“Blackadder, Blackadder! With many a cunning plan. Blackadder, Blackadder! You horrid little man!” (Series One, End Credits Song)
 |
Though it’s still fairly little-known outside the U.K. and Europe, for the last forty years Blackadder has held a space as one of the great landmark comedies in British television history -consistently ranking high in assessments of the best British shows. It played a pivotal role in launching the careers of several prominent British icons -most notably Rowan Atkinson, but also Richard Curtis -the series’ creator, Stephen Fry, and Hugh Laurie. Across it’s canonical four series between 1983 and 1989 and three one-off specials between 1988 and 1999, it had a significant influence in the world of British comedy, and specifically became one of the defining works in the sadly largely untapped subgenre of historical comedy.
 |
It has also had a great influence on me personally, who at fifteen came across a rerun of it on a Canadian BBC affiliate channel late one night and was drawn in by its period aesthetics and the presence of Mr. Bean, Dr. House, and Hagrid -it was “Ink and Incapability, the second episode of the third series, which featured Robbie Coltrane. I soon absorbed every episode of each series and, as they repeated, multiple times -becoming a little obsessed with the witty dry humour paired with excellent comedic actors and history jokes that delighted me as a kid super into British history. I did a Media Studies class presentation on the show, it became the first TV series I owned the boxset of on DVD (which I still have), I studied the show’s scripts and still know the dialogue of several scenes verbatim. Most importantly it sparked an intense interest in British television -in my early college years I watched dozens of British sitcoms, quiz shows, sketch comedies, and even chat shows, familiarizing myself with that entire ecosystem (and I remain fond of several of these -QI most especially); and these in conjunction with Blackadder shaped my sense of humour into adulthood. There was even a period in there where I aspired to being a comedy writer -as I started getting into American sitcoms about the same time.
So in light of all of this, I’ve always felt fairly comfortable calling Blackadder my favourite TV show, and one of the handful of artistic works that have had a tangible impact in my life. I’d probably be a different person if I hadn’t discovered this show by fluke way back in 2007. But of course it’s been a long sixteen years, and despite my love for the show it has been several now since I last re-watched it. And the question as with any piece of media we at one time uncritically loved is, does it hold up?
Unlike for a lot of people who contend with such a re-evaluation of an old favourite, Blackadder was not a product of the time I first watched it in –it was nearly twenty-five years old at that point, and across the pond a well-established hallmark of British TV comedy. But with the British, it’s probably more important than most to look again at its revered cultural institutions to assess their worth and what they really may have been saying –or even just what they reflected of British culture at the time. Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, who came on for the second series as co-writer and was instrumental in shaping the show into the vessel of snark and wit that it became, always maintained that Edmund Blackadder was meant to be the modern man in the historic setting: commenting on and mocking the intricacies of the world at the time in question with a contemporary if cynical sensibility and from a place of consistently shrinking but still apparent privilege.
 |
And a contemporary if cynical audience was basically who Blackadder was made for. I certainly qualified at the time I discovered it. It’s a show about an objectively awful person, regardless of what era he is in, whose only virtues are his always undermined intellect and his wit. And yet, rather than the gaggle of different kinds of idiots Blackadder finds himself surrounded by, the audience is meant to see themselves in him –the man intellectually above it all, with superior common sense and ambition. He’s the cool character throughout the show, always with a sharp remark, a flippant capacity for violence, and a cunning plan. It’s definitely a show I realize now has the capacity to appeal to the worst possible people, can be read in a way that justifies abuse, inflated egos, aggressive confidence in one’s misinformed opinions, and just general cruelty; Blackadder is perhaps one of the earliest of the ‘antiheroes you were wrong to idolize’. Personally, I don’t feel like I ever idolized Blackadder, and was always clearly aware that he was a bad guy who, modern man that he is, would only abuse whatever power he got (perhaps a core feature of the series’ cynical comment). Hence, why it was so important he was routinely foiled in his goals, excepting perhaps on the last series Blackadder Goes Forth, in which his far more human ambition was just getting out of the war. Nonetheless, Blackadder was still a figure I emulated, as much for his style and charm as his intellect and clever turns of phrase. The series is highly quotable, and the bulk of the most fun and stinging lines come from Blackadder himself –usually mocking something or someone in the world around him.
“We live in an age where illness and depravity are commonplace, and yet, Ploppy, you are without a doubt the most repulsive individual I have ever met. I would shake your hand but I fear it would come off.” (Series Two, Episode Two: “Head”)
 |
Doubtless such dialogue, written to perfection by Curtis and Elton and edited by the cast themselves who acted as an unofficial writer’s room, is extremely fun and endearing even where it’s subject matter is anything but. It is brilliant use of language, and cements this image of Blackadder as a kind of aspirational figure, for entertainment purposes at the very least. As a teenager I really wanted to be seen as a quick thinker capable of such biting remarks, even where I didn’t have it in me to be mean about it. On that level, Blackadder was an inspirational figure for me, and it’s no wonder he was my conduit into British humour more generally –which has a tradition of such sharpness. And Blackadder being set against history presents this interesting dichotomy in relation to British culture and British comedy culture more specifically –wherein it’s allowed to be self-deprecating in regards to the figures, events, and general mores of history, yet also imagines an idealized modern-minded Briton smack in the middle of it. It speaks to a very fascinating kind of British patriotism, both satirizing and celebrating its dense and complex history. And while its critiques of British institutions and their consequences are largely surface-level and inconclusive, there is one thing Blackadder through all its iterations remained astutely fixed on.
If there is any one overarching theme to Blackadder across all its iterations, several of the people involved in its production, including Richard Curtis, are keen to characterize it as class.
It’s not unfair to say Britain is a culture defined by its class disparity, certainly historically. With its stratified social hierarchy, exported through colonialism and maintained by the persistence of its ruling class where fellow European nations have done away with such things, sharp class divides are an ingrained part of British society and culture. And frequently a source of humour. In fact, it’s a long tradition in British comedy to mock the elites and the impoverished in equal measure –all part of their whole dry and self-effacing, miserable sensibility (that’s not knocking the style, I greatly enjoy it). In post-Thatcher Britain, making fun of the poor or working classes has fallen somewhat out of favour, but the rich and prestigious are still as always ample fodder.
 |
Blackadder has had a lot of fun at the expense of monarchs: Richard III, Elizabeth I, Charles I, George III, George IV, and Victoria being the real ones that show up over the course of the four series and three specials. Jokes around them usually range from how out of touch with the general populace they are, or more often take the form of a parody of their best known feature; and so the Virgin Queen is intensely boy-crazy, Mad King George thinks he’s a penguin, and Victoria is just horny and overweight. In the hands of actors like Miranda Richardson and Miriam Margolyes, these caricatures are very funny, but it’s much more interesting where Blackadder applies characteristics to lesser known rulers –Charles I (played by Stephen Fry largely as a satire of then Prince Charles) and especially the Prince Regent/future George IV.
 |
As the show went along it gradually became more working-class friendly, the closer Blackadder as a character got to the working class himself. Hell, as early as series two’s “Money” (in which, to be clear, he is a Lord), he is depicted as broke –that entire series sees him living in essentially a bachelor pad he shares with Lord Percy and Baldrick. By the time series three rolls around, he’s merely a butler living in the basement beneath the Prince’s quarters. Baldrick remains at his low station in life, no mobility either way in sight. It’s not until the fourth series, where he appears to be a near-equal to Blackadder insomuch as they are both civilians in the trenches together, that he comes to actually represent something beyond a trope.
 |
In fact, the public response to Baldrick in Blackadder Goes Forth was to essentially designate him a symbol of the common man in the army, and retroactively the common man who died in the wars. “We actually all identify with this poor downtrodden guy who’s not respected by anybody,” said series producer John Lloyd in Blackadder Rides Again, a documentary commemorating the series 25th anniversary in 2008. “And even when he’s supposed to be stupid Baldrick’s analysis of everything is simple but basically truthful.” Especially for that fourth series, not every Briton had a relative who served in the First or Second World Wars as a captain or lieutenant or colonel –but a lot of them served as privates, including Elton’s own grandfather. But this it should be noted happened in spite of the show not because of it –Baldrick was never played in a way that openly endeared him to working class sensibilities. Indeed, he maintained the same low-brow style of ridiculous unintelligence and hyperbolic disgusting habits into this series and beyond. But that is the side effect of the winning formula that was his relationship to Blackadder. At the very least some sympathy and meaning towards the perennial dogsbody was instilled. And given Blackadder’s own constant failings, it never felt too mean-spirited that Baldrick could barely advance.
“It is the way of the world, Baldrick” the abused always kick downwards. I am annoyed, and so I kick the cat, the cat pounces on the mouse, and finally the mouse bites you on the behind. You are the last in God’s great chain, unless of course, there is an earwig around here that you’d like to victimize.” (Series Three, Episode Three: “Nob and Nobility”)
 |
And that whole ‘punching down’ dynamic of theirs does ultimately cohere into the series’ overarching statement on class politics. A sort of thesis to that nature is even articulated by Baldrick in the series’ time-travelling finale Blackadder: Back and Forth. Commenting on what’s he learned from being exposed to a variable swath of British history, he says: “Human beings have always been the same. Some nice, some nasty, some clever, some stupid. There’s always a Blackadder and there’s always a Baldrick.” Here is expressed this idea that fundamentally human beings have not changed –the invoking of Blackadder and Baldrick being less specific to the two individuals and their ancestors as to the master and servant dynamic more broadly. There’s pessimism to that sentiment, even a hint of fatalism –though it is followed by a more comforting notion about changing the world for the better that seems anathema to the previous point, not much supported by the show as a whole –indicating an awareness on Curtis and Elton’s part of the bleakness to this sentiment. But it is also a pertinent one, a damning one perhaps –that British class politics have always been rooted in deep disparity, and that perhaps by the twenty-first century (which Back and Forth came out literally at the dawn of) that ought to be amended.
Maybe that is a twisting of the show’s attitude around class to fit a more positive ideology. But I don’t think the roots of it are invalid –nobody who was involved in Blackadder creatively were from upper class backgrounds beyond that they managed to get into schools like Oxford and Cambridge, and all (though Elton especially) were open anti-Thatcherites. The nature of Blackadder obviously couldn’t comment directly on the issues of the day concerning class consciousness, as much as it reflected a general left-wing streak of anti-authority in particular. However, the British 1980s context that it was made in informed the series in other ways.
Blackadder is pretty timeless on the surface. It’s not tied down to the kinds of fashions and casual cultural references that easily date a show, and a good chunk of its humour being specific to the period it is set in allows it to translate much more freely -perhaps a reason why it has continued to grow an audience outside of Britain in the decades since where other sitcoms from the period that are just as acclaimed like Only Fools and Horses and Yes Minister haven’t persisted in the same way. And also, it can’t be denied the fact that retrospective star power plays a part. Most of Blackadder’s cast have gone on to their own international successes while the stars of its contemporaries have maintained a level of recognition in the U.K. alone. That can really keep a show alive and relevant.
.png) |
But Blackadder was a show driven by that distinct era of British comedy -not just in a socio-political context, but a comedic sensibility context as well. And that’s not even to single out the jokes that haven’t aged well on feminine, racial, LGBTQ topics, but the general vibe of the humour, the nature of some of the running gags are very precise to that particular comedy scene. For instance, the abundance of slapstick violence which was arguably ushered in by the likes of Monty Python and which hasn’t been a consistent staple of British comedy since about the 90s. But all throughout the series characters casually beat each other up, most notably is Blackadder’s frequent punching of Baldrick. There is the style of many a verbal joke -while dry wit will always have a place in British comedy, Blackadder utilized it prominently and more cleverly than many a series that has come since. But it was also known for incredibly colourful uses of similes or turns of phrase, some of which did cross over into anachronism, and several of which weren’t all that funny on their own but were made so by the specificity of the performer’s delivery.
“We’re in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun.” (Series Four, Episode Three: “Major Star”)
A very popular clip in documentaries about the show is of Atkinson, Robinson, Fry, producer John Lloyd, and director Richard Boden workshopping a joke from the fourth series about the bizarre ‘orders’ the soldiers are receiving in the trench, and the jubilation of coming upon a punchline they all find hilarious. It is a list joke though, another example that pops up a lot in Blackadder, wherein a series of references are grouped together with their own comedic beats, building to a particularly notable or subversive punchline.
 |
Comedy that hasn’t aged well is still there -a product of a sort of edginess that pervaded British comedy of the era -which was as alluded to before in its punk phase. In each series there’s bits of casual homophobia, as was common in comedy across the board, and a certain sexual crassness that betrays a juvenile sensibility that I really feel only a show like Blackadder, which is by its nature dated, could get away with and still be effective today. Rik Mayall’s Lord Flasheart boasting about the “canoe in his pocket” works way more in the context of an oversexed Elizabethan in an over-the-top image of history than it would in even his contemporary The Young Ones, to say nothing of a more modern British sitcom.
 |
Blackadder ultimately does not work as a modern British sitcom. But likewise it wouldn’t have worked as a 60s or 70s British sitcom either. It is a show that was entirely dependent on the era it came out in, in both the good and the bad. It worked because of a specific convergence of talent at a specific time in their careers against a specific cultural and political backdrop. It’s why I roll my eyes every time some rumour comes of a potential fifth series, which if made I doubt could ever be good because all of the circumstances have changed. Stephen Fry was absolutely right when he said he couldn’t play General Melchett as an older man when he himself was one –he needed to be young to do it right, for the satire and the sensibility. It is fitting that a show about history is in its own way a time capsule, and I think it is in a small way one of the things that attracted me, and still attracts me, to the program.
So let’s look at it a little more in-depth; the specifics of each series, the circumstances behind their creation, how they stand out within the series and the larger comedy landscape at the time, and whether they resonate with me the way they did all those years ago when I first happened upon them. Forty years later, this is a reckoning of The Black Adder!
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Comments
Post a Comment