TV SERIES · 1986– · UK
Blackadder
14 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (14)
- #001
Blackadder is based on Edmund, the antagonist of William Shakespeare's play King Lear: a scheming illegitimate son of a king who plans to take the crown for himself.
- #002
According to Rowan Atkinson, he had no idea how he was going to play Blackadder until the cameras first started rolling; he did not even know which voice he would use for the character.
- #003
This first season had the largest budget of the series, with a large number of extras and equipment (horses, armour, etc.) and location shooting in real medieval settings. Rowan Atkinson called the shoot excessive: "It cost a million pounds for six episodes, a lot of money to spend… it looked great, but it wasn't as consistently funny as we wanted." Partly as a result, later shows had their budgets, casts and sets scaled down.
- #004
The series was primarily filmed at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland.
- #005
The reason the series was set in the Middle Ages was that Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis were keen to avoid comparisons with Fawlty Towers (1975), which they regarded as the British sitcom.
- #006
Michael Grade, Controller of BBC One in 1984, found the series too expensive and not funny, and nearly cancelled the other Blackadder series (he also tried to cancel Doctor Who (1963) and halted production of The Tripods (1984)). In the end, he was persuaded to make more Blackadder if it became a much lower-budget studio comedy. This explains why the second series of Blackadder did not appear until 1986.
- #007
Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis came up with the idea of a historical sitcom while working on Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979).
- #008
In a 2004 documentary, Richard Curtis admitted that just before recording began, producer John Lloyd came up to him together with Rowan Atkinson and asked what Edmund's character was. Curtis later realised that although he had written some funny lines, Rowan Atkinson had no idea how he was supposed to play his role.
- #009
In the first series, Edmund (Blackadder) was the stupider one and comic relief compared with Baldrick, who came up with ridiculous ideas but in many cases somehow helped keep Edmund out of trouble; in the following series, under the influence of new writer Ben Elton, the roles of Blackadder and Baldrick were reversed. In fact, the pilot episode of the first series showed Blackadder with the personality that would emerge later rather than the stupidity displayed here. Baldrick kept most of the same mannerisms, catchphrases ("I have a cunning plan") and the actor playing him (Tony Robinson), while Blackadder became the stupid, comic obstacle he had been in the first series. Blackadder himself grew cleverer and more contemptuous with each subsequent series.
- #010
Although he is not credited in the titles of the whole series, the narrator's rich tones are provided by Patrick Allen, who later appeared as Sir Philip of Burgundy/The Hawk in The Black Seal (1983).
- #011
Brian Blessed and Robert East were cast as father and son even though there are only 7 years between them.
- #012
Rowan Atkinson had to suffer during the making of the programme; he had to have his hair cut in a very unflattering medieval style and wore various "priapic codpieces."
- #013
The Foretelling (1983) aired in Sweden on 22 February 1986. Born to Be King (1983) was due to air a week later (1 March), but was postponed by a week because most of Swedish television's airtime that day was filled with news of the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme the previous night.
- #014
The "Blackadder" theme is played as a trumpet solo backed by an orchestra.
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