
but his Bs, beginning and ending Bs -
un...beatable.
Bob. I've got something very important to say to you
and I want you to listen carefully. Yes?
Rowan looked gorgeous in Blackadder II.
I think the little goatee beard thing and the costume was...
yeah, very, very dashing. He looked terribly dashing.
I want you to leave my service and become my live-in chum.
Oh, my lord.
I want to make it clear that I am in no way interested
in the contents of your tights.
You might be, my lord, if you knew what I kept in them.
Ah, ha! I flatter myself, Bob,
that I know what a gentleman keeps in his tights
thank you very much.
It's wonderfully played by Gabby Glaister and the awkwardness
of Blackadder dealing with this young boy he's in love with
is just glorious.
Prepare to be amazed.
Oh, no. You haven't got one of those birthmarks
shaped like a banana have you? No.
Or...or a...or a tattoo saying "get it here"? No.
You then you get this bizarre musical, sort of, trill
which overscores her showing of her bosoms.
FLUTE TRILL PLAYS
Ah...
"Hoo hoo hoo", like that, to go, she's showing her bosoms.
And you can't believe it but it absolutely works.
Good lord.
So what was all that Bob stuff about, then?
You would have used me and cast me aside
like you have so many women before.
Ha. Would I? Yes.
But now you've had a chance to grow to love me for what I really am.
Yes, that's true. And now I want to marry you, Bob.
Our next moment features one of TV's great comedy duos
in a characteristically over the top moment.
It was great having Ade Edmondson, on the other half of Bottom,
to play Flashheart's oppo in the, um,
in the Royal Flying Corps episode.
Not so fast, Blackadder!
Oh, damn, foiled again. What bad luck!
Ah, and the Lord Flashheart. This is indeed an honour.
They were seen in those day, Rick and Ade, from as different,
not a different generation or a different class,
cos we're all graduate humour really,
but they were alternative whereas us lot were more mainstream.
Or not mainstream but from a tradition of Footlights,
the Oxbridge humour I suppose which one can't deny it,
which they were not from,
so for them to be involved as well was a particular pleasure.
Finally the two greatest gentlemen flyers in the world meet.
Two men of honour who have jousted together in the cloud-strewn glory of the skies, face to face at last.
It's what we've seen in many films or the way we imagine those war aces were,
the kind of, the Red Baron versus whoever we could offer,
Biggles or someone like that and they respect each other.
At any other time, they may even be friends
if weren't for this blasted war.
How often I have rehearsed this moment of destiny in my dreams.
Some First World War pilots regarded themselves as these knights
so again, a nice little joke about the historical record.
The valour we two encapsulate, the unspoken nobility of our comradeship...
GUNSHOT
What a poof!
Come on! We're out!
To then just get a bullet and "what a poof"
and off they go, I think is one of the great moments.
Darling? Sir! No, no. Sit, sit, sit, sit.
My final scene with Stephen before going to the front line
was brilliant. I mean, it is... it is very funny but it's awful.
This is a commission for the frontline, sir. Yes.
I've been awfully selfish, Darling, keeping you back here
instead of letting you join in the fun and games.
This will let you get to the frontline immediately.
You know, Tim's a very fine actor and so is Stephen and just that
idea of definitely condemning a man to death and not...
him not being able to object was, you know, moving.
There were a few things in that final episode that feel very apt.
I don't want to go into battle.
Without me. I know. But I'm too old, Darling.
Darling's desperation and, you know, agony
makes it, sadly, even funnier
and it is a very, very funny scene
and it's heartbreaking at the same time.
You're not listening, sir.
I'm begging you, please.
Brilliant, believable performance,
though completely silly with Melchett wearing his ludicrous moustache grooming thing
that they used to wear when they went to bed.
For the sake of all the times I've helped you with your dickie bows
and your dickie bladder, please.
Melchett really isn't listening and doesn't understand,
seem to understand, that he's sending him off to certain death.
Don't make me... Make you go through the farewell de-bagging ceremony in the mess.
No, I've spared you that too,
you touchingly sentimental young booby.
He represents the absolute insanity of the war.
I mean, without being too pompous about Blackadder, it does, I think,
illustrate perfectly the nature of that grotesque war,
the genuine insanity, if you like, of the way the war was practiced,
which for all, however it may have been justifiable,
to us is now clear it was a moment of madness in human history
that one would never want to repeat again.
So it's wonderful, you've concentrated some of that madness into a single being.
Look, no fuss, no bother, the driver is already here.
But... No, no, not a word, Kevin.
I know what you want to say. I know.
It was also beautifully shot.
I mean, long shadows and high camera angles, and it was brilliantly shot
which added to the drama of it.
Goodbye, Kevin Darling. Goodbye.
I think it's a very special piece of comedy.
Welcome back to our cunning countdown as selected by the Blackadder family
including actual modern-day, living and breathing Blackadders.
A couple of weeks ago, walking into a bank
and pretty much the guy took my details, laughed
and everyone in the bank, started singing the theme tune. Pretty embarrassing.
Blackadder refuses to be embarrassed next, as he digs himself out of a hole with astonishing dexterity.
The monk, who'd been having a hard drinking game with Blackadder,
comes in and he is totally out of it and he does everything
you really wouldn't expect a monk to do.
MONK VOMITS
Great booze up, Edmund!
Do you know that man? Oh, yes. I do.
Then can you explain what he meant by "great booze up"?
'There's 20 seconds when he says nothing'
but you can see his mind working, you can see,
and it's comic genius where he's going,
"well, well..."
and he does it for about 20 seconds and then goes, "yes, I can".
Yes, I can.
He manages to worm his way out of this situation
through his sheer verbal gymnastics
and kind of amazing dry, articulate wit.
My friend is a missionary and on his last visit abroad
brought back with him the chief of a famous tribe.
His name is Great Boo.
He's been suffering from sleeping sickness
and he's obviously just woken because, as you heard,
Great Boo's up.
Well, done Edmund.
And I think I'd just better go and visit him. Pers', over to you.
Blackadder is one of the few sitcoms that addresses
the great matters of state - religion, politics, war and peace.
But it's not afraid to plunder the vegetable patch for a few extra laughs.
Is the turnip surprise ready?
It's just...
THEY GIGGLE
Then what is so funny?
Well, my lord, while Baldrick and I were preparing the turnip surprise,
we had a surprise.
We came across a turnip that was exactly the same shape...
..as a thingy.
I love it when people get giggles
and they were sniggering and tittering
because they had found a turnip shaped like a thingy.
I can remember Ben Elton,
who in many ways is an extraordinarily talented guy,
bouncing up to me and saying,
"I've got a great idea, Tony, Baldrick loves turnips".
Minimum bribe level.
One turnip.
I said to him, what is so funny about turnips?
And he said, well, you know, the shape.
They're like that and they go up to a point at the end.
And I said, "Ben that's parsnips."
He said, "whatever, it's really funny, believe me".
A thingy?
Yeah. A great big thingy.
It was terrific.
Size is no guarantee of quality, Baldrick.
Most horses are very well endowed
but that does not necessarily make them sensitive lovers.
I trust you have removed this hilarious item? Yes, my lord.
Good, because nothing's more likely to stop an inheritance than a thingy-shaped turnip.
Absolutely, Edmund... But it was jolly funny!
I found it particularly ironic, my lord,
because I've got a thingy that's shaped like a turnip.
I'm a great hit at parties. Are you?
Yeah, I hide in the vegetable rack and frighten the children.
So he's actually got a turnip shaped penis.
Takes a while to find that funny.
Right Baldrick, let's try again, shall we? This is called adding.
If I have two beans and then I add two more beans,
what do I have?
Some beans.
This scene marks the big turning point for Baldrick.
Up until then he'd been the chipperest
of the triumvirate of Percy, Blackadder and Baldrick.
He was the one who genuinely did have some idea
how they might get out of their scrapes.
But now we come to the beans
and the realisation that Baldrick can't even count.
Let's try again shall we?
I have two beans, then I add two more beans. What does that make?
A very small casserole.
The fact that Baldrick very rarely looks up at him.
You don't get your nice, you know, tilt of your head.
He just keeps looking at the beans
hoping that they are the ones that will furnish him with the answer.
So if I add that one to the three what will I have?
Oh. Some beans.
Yes. To you, Baldrick, the Renaissance was just something
that happened to other people, wasn't it?
It was just a very clever example of Blackadder and the Blackadder humour
because it was just taking something tiny and making it very funny.
Baldrick's back and he's making a cuppa.
Sadly, supplies are running thin.
Time to improvise.
By the time we get to Series Four, Baldrick has no brain at all.
Baldrick, fix us some coffee, will you?
And try to make it taste slightly less like mud this time.
Not easy I'm afraid, Captain. Why is this? Because it is mud.
We ran out of coffee 13 months ago.
So every time I've drunk your coffee since I have, in fact,
been drinking hot mud?
With sugar.
In the original script, the only line was about the fact that the coffee
was made out of mud and then somebody said, why don't you have sugar?
Which makes all the difference(!)
Well, it would do if we had any sugar but unfortunately we ran out
on New Year's Eve 1915, since when I've been using sugar substitute.
Which is? Dandruff.
Brilliant.
Coming up with what each vile ingredient was,
it's always lovely in comedy when you set yourself a challenge.
So we've got some coffee. What's the coffee? What's the froth?
I could add some milk this time. Well, saliva.
No. No, thank you, Baldrick.
Call me Mr Picky but I think I'll cancel coffee.
This is a fantastic scene
because it is a perfect demonstration
of the futility of human endeavour.
Success! What?
After literally an hour's ceaseless searching,
I have succeeded in creating gold, pure gold.
Are you sure? Yes, my lord.
This is when the humour comes together perfectly,
that winning formula of Blackadder being incredibly rude
to people that are just stupid.
They think they've created gold. It's a bunch of idiots.
Behold!
Percy, it's green.
That's right, my lord.
Yes, Percy, I don't want to be pedantic or anything
but the colour of gold is gold. That's why it's called gold.
What you have discovered, if it has a name, is some green.
What a perfectly useless thing to create. Green.
Can it be true,
that I hold here in my mortal hand
a nugget of purest green?
Indeed you do, Percy, except,
it's not really a nugget. More of a splat.
Percy was so thrilled to have created this, this thing.
Well, yes.
A splat today but tomorrow,
who knows or dares to dream?
So, we three alone in all the world can create the finest green at will.
Just so.
Not sure about counting in Baldrick, actually.
You know what your great discovery means, Percy?
Perhaps, my lord. That you Percy, Lord Percy...
are an utter berk.
We could actually probably have made a fortune
by creating lots of bits of green
and selling them to the public. Maybe I still could.
I'd like to see the Spaniard who could make his way past me.
Well, go to Spain, there are millions of them.
I'd like them to stay there. Keep their hands of our women.
Oh, god. Who is she this time?
I don't know what you mean. Ah!
Ah, and who is Jane?
I'm sworn to secrecy. Torture me, kill me, you shall never know.
Ow! Jane Harrington.
Ah... We are very much in love, my lord.
This is THE Jane Harrington? Yes.
Jane "bury me in a Y-shaped coffin" Harrington?
And it's a lovely image.
A Y-shaped coffin. It's just a fantastic image.
I think maybe there are two Jane Harringtons.
No? Tall, blond, elegant?
That's right. Goes like a privy door when the plague's in town?
Bangs like a privy door when the plague's in town.
You know, the plague's in town, as if it just comes now and again.
You'll get over her.
I did.
His timing in it, it's... it's priceless.
So did Baldrick, actually.
Argh!
It's the combination of the visual and the timing and the words.
It's just, you know, all of those coming together.
Beautiful. Beautiful.
Still on a romantic theme, Blackadder shows his true colours
in this hilarious moment of pillow talk with Miranda Richardson,
reincarnated as Mary.
Queenie would have lopped his head off.
Do you have someone special in your life?
Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do.
Who? Me.
There's absolutely no temptation here
that they're going to fall into a real romantic thing,
that, Blackadder's selfishness and thinking of himself
is really going to come first no matter what.
No, I mean someone you love and cherish and want to keep safe
from all the horror and the hurt.
Mmm...still me, really.
They've obviously done the dirty deed and he's still
completely emotionally absent and self-involved.
Though maybe, I don't know, maybe he's slightly wistful.
I've always been a soldier, married to the army.
The book of king's regulations is my mistress,
possibly with a Harrods lingerie catalogue discreetly tucked
between the pages.
And no casual girlfriends?
Skirt? Ha!
If only. When I joined up we were still fighting colonial wars.
If you saw someone in a skirt you shot him and nicked his country.
That's just such a wonderfully simplistic and yet funny view
of the expansion of the British Empire.
Have you got a man?
Some fine fellow in an English country village. A vicar, maybe?
Quiet, gentle...
hung like a baboon.
There was a man I cared for a little.
Wonderful chap. Strong, atheletic. What happened to him?
He bought it.
I'm so sorry, I didn't realise that was the arrangement.
So what do you think now, 12 nights and let's say nine afternoons,
how much is...oh, and a couple of mornings... I mean he died.
There's an underlying bit of sadness about it
which I think was, it goes all the way through the final series
because of the circumstances and the era and the timing of it.
And the resonance of those scenes and how they would...actually have been,
you know, in those sort of relationships are always potentially quite fleeting.
When are we going to give Fritz a taste of our British spunk?
George, please.
A girl wouldn't have written that line
but secretly girls find that funny.
You shouldn't find it funny and the fact that, I shouldn't say this,
but it comes out of his mouth.
No-one is more anxious to advance than I am
but until I get these communication problems sorted, we're stuck.
PHONE RINGS
Captain Blackadder speaking.
No, I'm afraid the line's very...
HE IMITATES WHITE NOISE
Hello? Hello, Captain Blackadder, hello?
Schnell, schnell, kartofelkopf...
In that sequence, Blackadder and Darling on the phone,
that was fun to do in front of the audience.
I said there's a terrible line at my end.
You're to advance on the enemy at once.
He does this one where he sort of sticks his tongue out and goes...
for a bit too long.
HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY
(LOWERS VOICE) A wandering minstrel... Beep.... Gale force 8.
Come on, sir, what's the message? I'm on tenterhooks!
As far as I can tell the message was he's got a terrible lion up his end
so there's an advantage to an enema at once. Damn.
The idea that someone in an office can ring you up on the front
and say, "go to your death".
It's understandable that Blackadder shouldn't warm
to the character of Darling.
In these circumstances, I wouldn't either!
Welcome back to our celebration of magnificent Blackadder moments.
We are well into the top ten now so although we've had treats already
I can safely predict that the moments are in all likelihood
going to get even more superb.
Miriam Margolyes plays a Spanish princess
who's perhaps more lusty than lovely.
Oh, well, you can't have it all.
SHE SPEAKS SPANISH
The main thing about the Spanish infanta is that she's hideously ugly
and I could have felt a bit peeved at being cast in this role
because although fat, I am charming and pleasant looking.
My favourite bit from Blackadder I, without exception,
and there were some very good bits to choose from,
was Jim and Miriam's Spanish interpreter saying,
"well, it's nice to talk about a ladies thing".
SHE TALKS SPANISH Well, this is nice.
The fact that he was slightly camp seemed to be, fall into place
from how it was written and the fact that it had the famous line,
"nice to have just a little talk just about the ladies things".
SHE TALKS SPANISH
To have a little talk about ladies things.
SHE TALKS SPANISH
Just the two of us.
Now, I'm a specialist in accents and I'm not quite sure...
I'm not quite sure
what accent Jim was employing. It doesn't matter.
SHE TALKS SPANISH
So tell me, Mrs Queen, about English men.
I've never worked out why it's so perfect
but I think it's that he mis-stresses every single word.
It's just a sort of astonishing technical feat
to get the rhythms of the English language so completely wrong.
Now Edmund. What's he like?
Well, I told you this morning.
THEY TALK IN SPANISH
No. What's he like in bed?
It's sort of his child-like delight at saying,
"and what's he like in bed", "in ba-eed".
Yes, in bed he likes hot milk with just a little tot of cinnamon.
No, no, no, no, no.
What IS he like?
Oh, well...
he's like a little rabbit, really.
SHE TALKS IN SPANISH AND LAUGHS
He translates to, "Oh, she thinks he shags like a rabbit".
SHE TALKS IN SPANISH
She got everything wrong because she's thinking of sex all the time
because she's a complete nymphomaniac
on the level of a dinosaur.
She would accept any twerp onto her bosom. She's that kind of lady.
SHE TALKS IN SPANISH
Oh, Mummy, Mummy, how much I love you.
The interpreter is one of the greatest comic moments on TV.
Right, sir, what do we do now? Shall I do my war poem?
How hurt would you be if I gave the honest answer,
which is, "no, I'd rather French kiss a skunk"?
So would I, sir.
OK, fire away.
He's like a kid at school on parent's day, just stood on stage
reciting his poem that he's so proud of.
This one is called The German Guns.
Oh, spiffing! Yes, let's hear that.
Boom, boom, boom, boom...
To see Ben parody the notion of the war poem into one word which is just
the sound of the damn guns going off I thought was a piece of brilliance.
The "boom, boom" song, I watched that with my kids and they loved it.
I thought it was a bit grim actually but there you go.
Erm, I mean, nicely performed.
Boom, boom, boom.
How could Baldrick write a poem
that had more than one syllable? It's just impossible.
Anything else would be... would be cheating the audience.
Boom, boom, boom, boom...
Boom, boom, boom?
How did you guess, sir? I say sir, that is spooky.
Sorry, I've got to get out of here!
I think I might have been judging a poetry competition
at my son's school and one of the boys,
they were doing you know Rudyard Kipling and Roger McGough
and lots of other serious long poems,
and then one of the boys stood up and said, "this poem is called War
"by S. Baldrick", and just said "boom" ten times.
I felt very proud. I didn't realise that I had contributed
to English culture in that way, or me or Ben or whoever came up with it.
There was a wedding going on.
Blackadder was going to marry Bob
and suddenly into the scene came this big huge character
just full of balls really, I suppose there's no other way to describe it!
It's me. Flash!
He explodes.
Flash by name, flash by nature.
The way he's dressed is just superb, like a hussar.
Hooray! Hooray!
It's amazing. Whatever he wears, what wig, the audience gasps.
He's got such braggadocio.
Who is that?
I don't know but he's in your place.
He picks him up and throws him out the door.
Thanks bridesmaid. Like the beard.
"Gives me something to hang onto".
Gives me something to HANG onto!
If you look at the scene you see everyone standing around on that set
looking completely amazed
at the force of nature that's arrived.
So, me old mate Eddie's getting hitched, eh?
What's the matter? Can't stand the pace of the in-crowd?!
Because Rick was so noisy, so determined that what he said
should be the funniest and the loudest
that it could possibly be, that Rowan just gently stepped back
during those weeks and did his homework in private
while we indulged Rick's magnificent firework personality
and then Rowan would step forward once Flashheart had buggered off.
Hi, Queenie.
The Queen of England just melts.
You look sexy. Woof!
But listen, wear your hair long. I prefer it that way.
I've got such a crush on him.
Your life is made better, for a moment, when Flash is there.
Woof! Nursie.
Nursie fancied him rotten.
I like it firm and fruity.
Am I pleased to see you or did I just put a canoe in my pocket?
Down boy, down!
Hot, red-blooded male, isn't he? He's alpha male.
Where's this amazing bird?
The one who stopped my old pal Eddie doing exactly whatever he wants
ten times a night.
Ah yes, Flash, let me introduce my...my fiancee, Kate.
Hi, baby.
Ah, she's got a tongue like an electric eel
and she likes the taste of a man's tonsils.
Flashheart, I think...I think we'd all like to be just a little bit.
In the episode in which Blackadder attempts
to demonstrate his insanity by using the word "wibble" all the time.
It's... It is preposterously funny.
This is a large crisis and a large crisis requires a large plan.
Get me two pencils and a pair of underpants.
Right, Baldrick, this is an old trick I picked up in the Sudan.
We tell HQ that I've gone insane and I'll be invalided
back to Blighty before you can say "wibble".
Rowan is a big one for the plosive, um, Ps and Bs are very...
I can't begin to do it. Why did I even try to do Rowan doing it?
I just like the word. Wibble.
Wibble. Wibble. Wibble.
Wibble.
Poor gormless idiot.
I'm a poor gormless idiot, sir
and I've never been invalided back to Blighty.
Yes, Baldrick. But you never said "wibble".
Now ask me some simple questions.
Right. What is your name?
Wibble. What is two plus two?
Oh, wibble wibble.
Where do you live? London.
Eh? A small village on Mars, just outside the capital city...
Wibble.
All men present and correct, sir. Ready for the off, eh? I'm afraid not.
I'm just off to Hartlepool to buy some exploding trousers.
Come again, sir. Have you gone barking mad?
Yes, I have. Cluck, cluck, gibber, gibber,
my old man's a mushroom etc.
This irony that he is in the maddest, craziest situation
you could possibly be in
and yet he's trying to prove his madness to get out of it.
Stephen Fry comes on,
as always steals the show, and plays Wellington in the final episode.
They get his nose very right. They craft it to look exactly like the Duke of Wellington.
His nickname was Nosey because he had a huge nose.
And may the best man win... ie, me.
But the other thing that is so great I think, is Stephen's wig.
He looks so completely Georgian, so like how I imagine
the Duke the Wellington would have looked that it's plausible.
Your tea, sir. You're late!
Quite frightening when he gets a bit of a shout on.
That big booming, you know, just for no reason
he has to talk extremely loudly because he is Wellington.
Where the hell have you been, Florin? India?
The skill is not in the person punching or throwing the slap,
it's always in the person receiving it.
Anyone can do that or that.
It's the timing of your "ow", and Hugh is an absolute genius
at being hit.
I remember him arriving to do this...the violent stuff,
the slapstick stuff, with some trepidation
because I've done things with Stephen before, physical things.
You know, when he's had to act punching me and...his acting...
How can I put it? He's punched me. He's just punched me.
Where the hell have you been? India?
Or Ceylon?
Or China?!
It's the force which he comes towards it and smashes that table
is so unexpected that it just, it works perfectly.
It's one of those jokes that you just go.
Or China?
And don't bother to show me the way out.
I don't want to die of old age before I get to the front door.
Stephen Fry obviously loved the idea because it's a great comic idea
that the upper classes aren't just rude to the lower classes
but hit them physically.
Dr Johnson, your highness. Ah, Dr Johnson! Damn cold day.
Indeed it is, sir, but a very fine one.
One of the joys of Blackadder was that every so often
Robbie Coltrane would join us.
Robbie Coltrane as Dr Johnson, in a truly brilliant performance.
I celebrated last night the encyclopaedic implementation
of my premeditated orchestration of demotic Anglo-Saxon.
No, didn't catch any of that.
There was a certain truth to it beyond the magnificent comedy.
Plus the script at the time that they gave him was brilliant.
It is witty, it is elegant and they play it to the hilt.
Well, I simply observe, sir, that I am felicitous since
during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn
I terminated my uninterrupted categorisation
of the vocabulary of our post-Norman time.
Well, I don't know what you're talking about
but it sounds damn saucy, you lucky thing!
I believe, sir, that the doctor is trying to tell you
that he is happy because he has finished his book.
It has apparently taken him ten years.
Yes, well, I'm a slow reader myself.
It's a great example of Blackadder at its best,
which is, that it, you know, pricks pomposity.
This book, sir, contains every word in our beloved language. Ooh...
Every single one, sir? Every single word, sir.
Oh, well in that case, sir, I hope you will not object
if I also offer the doctor my most enthusiastic contraphibularities.
What? Contraphibularities, sir? It is a common word down our way.
It is very much public schoolboy, um, undergraduate humour, isn't it?
It's all about words.
Damn!
Oh, I'm sorry sir.
I'm an aspeptic, phrasemotic...
..even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.
What, what, what?
The smugness and enjoyment with which Blackadder
is ruining Samuel Johnson's life.
This man spent ten years writing his dictionary
and Blackadder takes enormous pleasure knocking him down.
I'm sorry sir. I merely wished to congratulate the doctor
on not having left out a single word.
Blackadder cannot resist coming up with things to confound him.
It is his ability to snipe.
Something that we'd all like to have the bravery to do. Or I would.
Oh, if only I'd managed to, damn! If I was there again...
I'd do this, I'd say this... And he does it. He has the bon mot.
I shall return interfrastically.
Welcome back to the climactic part
of Blackadder's Most Cunning Moments.
And now our second most marvellous moment.
Not long to go now, Darling.
How do I look, Darling?
Girl-bait, sir. Pure bloody girl-bait!
We speak at cross purposes and it's rather touching
because I'm rehearsing my lines of love to Georgina
and he takes them personally and you know that he likes taking them personally.
It's all very weird and very British but highly enjoyable.
Moustache bushy enough?
Like a privet hedge, sir.
Good because I want to catch a particularly beautiful creature in this bush tonight.
Wherever Stephen goes he travels
with a small packet of double entendre in his wallet
which he can whip out...
at a moment's notice.
I know exactly what I'll say to her. Darling...
Yes, sir?
What? Um. I don't know, sir.
Well, don't butt in. Sorry, sir.
Such a simple joke but it is,
it is irresistible and it works over and over again.
I want to make you happy, darling.
Well, that's very kind of you, sir.
Will you stop interrupting?
Listen, or else how can you tell me what you think?
I want to make you happy, darling.
I want to build a nest for your ten tiny toes.
I want to cover every inch of your gorgeous body in pepper
and then sneeze all over you. Really sir, I must protest.
That realisation on his face and them him considering,
"actually that's not much, I could live with that
"as long as I don't have to go to the front."
What is the matter with you, Darling?
Well, it's just all so sudden, sir, and I mean the nest bit's fine
but the pepper business is definitely out.
How dare you tell me how I may or may not treat my beloved Georgina?
Georgina? Yes. I'm working out what I want to say to her this evening.
Oh, yes. Of course. Thank God.
I think it's a fantastic piece of writing and it was great fun to do
and very difficult to do.
Honestly, Darling, you really are the most graceless,
dim-witted bumpkin I ever met.
I don't think you should say that to her, sir.
You'd think being called Darling 40 times an hour by your boss
would be quite nice, really.
You'd get done for sexual harassment.
And now here we are. The number one Blackadder moment
and one of the most popular scenes in TV history.
Don't forget your stick lieutenant. Rather, sir.
I wouldn't want to face a machine gun without this.
The last episode of the fourth series of Blackadder,
as many people have often said,
is an extraordinary piece of television,
of writing and acting as it starts off very jolly and silly
and is a bit of a scam and gradually gets more and more serious and sad
and actually quite scary and ends with that extraordinary scene.
It's become inevitable and you can't believe
that these people who are completely personal to you,
they are like family, are in this situation.
Listen. Our guns have stopped.
You don't think...? Maybe the war's over.
Maybe it's peace.
Oh, hoorah! The big knobs have got round the table
and yanked the iron out of the fire.
Thank God. We lived through it!
The Great War, 1914 to 1917.
Hip hip... ALL: Hooray.
Each of the little lines that come before they go over the top
has a particular point to do with defeatism and optimism
and then the final twist when he says it's the end of the war and it's 1917
and you know that that, that's not right.
I'm afraid not.
The guns have stopped because we're about to attack.
Not even our generals are mad enough to shell their own men.
They think it's far more sporting to let the Germans do it.
So we are in fact going over?
This is, as they say, it?
The resignation, the sadness, the wisdom and the bravery.
I'm afraid so.
Unless I can think of something very quickly.
COMPANY...one pace forward.
Oh, there's a nasty splinter on that ladder, sir.
A bloke could hurt himself on that.
STAND READY...
I have a plan, sir. Really, Baldrick?
A cunning and subtle one? Yes, sir.
As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed professor of cunning
at Oxford University? Yes, sir.
On the signal company will head forth.
Well, I'm afraid it will have to wait.
There's his abrupt stop. The joke's finished.
I'm sure it was better than my plan
to get out of this by pretending to be mad.
I mean who would have noticed another mad man around here?
Clearly the atmosphere of the last episode was deliberately thought provoking.
I mean the whole idea you have to be mad to be in it so you're not going to get out by being mad,
and I hope that the tone was set not just by the script but by the fantastic performances.
WHISTLE BLOWS IN DISTANCE
Good luck, everyone.
Reality comes in and reality is standing there waiting to go over the top and the whistle blowing
and the words "good luck" and you know that luck had nothing to do with it.
Charge!
GUN FIRE AND EXPLOSIONS
And the music, that sort of pub piano feeling right at the end
from Howard Goodall I thought was absolutely, um...chilling.
It's tremendously moving, always brings a tear to the eye
and a fantastic, fitting end to a great series.
And that perhaps is the brilliance of Blackadder, the reason it stands head and shoulders above the rest,
it was always prepared to push the boundaries
and redefine what a sitcom could be.
It brought home the madness of history
in a way that mostly made us laugh but wasn't afraid to make us cry.
Thank you, Blackadder.
People often ask me if I'm proud of Blackadder
or proud of doing it or proud of producing it
and what I'm really proud of is this amazing sense of teamwork.
I think I just feel lucky.
You know, you do your best that you can in your 20s
to try and do the thing that you think is funniest
and it's a fluke and a miracle if it turns out
that the one you wrote has lasted.
The great news is everybody involved in it are still friends,
I mean very much so.
We're eternally bound together you know by the experience.
Every year we meet under the clock at Paddington station,
ten to four, all wearing the tie, we got a tie made, you know, nice.
Go away. Yes, my lord.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd