BLACKADDER REVIEW
Blackadder Review
Before there was Mr. Bean, there was the brilliance that was Black Adder. Through the ages, the Black Adder family has been the next thing to famous. Unfortunately, never quite the thing itself. From the luckless and feckless Prince Edmund in the original "Black Adder" to the opportunistic British army captain in "Blackadder Goes Forth", the nimble Rowan Atkinson provides the comic center to this classic British comedy series. There were four main Black Adder incarnations, each setting a member of the Black Adder family in a different historical context. The first series, "The Black Adder," features the venal son of a Plantagenet king and his slightly more intelligent servant Baldrick, (Atkinson and Tony Robinson). The second series, set in Elizabethean England, is infinitely stronger. The regular cast features the brilliant Miranda Richardson as a giddy Queen of England, and funny turns by former comedy duo Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, now so well known in America as the cantankerous House. At this point, comedian Ben Elton joins the writing team, with very strong results. The third series, appropriately named "Blackadder the Third," is my favorite. It includes Laurie as a regular, as the rather stupid Prince of Wales with Atkinson as his butler and Baldrick as his idiot dogsbody. Richardson returns for a memorable appearance as a vain and silly heiress who moonlights as a highwayman. The final series is the darkest, centering on the Captain of a doomed regiment stationed on the Front during the First World War. Throughout, the series maintains a delightful and tongue-in-cheek style of humor, irreverent and often absurd. The references are wide-ranging, from modern and anachronistic stabs at current culture to the kind of literate in-jokes you feel very smart indeed to catch. I don't know another series that can include, for example, both broad comedy at the expense of organized religion (claiming to the evil "baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells" that destroying the portrait they've had painted of him in bed with a hooker because they "still have the preliminary sketches"), and a joke about Lady Hamilton, mistress of the war hero Nelson who lost an arm and eye in battle ("England knows Lady Hamilton is a virgin; poke my eye out and cut off my arm if I'm wrong!") It's insanely quotable, highly intelligent, and eminently re-watchable, especially if you've watched enough British comedy to be tickled just at the appearance of such wonderful guests as Robbie Coltrane (Harry Potter's Hagrid) as Dr. Samuel Johnson, or repeat appearances in various eras by the hyperactive Rik Mayall (maybe best known in this country as Fred in "Drop Dead Fred"). Some of my personal favorite episodes include "Potato" in the second series in which former Dr. Who Tom Baker plays an utterly deranged Captain trying to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, and the third series' "Sense and Senility," which I think every actor who shows even a modicum of ego should be forced to watch. I never became a real fan of Mr. Bean - I appreciate Atkinson's talents so much more as Blackadder. He's brilliant, dry, and perfectly evil - even when utterly incompetent. All the episodes are widely available, including the odd but delightful Christmas special featuring the only (morally) good Blackadder in history. And at only six episodes per series, I'd recommend simply renting them all and sitting down for a good gorge-fest. Return from Blackadder review to Jen Frankel home 
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