Romps in Elizabethan England
Edmund's family has descended from royalty down to the mere nobility.
Edmund
The Quees's favourite, Edmund Lord Blackadder. Forever broke, forever at the behest of the Quees and forever in danger of having his head removed from his shoulders.This is the series when Blackadder comes of age. That burning Blackadder wit surfaces from the moment the titles stop rolling on episode 1.
From Urine Drinking to excecuting the wrong prisoner to visits from his relitives Blackadder falls from one untimely scrape to another. It doesn't get much better than this.
Percy: Sorry I'm late.
Edmund: No, don't bother apologizing. I'm sorry you're alive.
Percy: Oh good, I see the target is ready. [Picks up the bow] I'd like to see the Spaniard who could make his way past me.
Edmund: Well, go to Spain. There are millions of them.
Percy: I'll advise them to stay there then. Keep their hands off our women.
Edmund: Oh God, who is she this time?
Percy: I don't know what you mean. Aah, ouch, aah. [Edmund succeeds in pilfering a letter from Percy]
Edmund: Aah, and who is Jane?
Percy: I'm sworn to secrecy. Torture me, kill me, you shall never know. Ooh, ouch... Jane Herrington. We're very much in love, my lord.
Edmund: This is the Jane Herrington?
Percy: Yes.
Edmund: Jane - bury-me-in-a-Y-shaped-coffin - Herrington.
Percy: I.., I think maybe there are two Jane Herringtons.
Edmund: No... Tall, blond, elegant?
Percy: Right, that's right.
Edmund: Goes like a privy door when the plague is in town? Come on, get on with your shot. You'll get over her. ... [Percy aims]
Edmund: I did. ... [Percy aims again]
Edmund: So did Baldrick actually. [Percy's shot ends up way too low]
Baldrick
A dogsbody.Baldrick's IQ decends through the floor. The great Tony Robinson at his stupid best. How can one capture a smell on TV? The writers of Blackadder the second managed it, though I'm not sure how.
Edmund: Well, Bob, welcome on board. Sorry Baldrick, any reason why you are still here?
Baldrick: Euh .. I've got nowhere to go, my lord.
Edmund: O surely you will be allowed to starve to death in one of the royal parks.
Baldrick: I've been in your service since I was two and a half, my lord.
Edmund: Well that is the why I am so utterly sick of the sight of you.
Baldrick: Couldn't I just stay here and do the same job but for no wages?
Edmund: Well, you know where you will have to live.
Baldrick: In the gutter.
Baldrick: Yes.
Edmund: And you'll have to work a bit harder too.
Baldrick: Of course, my lord.
Edmund: All right. Go and get Bob's stuff in and chuck your filthy muck out into the street.
Baldrick: God bless you, sweet master.
Queenie
Her MajestyAh Miranda Richardson. Her Majesty, little more than a spoiled child she commands the series with masterful timing and great lines. The imortal line of "first we'll have a little drinkie" and blackadder's aunt appearing from under her skirts (Miriam Margolyes again) crowned the whole series for me.
Queen: Ah Edmund. Could we get on do you think? I want to get to the reception so I can get squiffy and seduce someone.
Lord Percy Percy
A buffoon"Hello Bob You young Roister Doister."
Are the upper class nobility really that stupid. Are they all so inbred as Percy? It's not for me to comment.
Blackadder : What are you wearing around your neck?
Percy : Ah! It's my new ruff!
Blackadder : You look like a bird who's swallowed a plate.
Percy : It's the latest fashion actually and as a matter of fact it makes me look rather sexy!
Blackadder : To another plate swallowing bird perhaps. If it was blind and hadn't had it in months.
Lord Melchett
Majesty.... Fawning sycophantic Melchett. Stephen Fry in his finest hour.He reckon's he's the reincarnation of Oscar Wilde you know and I can well believe it.
Melchett : Unhappily Blackadder, the Lord High Executioner is dead.
Blackadder : Oh woe! Murdered of course.
Melchett : No, oddly enough no. They usually are but this one just got careless one night and signed his name on the wrong dotted line. They came for him while he slept.
Nursie
Udders, Nursie's fixation.Brilliant. Nursie's recollections of when Queenie was a little girl make the series. Her love affair with Tom Baker (ex Doctor Who) and his subsequent demise after being eaten by canibals in the south seas is one of the classic moments of this brilliant series
Lizzie go pee pee that's what you used to say...
Lord Flasheart
I've always looked good in a dress.One episode Blackadder is going to marry Bob, his manservant until Flasheart turns up to be best man.
Rik Mayall at his superb best. See his descendent in Blackadder goes Forth
WOOF WOOF!!
Flashheart: It's me, Flash! Flash by name, Flash by nature. Hurrah!
Edmund: Where have you been?
Flashheart: Where haven't I been! ..Waugh!!!.. But I'm here now. Who is that?
Edmund: I don't know, but he is in your place.
Flashheart: Not for long. Hold that.
[Hands his sword to Baldrick, then throws Percy through the door]
Flashheart: Thanks bridesmaid, like the beard. Gives me something to hang on to.
Great Stuff on Amazon
Blackadder II (BBC Radio Collection)
Amazon Price: (as of 10/07/2008)
Blackadder the Third (BBC Audio Collection)
Amazon Price: (as of 10/07/2008)
Blackadder's Christmas Carol (BBC Radio Collection)
Amazon Price: (as of 10/07/2008)
"Blackadder"
Amazon Price: (as of 10/07/2008)
Great Blackadder links
- The Official BBC site
- This is where it all began. The Beeb
- Blackadder Hall
- Loads of good stuff and useful links
My other Blackadder lenses
- The Black Adder
- Series 1 set in medievil times.
- Blackadder the Third
- Set in Georgian England at the time of Pitt the younger or was it Pitt the glint in the milkman's Eye?
- Blackadder goes Forth
- Trouble in and out of the trenches of WW1
Is this the end of the house of Blackadder? - The British TV Comedy group
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