Sunday 11 January 2015

I have a cunning plan...


I have been lent the entire box-set of Blackadder dvds, and last night we watched the first series.

For years, I have been telling everyone that I have only seen one Blackadder episode, but when I watched the first lot last night, I suddenly found that I had seen them all before. Christ knows when or how, as I haven't owned a T.V. since long before they were filmed, and I don't recall sitting down in a friend's house to watch television for any longer than a few minutes.

Now I think about it, I remember one particular bore who worked quite close to me at the time, who was obsessed with Blackadder to such an extent that he had the ability to memorise entire scripts at one sitting, and irritatingly spoke everyone's lines from the previous night's showing, long before the days of iPlayer.

I think it was he who put me off watching them - or I used to think that, before I discovered last night that I actually had.

I have also told everyone that I have only seen one episode of Mr Bean as well - the one where he extracts his own teeth at the dentist using a back-to-front x-ray - but I could well be wrong about that too.

I think that Mr Bean could have been one of our greatest foreign exports of the last 30 years or so, before the advent of Downton Abbey. There is no need for subtitles or dubbing, because there is no script - it's all slapstick of the most basic, Jaques Tati or Benny Hill sort.

There were parts when we both laughed out loud last night, and they were the usual dark-humour things involving severed heads and death. A welcome bit of light relief from severed heads and death.

22 comments:

  1. Maybe your memory is letting you down here and you actually had a television set 33 years ago and you watched Black Adder and The Young Ones. Life without The Young Ones in the 1980s, unimaginable!

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    1. I used to visit H.I. and her husband right here in this flat and watch The Young Ones (and Dallas), but definitely not Blackadder.

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    2. Must have been an interesting courtship.

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    3. More interesting than you could possibly imagine. Too interesting, in fact, but I was used to those sort of relationships in those days. I once got someone else's husband to help me carry his bed downstairs, so I could sleep with his wife upstairs.

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    4. The Young Ones used to be my favourite programme.

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  2. I have always loved Blackadder and his sidekick Baldrick whose only desire in life it was to own his own turnip. But I could never really get into Mr. Bean.

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  3. I don't think I have seen a whole series of Blackadder but the episode where Dr Johnson's Dictionary accidently gets burnt is outstandingly funny.

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  4. My Chinese wife's family in Malaysia find Mr Bean outstandingly funny but I don't.

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  5. I love Blackadder, especially Black Adder 11 { set in the reign of Elizabeth 1st { Miranda Richardson, nursey and Rik Mayall, so funny } } and Blackadder 111 { during the Regency period } BUT, like Iris and Philip, Mr Bean leaves me cold. XXXX

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    1. I fell in love Miranda Richardson as 'Queenie', which is the only one I admit to having watched at the time.

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  6. My youngest gave me a 'plug-in thingy' for the DVD player on which he has recorded masses of films, TV documentaries, comedy shows, etc. One of the shows is Blackadder, and yesterday I watched the very first episode where Richard accidently has his head cut off.

    The only Bean episode I find funny is the one where he paints his flat (pot of paint, explosive, etc).

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    1. Yes, there was no messing about with that scene.

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  7. Howdie Tom:My husband loves Black Adder. I haven't seen much of that. The first British show on American TV that I remember is Benny Hill and then Doctor Who. Then I remember vividly Rock Follies. All in the 70s I believe. We didn't get a lot UK television here for quite some time. We should watch some Black Adder soon - I need funny.

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    1. We all need funny - thank heavens Benny Hill is no longer making shows.

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    2. My youngest brother who must have been 6 years old at the time was totally obsessed w/Benny Hill....

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  8. I like watching Doc Martin and have seen all the Vicar of Dibley and love Hyacinth Bucket.

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    1. The cinematographer of Doc Martin is a good friend of mine and lives in Bath - how I love name-dropping! I've only ever seen one of those as well.

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