To Be a Victim, or Not to Be a Coward
The genesis of ‘The Shakespeare Sketch’, otherwise known as ‘A Small Rewrite’, clearly lay in the difficulties facing the Blackadder writers as the group brainstorming got out of hand. After one particularly grievous spot of fixing had been carried out on one of the scripts, Richard turned to John and complained that nobody would ever have done the same thing to Shakespeare. ‘I think I would have,’ Lloyd replied after a pause, ‘some of his stuff was far too long.’
Putting his anger to good use, this gave Curtis the inspiration to see just what the Bard did have to put up with from the Tudor equivalent of Mad Jack Lloyd. Laurie was happy to drop the inbred toff act to take on the more naturalistic role of a morose, arrogant ‘Shakey’, while Atkinson, still sporting his World War I tache, made very little effort to disassociate his character from the Blackadder family.
PRODUCER:
Bill! Bill, good to see you.
BILL:
Sorry I’m late – traffic was a bitch!
PRODUCER:
Good to see you. Well, the play’s going well, isn’t it? Looks like we’ve got a bit of a smash on our hands … They always seem to go for the ones with the snappy titles: Hamlet! Perfect! Perfect.
BILL:
Act Three may be a bit long, I don’t know …
PRODUCER:
Act Three may be a bit long … In fact, generally, I think we’ve got a bit of a length problem … It’s five hours, Bill, on wooden seats, and no toilets this side of the Thames.
BILL:
Yeah, well, I’ve always said the Rose Theatre is a dump, frankly. I mean, the sooner they knock it down and build something decent, the better.
PRODUCER:
Exactly. So that’s why I think we should trim some of the dead wood … some of that stand-up stuff in the middle of the action.
BILL:
You mean the soliloquies?
PRODUCER:
Yeah, and I think we both know which is the dodgy one.
BILL:
Oh? Oh? Which is ‘the dodgy one’?
PRODUCER:
Er … ‘To be … nobler in the mind … mortal coil’, that one. It’s boring, Bill. The crowd hates it. Yawnsville!
BILL:
Well, that one happens to be my favourite, actually.
PRODUCER:
Bill, you said that about the avocado monologue in King Lear, and the tap dance at the end of Othello. Be flexible!
BILL:
Absolutely not! You cut one word of that, and I’m off the play …
PRODUCER:
Bill, Bill, Bill … Why do we have to fight? It’s long, long, long. We could make it so snappy … you know, give it some pizzazz. How’s it begin, that speech?
BILL:
‘To be a victim of all life’s earthly woes, or not to be a coward and take Death by his proffered hand.’
PRODUCER:
There, now I’m sure we can get that down!
Between Atkinson’s arch, anachronistic characterisation and the sitcom’s preoccupation with Shakespeare, it’s little wonder that the sketch was taken as a lost Blackadder Chronicle by everyone who saw it until Curtis specifically confirmed that it was completely unconnected.fn11 That Hysteria II came right in the middle of the biggest burst of Blackadder creativity made erroneous links inevitable, especially when the sketch had to be hurriedly presaged by Stephen, lager can still in hand, due to his ‘ex-friends’ deciding that ‘it would be amusing to get pissed instead of going on and doing a carefully rehearsed sketch’. The Hysteria benefits would continue to be an occasion for Blackadder congregation, with the final show in 1991 featuring Rowan and Hugh reuniting to perform sophisticated safe-sex vignettes (alongside Helen Atkinson-Wood’s boyfriend at the time, Craig Ferguson, and the sole female performer, TV presenter Emma Freud, who was by that stage Richard Curtis’s girlfriend, and remains so to this day).
More reunions were in store the Sunday following Hysteria II, as Miranda Richardson resurfaced to take her place in Blackadder’s War, as Nurse Mary Fletcher-Brown. In yet another echo from the past, for her third incarnation Richardson was to play a fluffy funbundle of a lass who ultimately reveals a darker side to her personality, more palatable to the Captain. The big difference in ‘General Hospital’, however, was that for the first recorded time, Edmund got the girl – only to immediately lose her again, thanks to his own surfeit of cunning. Bill Wallis also made his final appearance in the show, as the unconvincing spy Brigadier Smith – the second red herring in the test case for Operation Winkle.
Despite the deliberate limitations of the trench warfare set-up, then, Blackadder Goes Forth managed to expand and enrich existing Blackadder lore, from the field hospital to up-diddly-up in the sky with the 20-Minuters.fn12 But, as Curtis acknowledges, there was only one place the series was ever going to end up. ‘It was the condition on which we wrote the series. In a way it had been the arrow shot off at the beginning, that it was always going to land in No Man’s Land … In a way, that set us free to be as disrespectful as we wanted to be at the beginning, because we were going to be respectful, or at least truthful, at the end.’ And McInnerny recalls the looming threat of the final big push: ‘The world-weariness of Blackadder was something kind of extraordinary. He was beaten down, he wasn’t necessarily going to win every time, and knew he wasn’t. Which gave it a kind of darker edge, I think … The extraordinary thing was that there really was only one plot, which was “how can we get out of here?” I mean, every episode. But at the back of your mind, you think, “They can’t get out of it every week, they’re not going to be able to get out of it … Oh, they’re not going to get out of it.”’
Good Luck, Everyone
Goes Forth contained two musical motifs – ‘A Wand’ring Minstrel’, with echoes of Blackadders past, and Weston & Lee’s 1915 hit ‘Goodbyeee’, the full lyrics of which, telling the tale of ‘Brother Bertie’ on his way to the front, not only have a surprisingly biting irony, but could almost have been written for Lt George himself to lustily and brainlessly sing at an annoyingly loud volume.
Goodbye-ee, Goodbye-ee,
Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee
Tho’ it’s hard to part I know,
I’ll be tickled to death to go …
Bonsoir, old thing, cheerio, chin, chin,
Nah-poo, toodle-oo, Goodbye-ee!
As a valedictory theme for the Black Adder’s last reincarnation, swapping the military rank-related episode titles for ‘Goodbyeee’ was an inspired move, leaving little doubt in the minds of those who read the synopsis for the conclusion in the TV listings before settling down to watch on Thursday 2 November 1989, several days off Remembrance Day, that this was the end of the road for the anti-hero. And yet, as Blackadder’s last desperate escape plan unfurled (pretending to be mad by putting two pencils up his nose and his underpants on his head), there was still hope that the scheming cad could somehow pull through.
For the cast and crew, however, the knowledge that such hope was fruitless made for a uniquely difficult week of recording. Laurie recalls, ‘It had as its backdrop the greatest tragedy of modern man, and that gave the thing a poignancy and a texture that few other things I’ve been involved in have had, or could have had. We had various histories of the First World War lying about – I don’t know who supplied them, where they came from, I suppose the designers wanted photographs – and in an idle moment I think we were all sort of gradually soaking up these absolutely heartbreaking details of life in the trenches, and the loss of that generation.’ Atkinson, despite being well versed in dying at the end of the series, concurs: ‘I do remember throughout the whole week of rehearsal leading up to “Goodbyeee”, and indeed the recording of the episode, having this nasty knot in the pit of my stomach, which reflected the dilemma of my character. It may well be that if you’re a serious actor then you experience that kind of thing all the time, you acquire the mentality and the physicality
of the character you’re playing, but I’d never experienced it before. It was very, very odd, and it was only in that episode … The feeling that you were going to die. This was not like your normal pratfalling comedy death either. There was just this extraordinary feeling of dread that I’ve never felt before.’ And even the usually unflappable producer had to admit, ‘I went on the trench set for the first time on the last episode. I was usually sitting up in the gallery with the director, and I actually went on the set for some reason, and it was really scary, a really odd feeling, even with an audience there and everything.’
Nevertheless, there was the best part of half an hour of laughs to be had before any conclusion, and at last, the episode attained the truly claustrophobic atmosphere desired by Lloyd for so long, as the old comrades awaited their fate.fn13 Even then, one final guest star joined the cast for this ‘last waltz’, with sitcom icon Geoffrey Palmer receiving the first star billing in the opening credits since Frank Finlay six years earlier. Palmer was an inspired spot of casting as Field Marshal Haig, carelessly shovelling toy soldiers off the map (a nightmare to reset when a take went wrong) as yet another attempt to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin was set in motion. The veteran actor’s presence did nothing to alleviate the episode’s feeling of claustrophobia, however, only having one scene, far from the trenches.
Atkinson and Palmer would eventually appear on-screen together six years later, in Full Throttle, an episode of the BBC drama series Heroes & Villains, dramatising the lives of great Britons. In the only dramatic TV role in his career, Atkinson played one of his own heroes, maverick pioneering interwar racing driver Captain ‘Tim’ Birkin (an ancestor of his friend, the TV director John Birkin), with Palmer playing his despairing father. Even then, the shadow of World War I played a part, allowing Rowan an unabashedly straight reflection on the bloodshed, as the daredevil looked back on his life with his biographer:
TIM:
(examining photograph.) That’s my elder brother, Thomas. He didn’t survive the War. So many didn’t, Burn. I was one of the lucky ones.
BURN:
You were a pilot, weren’t you?
TIM:
Yes – flew Sopwiths. Still do occasionally! Of course, for your generation, memories of the War must be vague, but when I was your age, I’d known nothing else. And the prospect of a life confined by the four walls of an office seemed awfully dull. But I was lucky: I had money. And I was able to seek an occupation which brought with it the same excitement as war, with the same chance of unexpected disaster, the same need for perfect nerves, and the same … exhilaration, of living in the shadow of death.
Ben Elton had personal reasons for steering the final episode away from gay banter towards real tragedy, having famously been contacted by his historian uncle Geoffrey Elton before the series had even been completed, haranguing his nephew in ‘high dudgeon’. ‘He thought we were taking a cheap shot at the British Army and the suffering of the soldiers during the war. He served in the army as a Jewish refugee … In his letter he said, “Your father, who sired you (bit of a tautology) would not be here today if it wasn’t for the British Army.” And I was, and am, damn well aware of that, and feel exactly as he does about the debt we all owe to the sacrifice of the past. I was stunned that he had this reaction, because I thought the satire was loving, and took into account the bravery … My hand would wither if I was guilty of disrespect. I wrote back to him and said I had every bit as much respect as him, and I was quite aware of how much we owe Britain. By which time he’d watched another episode, and realised he had been a bloody idiot. He wrote back and said I shouldn’t be so sensitive to criticism. He was clearly a grumpy old man by that time.’
Ben continues, ‘It was brilliantly performed, great dramatic acting – although I think there was worth in the script, and we’re proud of it. That emotional moment I think came from the fact that everybody involved has some sort of sense of the tragedy of World War I. And everyone gave their best – the acting, the writing, and particularly the editing and directing at that point. It was a very brave decision to take them over the top – we wrote, “They put their first step on the ladder …”’ Twenty-two years on, the finale of Goes Forth has in some ways been affected by over-saturation, having come so high on so many ‘Top 100 TV Moments’ shows, being aired as often as Del Boy falling through the bar in Only Fools and Horses, but to a generation of viewers used to Blackadder’s silliness, and flippant attitude to death, the resoundingly profound final sequence’s power to shock and move was a punch to the gut which still aches. Elton himself admits that there wasn’t exactly anything new in a sitcom – or any ‘light entertainment’ – having some kind of weight to it, when paying tribute to past greats: ‘Galton & Simpson really proved that the sitcom – whatever that means – is a medium for real drama, and the more dramatic and, in a way, heartrendingly serious, bleak it gets, the funnier it can be. Obviously they weren’t the first to discover that comedy is very close to tragedy, but goodness gracious, in terms of sitcom, they probably showed us and exploited that fact more effectively than any other writers have done.’
As the doomed soldiers waited for dawn, there was the traditional excess of jokes which would be trimmed out of the broadcast version, such as the celebrated debut of Baldrick as war poet:
EDMUND:
Hang on, Baldrick, you can’t even write!
BALDRICK:
I remembered it in my head, sir.
EDMUND:
I cannot believe that there is room in that tiny cavity for you to remember both your name and a poem.
BALDRICK:
I think there is, sir!
EDMUND:
All right, fire away, Baldrick.
BALDRICK:
Who’s Baldrick, sir?
EDMUND:
You are Baldrick!
BALDRICK:
Oh yes, that’s right – Bald-rick!
EDMUND:
Now, recite the poem.
BALDRICK:
What poem would that be, sir?
EDMUND:
No, look, forget who you are. (He does so.) Now let’s hear the poem.
BALDRICK:
… ‘The German Guns’, by … Me.
‘When Ben gave me the script with Baldrick’s poem on it, I just went, “Thank you!”’ Robinson grins, and Fry adds, of the Tommy’s proud rendition of the word ‘Boom’ fourteen times, ‘It is fine poetry; this was the age of modernism, after all. So Baldrick was perhaps the leading modern poet of his age.’
Then there was the high-level debate as to how the war began, and what it was all for, showing once again Baldrick’s Bolshevik tendencies, finally demanding to know why they can’t all just stop killing and go home:
EDMUND:
The reason, Baldrick, is that HQ have let it be known that if anyone even thinks about saying ‘No more killing’, they will instantly be shot by the Military Police.
GEORGE:
Well, there you are, you see, I knew there was a perfectly good reason! Well, bravo for Britain and a gin and orange for St George! Oh, to think that in just a few hours we’ll be off, sir. Not that I won’t miss all this of course, we’ve had some good times, eh? We’ve had some damnably good laughs.
EDMUND:
… Yes, can’t think of any specific ones myself. But who knows, there’s a couple of hours before I have to make that phone call, perhaps it will be wall-to-wall solid gags ’til then.
GEORGE:
Yes! Oh, yes, um, here’s one! Ah, haa, er, no, um. Er … Hmm.
EDMUND:
Or perhaps not.
Of course, Darling was as doomed as anybody, and it’s a testament to McInnerny’s performance that even a blotter-jotter as detestable as he could win the audience’s sympathy, as Melchett’s final brainless/heartless act was to send him to his death. The actor says, ‘My final scene with Stephen, before going to the front line, was brilliant. It is very funny, but it’s awful. And it was als
o beautifully shot. I mean, long shadows and high camera angles, which added to the whole drama of it.’ ‘Tim’s a very, very fine actor,’ Richard adds, ‘and so’s Stephen, and just that idea of definitely condemning a man to death and him not being able to object, was moving. There are a few things in that final episode that feel very apt … Someone in Rowan’s office once told me that 93 per cent of the mail he got – I can’t believe he even got a hundred letters, but anyway – 93 per cent was about the final five minutes of Goes Forth. I do think it was one of those lucky occasions where we got it mainly right, and where each of the little lines that come before they go over the top has a particular point to do with defeatism and optimism …’
Lloyd continues, ‘Suddenly they’re all together, except for Melchett, and enmities have to be patched up, because at the end of the day, they’re all probably going to get killed. The comedy starts to drain out of it in the most horrific way, there was this very odd feeling that you’ve lost control of it.’ Right up until the very final few lines, with the four unlikely comrades lined up before the trench ladders, there’s still hope that a typical Blackadder – or even Baldrick – cunning plan could be waiting around the corner (conceivably, in 1989, each character could even have still been alive), until Darling’s breathtakingly tragic outpouring of misplaced joy, ‘Thank God! We lived through it! The Great War: 1914 to 1917 …’ finally knocks the wind out of the hopeful viewer.
The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend Page 33