Black Adder – Season 1 [Repost]

Actors: Rowan Atkinson, Elspet Gray, Tim McInnerny, Brian Blessed, Robert East
Directors: Martin Shardlow

One of the best comedy series ever to emerge from England, Black Adder traces the deeply cynical and self-serving lineage of various Edmund Blackadders from the muck of the Middle Ages to the frontline of World War I. In his pre-Bean triumph, British comic actor Rowan Atkinson played all five versions of Edmund, beginning with the villainous and cowardly Duke of Edinburgh, whose scheming mind and awful haircut seem to stand him in good stead to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury–a deadly occupation if ever there was one.



Among tales of royal dethronings, Black Death, witch smellers (who root out spell makers with their noses), and ghosts, Edmund is a perennial survivor who never quite gets ahead in multiple episodes. Jump to the Elizabethan era and Atkinson picks up the saga as Lord Edmund, who is perpetually courting favor from mad Queen Bess (Miranda Richardson) and is always walking a tightrope from which he can either gain the world or lose his head. Subjected to bizarre services for her majesty (at one point, Edmund is asked to do for potatoes what Sir Walter Raleigh did for tobacco), Edmund–as with his ancestor–can never quite fulfill his larger ambitions.



Black Adder I is set at the end of the 15th Century and is based on the premise that Henry Tudor was a liar, that Richard III was a good King and was succeeded by his nephew, who became Richard IV. The first series is the weakest of the lot, though it is still quite good and contains two of the entire series best shows.

The first two episodes (The Foretelling and Born to be King) are funny, but do not contain the side-splitting laughs common to the series. The show really hits its stride in the third episode, The Archbishop, one of the funniest episodes of the entire series. The success continues through the fourth and fifth episodes (The Queen of Spain's Beard and Witchsmeller Pursuivant), though the show dips in the final episode a bit. Brian Blessed is terrific, though can be a bit much at times. Tim McInnerny and Tony Robinson do great jobs, as they would throughout the series.