--- title: "Blackadder" year: 1983 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/blackadder" fi1m_score: 84 critics_reviews: 3 published: "2026-09-18T07:07:07.510840+00:00" updated: "2026-09-18T07:07:18.942157+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Blackadder (1983) Created by Richard Curtis, Rowan Atkinson, Ben Elton · 32m · MPA TV-PG · Comedy **Fi1m score: 84** · Critics: 3 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Four centuries of English history, and the only man in them with a brain would give anything to be somewhere else > One scheming Englishman across four centuries, each meaner and cleverer than the last. The first series gets the joke the wrong way round; from the second onward this is among the best-written comedy British television has made. ## Synopsis Medieval England, in the reign of King Richard IV (Brian Blessed), a roaring man who dotes on his elder son, Harry Prince of Wales (Robert East), and can barely remember the younger one. That younger son is Edmund (Rowan Atkinson), who takes to calling himself the Black Adder and wants the throne, or failing that his father’s notice. He has for help his servant Baldrick (Tony Robinson), the one person in the castle with a plan, and for company The Queen (Elspet Gray) and her Nursie (Patsy Byrne). Six episodes follow, in which Edmund’s schemes run up against a witch-hunter, the Witchsmeller Pursuivant (Frank Finlay), a visiting Scottish duke, McAngus (Alex Norton), and his own cowardice. Peter Cook appears as Richard III. ## Review *Blackadder* is one sitcom told four times. Each series drops a man called Edmund Blackadder into a different century, gives him a servant called Baldrick and a household full of idiots, and six half-hours to scheme his way to something better. Richard Curtis, Rowan Atkinson and, from the second series, Ben Elton wrote it, and John Lloyd produced. It is one of the best things British television has done in the form, and we recommend it warmly. The caveat is the first series, which is the last thing you should watch. *The Black Adder*, first shown on 15 June 1983, gets the joke back to front. Atkinson plays Edmund as a snivelling, weak-chinned son to Brian Blessed’s King Richard IV, a man who greets his family by bellowing at them, and Tony Robinson’s Baldrick is the one with the ideas. Martin Shardlow directs, and Peter Cook turns up as Richard III. It is not often funny. A coward with a clever servant is a duller engine than a clever coward with an idiot, and it takes the writers a whole series to notice. Frank Finlay’s Witchsmeller Pursuivant, a sniffing inquisitor who puts Edmund on trial, is the one episode where the show finds the pitch it later keeps. *Blackadder II*, first shown on 9 January 1986, fixes everything at once. Elton joins Curtis at the desk and the show moves indoors to two or three rooms and a door. Mandie Fletcher directs it like a play in front of an audience. Atkinson’s Edmund is now the only intelligent man in Elizabethan England, Baldrick has become the stupidest, and nearly every scene is the first explaining something to the second and failing. Patsy Byrne’s Nursie wanders in and out. *Blackadder the Third*, first shown on 17 September 1987, does the same in the Regency, with Helen Atkinson-Wood’s Mrs Miggins among the fools. The clip the BBC uses to sell it is Edmund trying to teach Baldrick basic maths. We have watched it more times than we can count and it still undoes us, and the reason is not the punchline. It is Atkinson’s face in the half-second before Robinson answers, already knowing. Atkinson does his best work with his mouth shut, the eyes narrowing, and then a long word delivered as if it tasted bad. Chris Wadsworth cuts almost nothing; the camera holds on the two of them and lets the audience’s laugh cover the gap. Howard Goodall’s music is brisk and brief and gets out of the way. *Blackadder Goes Forth*, directed by Richard Boden and first shown on 28 September 1989, bills Robinson as Private S. Baldrick, and the rank tells you where the show has gone. The jokes are the same shape, but something underneath has changed: this is the first series where Edmund’s scheming is about getting out rather than getting on. We laughed the way we always had for five episodes and then, in the sixth, the show stopped laughing and so did we. We will not say how. Nothing else in the form has done that to us. The flaws are the flaws of a formula that knows it works. Edmund’s insults grow longer and more ornate as the series go on, and by the third you can hear the writers reaching for the next one. Baldrick’s cunning plan becomes a catchphrase, and catchphrases are what you get when a character has stopped changing. The first series, at 32 minutes an episode, is longer than it needs to be by about ten. We forgave all of it. Against the standard of the British studio sitcom, which is mostly people shouting in a living room, this is among the two or three finest runs the form has produced, and the later three series lose nothing on a small screen. Most critics rate it a little higher than we do; they are grading the last two series and forgiving the first, and we think the first should be counted. Start with the second. Come back to the 1983 series afterwards, when you already like these people and can bear to watch them get it wrong. *Fi1m score 84, published 18 September 2026.* ## What the critics say With only 3 reviews in so far, the picture is thin but consistent: all three are positive, and all three say the same thing about the shape of the thing, that it starts drolly and gets sharper as it goes, with the later series carrying the wit and the cast, Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson in particular, holding it together throughout. The one note of reservation concerns this first series on its own. Digital Spy calls it the weakest of the four, uneven in its setup and short of the dialogue the later runs manage, while still finding early promise in the format and the players. ### Reviews we read (3) - **Variety**, Tim Gray (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the DVD release of the complete series for its span across history and fun extras like sing-alongs and footnotes, noting the show evolved from droll early episodes to peak wit in later seasons thanks to co-writer Ben Elton. [Read](https://variety.com/2001/digital/features/blackadder-1200469910/) - **Collider**, Nico Nico (A): The critic calls Blackadder a masterpiece of British humor that improves across its four series and ends on a high note with Blackadder Goes Forth. The review praises the talented cast led by Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson, along with the ample extras on the remastered DVD set. [Read](https://collider.com/black-adder-remastered-the-ultimate-edition-dvd-review/) - **Digital Spy**, Morgan Jeffery (70/100, inferred): The critic sees the 1983 first series as the show's weakest entry, with an uneven setup that fails to fully capture the sharp dialogue and character dynamics of later seasons but still shows early promise in its unique historical format and cast. The piece highlights the overall series as a classic British sitcom that improved significantly with subsequent entries and remains worth revisiting. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/tube-talk-gold/a344423/blackadder-tube-talk-gold/) ## Details - **Created by:** Richard Curtis, Rowan Atkinson, Ben Elton - **Creator:** Richard Curtis, Rowan Atkinson, Ben Elton - **Director:** Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow, Richard Boden - **Writer:** Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, Rowan Atkinson - **Editor:** Chris Wadsworth - **Music:** Howard Goodall - **Producer:** John Lloyd - **Cast:** Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder; Tony Robinson as Private S. Baldrick; Brian Blessed as King Richard IV; Elspet Gray as The Queen; Robert East as Harry Prince of Wales; Patsy Byrne as Nursie; Helen Atkinson-Wood as Mrs. Miggins; Frank Finlay as The Witchsmeller Pursuivant - **Runtime:** 32m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-PG - **Release (the US):** 15 June 1983 - **Genres:** Comedy ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: streaming - Peacock: streaming, hd - BritBox: streaming, hd - The Roku Channel: free, hd - Peacock: free, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, sd *Checked 2026-09-18.* Also available in: AT, AU, CA, CH, DE, GB, IN, NZ, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Yes Minister* (1980), Fi1m 89: The same clever-man-among-fools engine, run in Whitehall with a straighter face — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/yes-minister.md) - *Monty Python and the Holy Grail* (1975), Fi1m 87: Medieval England as a mud-spattered joke; the first Blackadder series wanted to be this — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/monty-python-and-the-holy-grail.md) - *The Death of Stalin* (2017), Fi1m 83: History as farce, with people dying between the punchlines — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-death-of-stalin.md) - *Veep* (2012), Fi1m 82: American power played entirely as insult comedy, and the insults are better — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/veep.md) - *Upstart Crow* (2016): Ben Elton does Shakespeare in a studio with a door; the rhythm is familiar --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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