“To you Baldrick, the Renaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn’t it?” (Episode Two: “Head”)
Contrary to retrospective consensus, The Black Adder was not unsuccessful -though the level of its success did not correspond to how much it cost to make. The location shooting and broadness of scope, a couple of the very things that made it so unique next to other sitcoms, were what was killing it. If a second series were to happen it would have to lose these things, in the process becoming a bit more ordinary. And indeed, there is just a little something lost in the second series moving to an exclusively studio-bound setting, most of the action taking place across a handful of sets. The backdrop of history does not seem so immense.
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Trying to figure out what to do with a second series and within these restrictions, took more than two years. What also needed to be reckoned with was the unusual circumstances of the first series’ ending -the title character and most of the supporting cast being killed off so that the more conventional course of history could take its place. But here was an opportunity to reinvent: it was only natural to move the setting to a new time period, bring in characters who are the descendants of those seen previously, and in so doing fix the mistakes of the first series. Certainly the cast and crew could see that the debut series didn’t entirely work. Subsequently Rowan Atkinson retired his duties as co-writer, and since Richard Curtis couldn’t mount the load himself, a replacement was needed.
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Enter Ben Elton, one of the radical young faces of the alternative comedy scene -significantly less posh in education next to Curtis and Atkinson, and already a successful television writer as co-creator of the anarchic sitcom The Young Ones. Elton seemed like the exact wrong choice for this kind of a show, his flagrantly contemporary political comedy looking anathema to a series that credited several of its plots to Shakespeare. But he met Curtis at a social function and the two hit it off incredibly well.
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Fan of the first series though he was, Elton is credited with a lot of the creative choices that flew in the face of that earlier series and turned the show around. For one, the Elizabethan era is generally considered to have been his choice for setting (he still is clearly enamoured with it if his last sitcom Upstart Crow is anything to go by). Most importantly though, it was he who proposed reversing the dynamic between Blackadder and his servant Baldrick. Where Baldrick had been a classical Shakespearean Fool who coined his own catchphrase “I have a cunning plan” out of genuine strategical intelligence, now he was a feeble-minded tramp who can’t even comprehend basic mathematics; while Blackadder, once a buffoon who greatly overestimated his own competency, was now a clever if constantly irritated Machiavel. The idea of him as the modern jaded man trapped within the confines of history took root.
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With this came a whole new character, a new attitude, and a new sensibility to the series, one that emphasized weary cynicism, smarminess, and increasingly creative shows of wit. It was a much better capitalization on Atkinson’s talents of verbiage and delivery -which is exactly how he first made his name at Oxford. “There was a whole, imperious, sarcastic, posh side of Rowan which we both loved,” said Curtis in Blackadder Rides Again. “Which we [referring to Elton] knew how to write, which came very naturally to both of us.” From the start Atkinson fits into the role more snugly -there is no mugging (or at least not the same kind of mugging) and he’s much more comfortable, even in those tights and the Elizabethan ruff. Elton considered the Elizabethan era particularly “sexy”, and while you may question that qualifier, it’s difficult to deny Atkinson has ever looked sexier himself, with the beard and the earring and the sly smile in the promotional photos.
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Such images also sold the show subtextually on its modernity, something I think Elton in particular was keen to emphasize, what with the guitar riff added to the opening theme and a cast more composed of fresh young stars -most notably Miranda Richardson as the adolescent-minded Elizabeth I, with a hot temper and barely concealed crush on Blackadder, and Stephen Fry as Lord Melchett, her Chamberlain and Blackadder’s key rival. The opening episode even featured Elton’s The Young Ones colleague Rik Mayall as the embodiment of hip brash 80s chaotic comedy in the perpetually horny and debonair Lord Flashheart -who comes in to take over the final scenes of the episode. In addition to a returning Tony Robinson as this new idiot Baldrick and Tim McInnerny, whose Percy now took on more the personality of Shakespeare’s Andrew Aguecheek, Patsy Byrne was the other new cast-member as Elizabeth’s doting and giddy ‘Nursie’. And Nursie is probably the most inessential character of this series, in spite of the greatness of Bryne’s comedic delivery. The series otherwise nails down its ideal cluster of archetypes which would pervade the following iterations: the cunning Blackadder, his dullard foil Baldrick, an idiot friend, a snivelling rival, and a mad ruler he must submit himself to.
This series definitely felt of its time far more than the previous. Mayall’s appearance heralded a wave of relevant guest stars, from former Doctor Who Tom Baker as a mad seaman opposite The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Simon Jones as Walter Raleigh, Raiders of the Lost Ark’s Ronald Lacey as a perverted bishop, and Hugh Laurie as a mad German prince in the series finale. Probably the VIP again though is Miriam Margolyes as Blackadder’s deranged puritanical aunt in “Beer”, the funniest episode of this series.
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That is an episode where the premise is that Blackadder is catering two dinner parties at his house at the same time -one a stripped-down Christian affair to ensure an inheritance, the other a binge-drinking contest. Which sounds a bit generic for a show set in the court of Elizabeth I. And indeed the plots of this series are more conventional in nature compared to the first where all were driven by specific characteristics of medieval England. Here, storylines revolve around misunderstanding, paying off debts, and confused sexual orientation -coloured in the details of the period but still fairly relatable sitcom conundrums, only with the stakes being the potential loss of Blackadder’s head, as ‘Queenie’ is oft to threaten. However this mixture of tropes and context suits the series, not only because of its whittled-down production format but because it does more easily endear the setting to its audience. It’s easy to take Blackadder as this contemporary guy merely against a historical backdrop when he’s dealing with issues that we can understand. And it’s not like the series abandons the inspiration that comes from the specifics of the era. Because in these more mundane plots, the show satirizes everything from Shakespeare comedies to the Age of Exploration, the culture of public execution to the strange state of sixteenth century geopolitics -and that’s not to mention things like leech medicine or alchemy that regularly enter the show as beats or subplots .
“It is said Percy, that civilized man seeks out good and intelligent company, so that through learned discourse, he may rise above the savage and closer to God. Personally however, I like to start the day with a total dickhead to remind me I’m best.” (Episode Five: “Beer”)
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Curtis and Elton have a lot of fun pulling from these ideas, and their competing writing styles bounce off each other well. Which is rather surprising given their unusual writing style. As producer John Lloyd attested, “they would sit in different rooms, probably even in different houses having divided the series into two halves, and they’d write three episodes each and then swap over.” I think I’ve absorbed enough of their individual work to note that Elton’s voice comes across more strongly on this series, but Curtis’ gift for dialogue still shows through, especially in the wryness of Blackadder’s comments to Percy, Melchett, or any number of guest characters: “Yes it is, not that it be. You don’t have to talk in that stupid voice to me, I’m not a tourist.” (Episode One: “Bells”) Curtis’ voice may also be felt in the structure of some episodes, particularly “Bells” and “Money”, which are designed like episodes of the first series almost as a collection of period-oriented sketches stringed together by a loose plot. And these are on the whole better, but still indicative of a series chemistry that isn’t quite there yet. Blackadder II is driven by its jokes often more than its stories, and because of this the pacing in both the script and staging isn’t so tight. And some of the jokes aren’t as clever as the writers think, still others drag on too long. A great example of this is in “Chains” where in what feels like an effort to pad the episode runtime, several minutes are spent on Blackadder failing to understand his Spanish torturer, even playing a game of charades to translate an insult.
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This is also the episode that contains a joke where Blackadder briefly mimics the affect of a black man (part of a larger monologue that falls flat), a great segue into how this series holds up on its social politics. Gender and sexuality are the primary topics of the series’ first episode, in which Blackadder finds himself falling in love with his manservant Bob, who is a really a woman Kate in disguise -a fun inverse on the gender disguise trope of Shakespeare. It of course comes with a lot of hand-wringing over sexuality in a way that is framed through a distinctly 1980s sensibility: that being that it’s just weird. Not cruelly dejected (though the sixteenth century setting makes dry allusion to this) nor socially accepted outright -just a strange taboo worth being a embarrassed about. Obviously of course, heteronormativity reigns supreme as it does routinely in Shakespeare comedy. And yet the appearance at the wedding by Lord Flashheart, where he brazenly flirts with just about everybody in the room including Nursie, including Baldrick (“Like the beard. Gives me something to HANG ON TO!”) suggests a kind of cool, radical pansexuality. Flashheart and Kate even swap clothes as they exit because she feels more comfortable in men’s clothes while he likes wearing a dress. Gabrielle Glaister it should be noted, an old school friend of Elton’s, is one of the series’ best recurring players as ‘Bob’ (she’ll return in two episodes of the fourth series), a charming delight every time she’s on screen. As for Flashheart, it’s really interesting noting the details of his characterization related to masculinity and sexuality here, contrasted with what they will be just a few years later in 1989. But I’ll touch on that in a few weeks.
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Yet where “Bells” is fascinating in its halfway measured approach to gender and orientation, the male prostitution gags of “Money” or the offhand transphobic reference of “Beer” very much embody your tired old 80s homophobia/transphobia. Concerning sexism, there are a lot of prostitution jokes, often fairly easy ones, and then to some extent there’s the matter of the characterization of Elizabeth -an intentional subversion of the general portrait of the strong-willed Virgin Queen as impulsively short-sighted and boy crazy. A level of misogyny underlines this stereotype, especially in some of the ways she toys with Blackadder and Melchett, threatening execution with a casualness that belies adolescent male attitudes around girl ‘teases’ in school -Richardson did base her performance off of an old classmate.
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Additionally, she conforms fairly closely to the distinctly British sexist trope of the wet blanket or ‘fluffy bunny’: a naive, overly cutesy girl prone to strong emotions who has no thoughts of her own and requires condescension -something that would recur as a deceptive trait in Richardson’s later characters for Blackadder. Here though it’s played straight, with the royal context and power she holds buffeting it a tad, though still speaking to a particular attitude about women in 1980s Britain. Elizabeth is ultimately a fun character, whom Richardson plays in a very entertaining way, but the fact that she is beset by some uncharitable gendered tropes and is also, by the way, the most prominent woman character across the entire Blackadder series is a bit of a problem.
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However, Blackadder II remains possibly one of the most important single series of any British comedy -it redefined the show, in the process casting its first series in an even less flattering light. The arrival of Ben Elton and a host of other factors of creativity and timing made for a smarter, richer, funnier show, still very different from anything else in the British comedy landscape at the time. Personally though, while I found I still enjoy the series, it didn’t resonate as consistently as it used to. It does suffer some growing pains from its reinvention, there are several jokes and sequences that aren’t as funny as I remember. Most of the episodes don’t find enough for characters like Melchett and Nursie (not until the last two are Fry’s talents fully implemented). It’s the kind of show that, were it allowed to run more episodes, would probably have shaken off its issues and been on the whole more satisfying. And yet they pump a lot of good stuff into what they’ve got. Holistically, a good experience, if imperfect and inelegant. On that latter mark in particular, its follow-up series most certainly would improve.
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