Blackadder Rides Again Page #7

I thought, "Oh, God, it's a loony."

So I quickened my step and then I heard footsteps hurrying after me.

"Mr Fry, Mr Fry!" I went, "Yes?"

He said, "Sorry, you seem upset."

I said, "You called me a bastard pigging murderer."

He said, "No, I said Flanders pigeon murderer."

The case before us is that of the Crown versus Captain Edmund Blackadder.

The Flanders pigeon murderer.

Clerk, hand me the black cap, I'll be needing that.

I love a fair trial.

For all the comedy bawling and bleating, the final episode saw events take an extraordinary turn

as Captain Blackadder and his troops braced themselves for the inevitable.

- Don't forget your stick, lieutenant.

- Rather, sir. I wouldn't want to face a machine-gun without this.

I just remember feeling, you know, the impending doom, for my character,

'and I remember feeling

'this strange sort of knot in the pit of my stomach.'

It was the first time, as an actor,

that I had felt the predicament of my character.

'I was going to die at the end of the week.'

'It was much more like a serious play or a drama'

as all the comedy kind of melts and fades out of it,

and it becomes sadder and sadder,

'and more and more tragic,

'and, eventually, almost unbearably moving and sad.

'It's valedictory.'

I hope no-one was left in any doubt of the respect

I think everybody on the team had for...

for the sacrifices made and the honour of the people involved.

But it was a damn silly war and if ever there was a subject,

you know, requiring of satire,

it's people, no matter how honourably

and no matter how nobly, blindly going to war.

Company, one pace forward!

On the signal, Company will advance.

WHISTLE BLOWS:

Good luck, everyone.

WHISTLE BLOWS:

- CHARGE!

- PERCUSSIVE RATTLE OF GUNFIRE

In those days, you had to get out of the studio by 10 o'clock.

If you didn't, the electricians would pull the switch.

'At ten to ten, we finished filming in our normal studio,'

we then had to race across to the other studio

and it was then that we saw this no-man's land set for the first time

and it looked dreadful.

OK, well, this, apparently, is the original footage

from the very last scene of Blackadder IV

where they all go over the top.

I haven't seen this since 1989.

- Action!

- Charge!

They're actually only running - what? -

and stand around looking like lemons,

then pretend to die and it's very embarrassing.

CHARGE!

RATTLE OF MACHINE GUNS

GUNFIRE CONTINUES

HE CHUCKLES:

It's pretty unconvincing, isn't it?

Now they've done a close-up here.

There's a ghastly shot of Hugh and Tim

and Baldrick dying.

Rowan pretending to die but keeping his eyes open.

He's getting up and he looks cross.

Well, that's...

me looking decidedly miffed.

And that's the end of it.

I can remember coming away thinking,

"I've no idea how we're going to end the series."

I thought they would end it before we actually went over the top.

It's one of the lowest points, I think, of my television career

thinking, "The end of this amazing series and I've just screwed it up."

As it was so obvious

that we had so little material to work with, we had to really slow

the pictures right down in order to stretch them in time

but that produced an incredibly good effect

with the flashes which were going over on the right of the picture

and the debris that falls over Rowan's character.

In slow motion, this suddenly achieved a grandeur

which was not obvious in the full motion.

The assistant editor said, "What if we slowed the sound down?"

ECHOING GUNFIRE:

And suddenly we had this - pwuffch! -

this slow-motion sound effect and it starts to get really quite spooky.

BLACKADDER THEME AT SLOW SPEED

Having got Rowan virtually obscured by the debris,

to go to the next shot

where we're now in a blank no-man's land wide shot,

our characters are seen virtually to melt into the landscape.

And then somebody, I think it was the PA, said,

"We should get some poppies. What if...? I think..."

And someone got very excited and ran upstairs to the picture library

and got a still, a transparency, of some poppies.

The last decision, some bright spark in sound,

said, "Let's put some birdsong on it."

TRILL OF BIRDSONG

Even in the edit

it was obviously one of the most moving things that I had ever seen.

In the 19 years since the series ended, the team have each gone on

to achieve greatness in their own right.

But for all of them, there remains

something special about the Blackadder era.

'I think that I'd have to say that it just seems an unbelievably'

lucky break that something which was just a bit of work

that I did for a chunk of time, you know, doing the best I could

with people I really liked, has turned out to last so well.

'I don't think there'd been anything

'that enjoyed history like that.'

The relationship between lords and ladies and dukes and peasants.

The whole panoply and richness of what it is to come from our culture.

'It was just a very enjoyable experience'

of spending extended periods of time

with people with whom you felt a tremendous creative empathy.

I was doing Time Team once and somebody said me,

"Here, aren't you that bloke that used to be funny?"

THEY CHUCKLE:

Only one question remains.

Dear, oh, dear. Oh, Lord.

Will they ever be funny together again?

- Would you do it again?

- What?

- Blackadder.

- No.

Because?

HE SIGHS:

Too old...for one thing.

I don't think people want to see us the way we look now. I really don't.

They want those memories.

There's often talk of a fifth series.

If you had to do another one, what setting would you like to do it in?

If we'd done another one, I think we were going to set it in the '60s.

He had this idea of Adder as a sort of Brian Epstein figure

and Baldrick as a drummer,

a Ringo-style drummer, called Bald Rick

who has to wear a Beatle wig.

Rowan as the bastard son of Queen Elizabeth II

but also running a rock band in the King's Road.

It's already sounding sh*t. That'll be why we never made it.

The one I really liked the idea for was the one set in Neanderthal times.

Out of the jungle comes homo Blackadder.

I thought you meant gay Blackadder!

Oh, I thought you meant homo Blackadder.

I was just going, "Not many parts for girls there then!"

What about you, Tony, what would you've liked?

We talked about loads of ones.

I love the idea of a cowboy one.

I'd do that. Definitely.

Where I get to be a sort of Calamity Jane or something. Fantastic.

In a prisoner-of-war camp in the Second World War.

I've always personally favoured the Colditz idea.

But maybe it's best to leave these things as a memory.

SCOTTISH ACCENT:
Aye, times past. That's what they were.

# Blackadder, Blackadder

# His taste is rather odd

# Blackadder, Blackadder

# A randy little sod!

# Blackadder, Blackadder

# Who gives a toss?

# No-one! #

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