Title:
Blackadder’s
Christmas Carol
Format:
Multi-camera
video television sitcom
Country:
UK
Production
company:
BBC Television
Year:
1988 (first
broadcast on BBC One on December 23rd that year)
Length:
43 minutes
Setting:
Victorian England
(mostly!)
Background:
The Blackadder series was one of the best-known
and most popular sitcoms on British television in the 1980s, and at the time
this special one-off episode was made it was pretty much at the height of its
powers. After an initial series in 1983 which has something of a mixed
reputation, it really took off into the pop culture stratosphere in the UK with
its second and third series, in 1986 and 87.
Each series of Blackadder is set in a different
time period, with the eponymous anti-hero Edmund Blackadder being depicted as a
different generation’s member of the same family, accompanied by a
cast of supporting characters some of whom continue through various incarnations,
others of whom are more heavily connected to one or two particular versions.
The genesis of Blackadder’s Christmas Carol came
from the show’s co-writer, Ben Elton, having tried to write a couple of
episodes of a Victorian version of Blackadder to follow the Elizabethan
and Regency incarnations of the second and third series. While this never
amounted to a full series – when the fourth run turned up in 1989, it was set
during the First World War – the idea of a Victorian setting was adapted into
this one-off.
British television has a great tradition of popular shows
producing one-off Christmas specials for broadcast over the festive period, as
Christmas has traditionally been a prestigious time of year for a show to be
transmitted, with very high viewing figures as families gather around to watch.
While this Blackadder special didn’t go out on the day itself, over the
next twenty years it would get several outings on the BBC’s main channels,
BBC One and BBC Two, becoming almost certainly BBC Television’s best-known
version of the story – and possibly the best-known of all UK television
adaptations of the Carol.
 |
| Rowan Atkinson as Ebenezer Blackadder. |
Cast and crew:
As with all of Blackadder bar for the first
series, the script was a collaboration between Richard Curtis and Ben Elton.
Elton was very well-known as a stand-up comic and TV presenter in Britain at
the time, and subsequently became a successful novelist, while Curtis would
later find more worldwide fame as a feature film screenwriter and director,
with Four Weddings and a Funeral being perhaps the best-known of his
cinema screenwriting credits.
Director Richard Boden would go on to a raft of UK studio
sitcom credits over the next thirty years, including the widely acclaimed Blackadder Goes Forth in 1989. He also directed the comedy A Christmas Carol Goes
Wrong in 2017, set behind-the-scenes at a fictional BBC adaptation of the
story. Producer John Lloyd has a similarly stellar reputation in TV comedy to
the other talent involved, having been responsible for hits such as Spitting
Image and QI.
The cast features most of the Blackadder regulars,
many of them household names in Britain in their own right. Rowan Atkinson is
probably at least as well-remembered in his home country for his lead role as
Edmund (here ‘Ebenezer’) Blackadder as he is for Mr Bean, although the latter
character has brought him more worldwide recognition. Tony Robinson is one
again Blackadder’s inept sidekick Baldrick (here performing the closest
equivalent of the Cratchit role), probably best known for this part but also a
familiar face from his many years in the 1990s and 2000s presenting the Channel
4 archaeology series Time Team and as the Sheriff of Nottingham in his
own children’s creation, Maid Marion and Her Merry Men from 1989 to
1994.
Stephen Fry returns as his Blackadder II character
Lord Melchet – Fry had already become hugely successful at this point writing
the book for the new version of the musical Me and My Girl and would
become increasingly well known both in the UK and abroad as an actor, writer,
campaigner, presenter and all-round Renaissance Man. His comedy partner Hugh Laurie also returns as the Prince Regent from Blackadder the Third – in
the 2000s Laurie became a famous face on American television as the star of the
medical drama House.
Miranda Richardson reprises her role as the Queen from Blackadder
II, as does Patsy Byrne as her constant companion Nursey, although the
other regular from that series and the first, Tim McInnerny is absent as he had
been for most of Blackadder the Third (he would return the following
year for Goes Forth). Fry, Laurie, Richardson and Byrne all also appear here only in insert scenes of the visions, rather than in the main Victorian-set body of the story.
Well-known faces also abound in the guest cast – Robbie Coltrane, who’d previously made guest appearances in the show, gets bearded up
more than a decade before he started playing Hagrid in the Harry Potter films. Fellow future Harry Potter performer Miriam Margolyes makes for a memorable Queen Victoria, and future Academy Award
winner Jim Broadbent is her absent-minded, comedy German husband, Prince
Albert. Doctor Who fans will recognise Nicola Bryant, who until a couple
of years beforehand had been playing the Doctor’s companion Peri, as
Blackadder’s irritating goddaughter.
 |
| Guest stars Jim Broadbent an Miriam Margolyes. |
Underdone Potato:
The opening
section is the longest, as it sets up the principal gag of the whole thing –
that, contrary to what the audience would expect from a member of this family,
moustache shop owner Ebenezer Blackadder is in fact “the nicest man in
England,” and generous to a fault. A succession of visitors on Christmas Eve
take advantage of his generosity and kindness, showing he’s regarded as a soft
touch in the neighbourhood, the most relevant to the Carol being “Mrs
Scratchit”, played by Pauline Melville, who pleads for assistance with her son
“Tiny Tom” – who, as Blackadder points out, is actually some fifteen stone.
Meanwhile, at
Buckingham Palace, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert prepare for their “annual
Christmas adventure,” going out to reward a philanthropic member of society
with a gift of fabulous wealth.
Past:
With all his
Christmas money and goods taken from him, Blackadder retires to bed, where he
is disturbed by the “Spirit of Christmas”. In some other version of the Carol
it’s Marley who stands in for all of the other Spirits and shows Scrooge all of
his visions. On this occasion there is only one spirit, but with no Marley
equivalent Coltrane’s character is clearly based on the traditional depiction
of the Ghost of Christmas Past.
The Spirit has just
popped in to congratulate Blackadder on being so good, but on being asked how
he gets people to reform mentions that he sometimes shows them visions of their ancestors. Mentioning that this would take some time with Blackadder’s, he
allows him a little look back, and we are treated to extra, newly-shot scenes
featuring most of the main casts of the second and third Blackadder
series. Which does make me wonder – the costumes and wigs were presumably the BBC's own stock or hired back in, but did they have to rebuild the sets from scratch...?
Unfortunately,
this has something of the opposite effect to what was intended, with Blackadder
beginning to realise that there is “something to be made out of being bad.”
Present:
This is a fairly
loose and inexact parody of the Carol, and as such there isn’t actually
a “present” section in the visions, probably because all of the current set-up
has been dealt with in the opening section. It might have been useful for
Blackadder if there had been, however, as then he might have had the
opportunity to see what the Queen and Prince Albert had in store for him!
 |
| Robbie Coltrane as "The Spirit of Christmas". |
Yet to Come:
Blackadder asks
to see what the future would be like for his family if he were to turn bad,
which the Spirit reluctantly shows him, and then contrasts this with what would
happen if he stayed good – a vision the Spirit refuses to show, but which
Blackadder is able to summon forth by copying his wibbly hand movement.
This section
contains two different, brief versions of the same scene, a parody of the worst
excesses of over-the-top gobbledegook science-fiction dialogue. One in which
this future version of Blackadder ends up as supreme ruler of the universe, and
the other in which he’s left with nothing more than Baldrick’s posing pouch.
You can guess which version the Victorian incarnation finds the most appealing,
and despite his insincere promises to the Spirt of Christmas, his conversion
into bad guy seems to be complete – as he tells the Spirit, “bad guys have all
the fun!”
What’s To-Day:
There is a boy at
the window, but unfortunately for the boy it’s up on the first floor and he is
shoved back onto the pavement by the newly-bad Blackadder, who sets about
wreaking revenge on all of those who ransacked him on Christmas Eve, much to
the dismay of his servant Baldrick who wishes he would become kind again
instead of repeatedly punching him.
Blackadder ends
up a considerable amount of money to the good and with a slap-up Christmas
dinner, but unfortunately also sees off the Queen and Prince Albert in
disguise, thus missing out on the reward they had come to bestow upon him –
something Baldrick casually reveals at the very end.
So he was nice,
but lost everything he had for Christmas… and then was bad, but got it back and
more… but then lost out on even more… But what was only material
wealth, so would it have made the good Blackadder happy? Is there a lesson here
at all? Well, probably not!
Review:
This seems such
an obvious idea for a parody version to do that it’s amazing it hasn’t been
done more often – someone who is good and kind is transformed by his Christmas
visitations into being a selfish git. But like so many good and clever ideas,
perhaps, it only seems obvious in retrospect – and it’s certainly true that
such an idea does work much better with an established antihero like Blackadder
than it would do for a one-off version, especially with the existing past versions to look back on.
It could also be
suggested, perhaps, that the opening scenes showing the good Blackadder being
taken advantage of show us what might have befallen poor old Scrooge after his
night with the Spirits, with all and sundry now seeking to exploit his
generosity.
Whatever the
case, there are plenty of good jokes along the way and much to delight even the
most casual fan of the Blackadder series. Yes, some of the jokes might
be a bit obvious – the “Humbug” one, for example – but you’ll be laughing as
well as groaning along. If you’re also a fan of the Carol as well, then
this is a perfect Christmas treat.
In a nutshell:
It probably
doesn’t make much sense, if any at all, if you’re not familiar with Blackadder.
But if you have seen any of that series then this is highly recommended if you
haven’t already caught it.
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