The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend by J. F. Roberts

Author:J. F. Roberts [Roberts, J. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781409051718
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-10-10T14:00:00+00:00

THE WALRUS AWAKES

The first time this new team entered the ‘Hilton’ to bring Ben and Richard’s scripts to life, Atkinson-Wood recalls having ‘that Christmas-morning feeling in your tummy. Comedy and laughter, we all feel better for it, so it is a great thing to be around. It’s not like you’re going in to rehearse Ibsen; you’re going in to have the time of your life.’ Ultimately, however, the process wouldn’t be such a breeze. At this stage, the scripts still followed the Elton pattern of having simple titles – ‘Dictionary’, ‘Actors’, ‘Rotten Boroughs’, ‘Highwayman’, ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ and ‘Duel’, in that order – but it wasn’t until after recording that Lloyd, the master packaging expert, had the brainwave of giving each episode Austenian monikers, from ‘Ink and Incapability’ to ‘Duel and Duality’. It’s one more way in which the series had more of a workshop feel to it than any other, and John admits, ‘Sudden changes of direction like this, right up to the very last minute, were commonplace. They brought both unforeseen delight, and perennial problems.’

As ever, this way of working was highly testing for all the guest performers, but if any of them were up to the challenge, it had to be Robbie Coltrane. Keen-eared viewers of ‘Chains’ may have been perturbed by one insistent grating guffaw from the audience – a sound not unlike a pirate forcing someone to walk the plank. This was Coltrane, supporting his Alfresco comrades in their new venture, and it was no surprise that he was to become one of the extended Blackadder family, with two memorable roles. However, the week of pernickety rehearsals for ‘Dictionary’ left him little time to really get under the skin of the noted man of letters, Dr Samuel Johnson. This first story to be recorded was in a way the spark for the whole series, inspired by a visit to Robbie Coltrane’s one-man show about Dr Johnson – as Elton recalls. ‘I can remember Richard saying, “I’ve had a great idea. Did you know it took Dr Johnson twenty-five years to write his Dictionary? How about he finishes it, lends it to Blackadder, Baldrick puts it on the fire, Blackadder’s got a weekend to rewrite the Dictionary?” And I just thought, that is such a brilliant conceit. A lot better than writing three knob gags, which is what I was sort of trying to do.’ Curtis says that the scripts were bound to be considered open to suggestion when he admits, ‘With Ben and me it was absolute bliss, because you could be irresponsible, you could be a lazy writer. You could say, “Well, I’ve got some scenes here but I don’t really know how to make the plot work.” And you’d basically give up on the plot and write some funny stuff. Or you’d get the plot right, but put in brackets “Must be lots of jokes about a party here.” So each one would be like a challenge to the other person to fill in the bits that you hadn’t bothered with.

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