Blackadder Rides Again Page #3

Oh, oh. It's gelled.

"Tim McInnerny is brilliant, as is Tony Robinson,

"quite splendid juices being squeezed from a rather shrivelled selection of lemons."

What comes in my head first about series one

is freezing to death in Alnwick Castle.

I can remember on the very first day, Tim McInnerny and I

started to get the giggles

because in the previous hour,

we'd been subjected to five different kinds of snow.

It was everything the north-east had to throw at us.

"The hailstones are as fat as Mint Imperials

"and it's so cold, we have to wear our long-johns in the bath."

Despite its quite graphic description of the difficult conditions,

actually, the tone is quite optimistic.

I mean, you don't sound like a man about to jump off a cliff.

What used to be strong about British comedy

was that people went from writing sketches

to writing a sitcom, and their sketchcraft was carried through.

- Let's get down to business, shall we?

- Business, my lord?

Yes. Baldrick has been looking at some of the ways we can actually make a bit of money at this job.

Some of the things that are best in series one are really sketches.

There appear to be four major profit areas.

Curses, pardons, relics and selling the sexual favours of the nuns.

Selling the sexual favours of nuns?

- Yeah.

- You mean some people actually pay for them?

Well, foreign businessmen, other nuns...

'We weren't an ensemble at that time'

and, in a way, for me, I think,

that scene was the first time that it really gelled.

Moving on to relics, we've got shrouds from Turin.

Wine from the wedding at Cana.

Splinters from the Cross.

And of course, there's all the stuff made by Jesus in his days in the carpentry shop.

We've got pipe racks, coffee-tables, coat stands.

Waterproof sandals. That's what I remember.

This was my one good scene in the first Blackadder series.

'I was so pleased I got this.'

I haven't finished this one yet.

It's so verbal, isn't it?

Nice props, I'm not knocking them at all,

but just the three of us being serious and pulling faces.

'Absolutely.'

I have here a true relic.

What is it?

It is a bone from the finger of our Lord.

It cost me 31 pieces of silver.

'Baldrick, you stand amazed.'

I am. I thought they only came in boxes of 10.

'Look at you!'

You should be shot for that kind of acting.

No, I could have been much worse.

I remember Blackadder being lots of fun.

In the end, you are about as much use to me as a hole in the head -

an affliction with which you must be familiar,

having never actually had a brain.

Hello!

The Spanish Infanta didn't know she was ugly.

That's the sad thing, really, about it.

Here I am, awaiting the arrival of the most beautiful, ravishing...

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