A jewel in the launch of G.O.L.D*, this two-hour documentary reflected on one of Britain's most treasured sitcoms: Blackadder. It starred Rowan Atkinson as various descendants of cynical Edmund Blackadder and his loyal dogsbody Baldrick (Tony Robinson), spanning the Dark Ages to World War I. Written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton (who came aboard for the second Elizabethan-set series), the historical comedy ran from 1983 to 1989.For me, Blackadder was a hugely influential series from my childhood. I could recite whole scenes verbatim (no mean feat for a kid), I owned the audio cassette for Blackadder The Third, I still have "The Whole Damn Dynasty" scriptbook, and it introduced me to the work of Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Miranda Richardson, et al. The show also cultivated my ongoing fondness for British history; something that really helped during dry history lessons at school. To this day, my sense of historical timeline is indebted to Blackadder's series chronology.
Sadly, this documentary wasn't much of a 25th anniversary celebration. The material barely filled two-hours, although it was nice to see some classic clips (the show was always being repeated in the '90s, but seems to have fallen by the wayside since). The biggest disappointment was undoubtedly the absence of Rowan Atkinson himself (we had to make do with a brief archive interview), although the production had attracted nearly everyone else back for talking head duties.
There were some interesting nuggets of information unearthed, too -- which I'd either never heard before, or had forgotten. Co-writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton used to pen three episodes each (separately) and then polish the other's draft, Atkinson's humorous pronunciation of "Bob" was due to a stammer he suffered on the letter "b", Rik Mayall only agreed to guest-star as Lord Flashheart if he was guaranteed the funniest lines, and Hugh Laurie was regularly filled with terrible self-doubt and nerves before filming started.
Beyond the talking heads (in which poor greenscreen gave people a grassy head-haze!), there wasn't too much to get excited about. While it was great to see rehearsal footage for Blackadder Goes Forth (with the cast nitpicking every line, ensuring the script was in peak condition), the documentary essentially boiled down to an extended clip-show with testimonials.
This was a shame, as Blackadder deserves to have a truly essential companion documentary to its name, but the series was created in the days before supplementary material was a concern. Still, while The Whole Rotten Saga wasn't the essential and authoritative retrospective I've been longing for (even footage from the series looked horribly soft and blurred), it certainly reminded me of how much I adore this sitcom and these characters.
9 October 2008
G.O.L.D, 9pm
* Incidentally, this new channel must have the worst on-screen logo I've ever seen: a distracting white disc with a hot-pink border. It makes you wonder who designs these things, and who agrees to implement them.
