Blackadder

Blackadder
5 / 5

Channel: BBC
Series: Four
Aired: 1983-1989 with Specials
Cast: Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Rik Mayall, Miranda Richardson et al

It's weird to think that Blackadder ran before I was even born. It's one of my absolutely favourite comedies and it makes me question the sanity of people when they tell me they've never seen it. The first thing I will say to you if you've never seen it is skip the first series. You heard.

My reasons are thus: it's pretty bad. You have to get a grip on the characters and their running situations to really embrace the first series. Don't get me wrong: it's very funny, but it's not as funny as the three subsequent series and I think that's something that might put people off. You have a choice of three amazing eras in British history with series 2-4: Elizabethan (complete with a potty Queen Elizabeth I), the Regency Period (18th-19th Centuries) with the Prince Regent, the Prince of Wales and the First World War.

Series one was set in the Middle Ages, if that makes you feel better. There's been several specials made, including the obligatory "25 Years On" and the documentary-like, which are all pretty good in their own right. The one thing that makes it still funny, relevant and important today is that it's superbly written. Ben Elton (The Young Ones) and Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually) do something it's not often thought of to do: Make History Funny and Make Funny Smart.

It's easy to fall over like a prat. It's not easy to make unoffensive jokes about WWI. It's also not easy to go from hilarity to thoughtful and sad within seconds. It's easy to portray a Prince as being a dithering idiot, rather lacking in most areas apart from money, but it's not so easy to show the more mundane aspects of Royalty with great circumspect.

Like I said, skip the first series. I think you'd be disappoint if you plunged straight in with that one. I don't think I actually have a favourite (probably because Rik Mayall has a moustache in all eras) but there are definite favourite episodes within each series.