Talking Comedy s01e10 Episode Script
Rowan Atkinson
1 With his rubber face, bendy limbs and razor sharp tongue, Rowan Atkinson has been one of our biggest comedy stars of the past 30 years.
With just a look, a sudden movement or a raised eyebrow, he can have audiences in stitches.
Add the extraordinary verbal dexterity he used with such devastating effect in Blackadder and you have one of the ultimate comedy cocktails that fans have been enjoying since he first arrived on the scene, with appearances like this.
All right, your essays.
Discuss the contention that Cleopatra had the body of a roll top desk and the mind of a duck.
LAUGHTER Oxford and Cambridge board O-level paper, 1976.
Don't fidget, Bland.
The answer Yes.
Jones M, Orifice, Sediment and Undermanager - see me afterwards.
Most of you, of course, didn't write nearly enough.
Dint, your answer was unreadable.
Put it away, Plectrum.
If I see it once more this period, Plectrum, I shall have to tweak you.
Do you have a solicitor, Plectrum? You're lying, Plectrum, so I shall tweak you anyway.
See me afterwards to be tweaked.
Yes, isn't life tragic? Don't sulk, boy, for God's sake.
Has matron seen those boils? And here, Rowan is interviewed about performances like that one by Mary Marquis in 1980.
You're almost a physical manifestation of a caricaturist like Rowlandson or, in the present day, Gerald Scarfe.
What is it in you which tempts you to reveal to the rest of us characters which are very obviously people that we recognise and yet there's something else as well? Hmm! Well, I don't know what it is about me, or in me, it's just something that you find that you can do and, therefore, you feel as though you should do it, if people want to enjoy watching it.
I mean, I think that a lot of the characters I do are rather extreme, and they tend to be large, and even some of them reach into the grotesque, but I do hope that there's enough acting, if you like, goes into them to keep them credible.
I mean, I hope that although a lot of the characters are extreme, they should be real as well, and I don't only do extreme characters.
In particular, in the live show that we're touring at the moment, I think it's there are a lot of characters, and, indeed, in Not The Nine O'Clock News, I think there are quite a few characters that are quite low-key.
And there I suppose it's where the acting is more obviously, I hope, credible.
When you're talking about people doing very little, the people that, some of the people you portray Yes.
I was thinking particularly of the man in church.
Oh, right, yes.
who's really doing nothing at all Yes.
and yet, it, from you, calls out qualities of mime, for instance, and very acute observation, as well.
Right.
Right, the Yes, the church sketch that we're doing in the live show at present was first thought up by my co-writer, Richard Curtis, and he just had this idea, and he knows the sort of wavelengths on which I work, so he's very good at suggesting ideas that are possible, was the idea of a guy sitting in a church listening to a sermon, and there's nothing happening, at least ostensibly, I mean, there's no plot, particularly, to the sketch, but it's just watching what that guy does.
And, you know, sitting in a church, what you do, you watch and then you You know, there's a lot of that, a lot of looking up and down, and then there's just the falling asleep, and it's just the way that people do fall asleep in churches, still trying to stay To stay alive! To stay awake and alive and this guy, he just falls very close to Richard, who's sitting beside me, and then he just falls into a ridiculous posture on the floor.
And it is a sketch and it is a character who's doing nothing, really, but it's just the doing of nothing that can be very funny.
Rowan's big television break was Not The Nine O'Clock News.
The show turned him, Mel Smith, Pamela Stephenson and Griff Rhys Jones into household names.
A year after it launched, Rowan was booked for what was genuinely a show-stopping appearance on Parkinson.
It's been my pleasure for the past two years to share office space with a gang of certifiable lunatics who avoid identification by calling themselves Not The Nine O'Clock News.
Jointly and separately, they've both delighted and horrified the nation with their anarchic humour.
Out of this combination of talent has emerged a young man who's been called Britain's greatest comedy hope since John Cleese.
He's a strange mixture and an interesting psychological study.
In real life, he's a farmer's son from Newcastle who is quiet to the point of being invisible.
Onstage, he often displays a kind of manic energy Come on! which has led him to being described as this semi-lunatic simmering psychopath.
For God's sake, hurry up! He's so slow, isn't he? It's pathetic.
It's pathetic.
Come on, let's get on with it, come on.
Let's get the bloody show on the road, for goodness' sake.
Come on.
Wait! Who Who are we bloody waiting for, anyway? Rowan Atkinson.
Rowing? Rowan Atkinson.
Oh, Ron, oh, Ron, Ron, are you there, Ron? Come on, Ron, you're all right, come on! If you I tell you, Ron, come on, don't be shy.
I tell you, if you don't do it, I'll do it.
Right, stuff it, I'll do it.
Rowan Atkinson.
I'm here, thank you very much.
APPLAUSE What happened when you first tried that marvellously manic character out? 'Cause that was on Not The Nine O'Clock News, wasn't it? Yes, that's Not The Nine O'Clock News, yes.
It was, I think, probably in this very studio.
Was it? In this very studio that I first sat, very nervous, in the audience, 'cause it's a very nerve-racking thing to do, I can tell you, sit amongst those real people there, just to be about to perform, and I stood up, and I was in the middle of spouting and thisand this commissionaire came down from the back who hadn't been told of the fact that some strange member of the public was going to stand up and then shout at everyone.
So he came up and he stood in front of me and said, "All right, Sir, it's all right, come on.
"Just, just, just come quietly.
" And I said, and I said, "I'm on television.
" And he was facing me, away from the camera, and this was all shown, actually, in the second edition of the first series, all this happening, and the camera was luckily facing me, so it wasn't facing him, and the look of realisation on his face when he discovered that he actually was, his back at least, was on television and the look of complete horror.
Then he just turned, turned and disappeared.
A great deal of your humour is very visual humour.
You also observe people - or do you observe people? I mean, or can you demonstrate how watching human behaviour, you can transfer that into humour? It's just, yes, it's just, it's just the very ordinariness of life that I so like watching.
I've never consciously, again, copied any, any individual.
Characterisations that you tend to do tend to be based on people who you might have seen ten years ago but you can't remember for the life of you who they are, and they've just somehow, their mannerisms and things and just the idea of people I mean, it sounds like an old cliche derived from the cliche that, you know, truth is stranger than fiction, and, actually just the way, you know, the person sitting opposite you on the train behaves, like a very Right, a quick demonstration of a very ordinary, very inoffensive person doing nothing but somehow being funny.
I'll do it.
So, he stands up.
And he's standing up, and he sits down.
And it's just that kind of thing.
Strange.
APPLAUSE Of course, one of the things about that kind of comedy, too, is in observing, or breaking the cliche, again, of how people respond in certain situations.
I mean, I know that you do one about drunkenness, don't you? Oh, right.
Which reverses what people normally think about.
Well, yes, it's there, it's it is a cliche about trying to act drunk, is you feel as though you should act drunk and actually they say that the key to it is to act sober, and just to try and be sober, and it's just, it's just the fact that everyone exaggerates everything to such an extent, and they're sitting there Yes, you're right, yes.
And it's just that, it's just that you try and make things bigger all of the time, and drunkenness is an example.
Two years after that appearance came a role that would make Rowan Atkinson even more recognisable and define his work for the next decade.
It was, of course, Blackadder.
Here he is on Wogan before the original series had even gone out when the only clue to the character was some very distinctive hair.
You've been wearing that haircut for a bet, have you? Which haircut? This one.
Yes, no, this is, this is the haircut of the character that I've been working with for nearly a year now, and it's a programme which will be coming on television quite soon, at the end of May.
It's something I didn't really want to talk about a tremendous amount because I know the haircut makes it difficult not to want to know what kind of character that could possibly lead a normal life with this cut, but it's a situation comedy, it's six half-hour programmes and it's called The Blackadder and it'll be on towards the end of May, I believe.
And we still haven't finished it, so A touch of the medieval, I would say.
It is, exactly right.
Yes.
It's set in medieval times.
Quite.
Don't want to say too much.
No, I don't.
I get a lot of people on this show, do you notice, who refuse to tell me anything about themselves or the shows that they're doing! It's a mystery, yes.
Well, it's best to keep people waiting in anticipation.
Yes, it's that thing of not wanting to blow things up too much so people expect everything.
Yeah.
And then they're bound to be disappointed when they see it.
I hope you won't be disappointed when you see it, but, anyway, it's coming soon.
Do you see your face as your greatest asset, your facial dexterity? Mark how kindly I put that! Yes, facial dexterity.
It's something that I never I never realised I had until I was about 20, 21, only seven years ago, when I realised that I did have this face that seemed to have all the permutations that could be funny.
And the problem is that you don't You know, one doesn't like to be labelled a face-puller because you feel as though if you have got a face that, you know, that's malleable and canand can go like that you know, and can twist about, that you feel that people are going to assume that you're just, you know, that's all you can do and if in doubt, go, you know and then someone'll laugh.
But you don't want that, so I try and use it in a characterful way so that every character has his face and it tends to be different from some other characters, but I But, yes, it's funny how sometimes, though, when you're asked a question and you can't remember what the question was halfway to the end.
Facial dexterity.
Yes, facial dexterity, of course! Of course, yes.
You've always had an ambition to do a film.
Yes.
And I understand you've fulfilled that, have you? Well, yes - well, I mean, I've done those filmed versions of stage shows.
Yes.
But otherwise, but I've always wanted to play a part in a James Bond film.
I really always wanted to be the villain.
I always wanted to be the man who said, "Not so fast, Mr Bond.
" Do you know that man? Just when he's about to escape, "Not so fast, Mr Bond.
" And I always wanted to say that in a film.
But I did one last November, I think it was, which is the new Sean Connery Bond film, Never Say Never Again, which will be out sometime towards the end of the year, I suppose.
But, unfortunately, I don't play a villain, I play a goody-goody.
I played the British consul in the Bahamas, who's very, very dry.
And It's not a serious part, is it? It's My ambition fulfilled! No, no, not really, no, it's got, it's got But at least it'sit's a nice, I think, quite rounded character.
You wouldn't have any ambitions to play the part of Bond himself? Well, actually, actually Cubby, old Cubby, is looking for another James Bond.
Would I like to play James Bond? I, no, I once thought I'd like to play Doctor Who.
But I didn't.
Such a shame Rowan never got to play the Doctor.
As he demonstrates here, he's certainly got the acting range.
I want to fire some emotions at you.
Blimey.
Love.
Hate.
Sexy.
Bored.
Evil.
And, finally, suicidal.
Rowan and Richard Curtis weren't overly happy with the first series of Blackadder, but still felt the potential was there for something special.
So, Blackadder was reborn as a cynical Elizabethan schemer.
He had charm, even a certain sex appeal, and a loyal but ludicrous assistant, Baldrick, forever in tow.
This new series of Blackadder, is it different from the humour of the first series? Has it changed at all? Well, it's not particularly different in style from the humour of the first series but I think it's significantly improved.
A lot of the problems with the first series I wasn't a great fan of the first series, I have to say.
I thought it had its moments, but I thought that the moments were two few and far between, and this is an attempt to tighten it all down to make it simpler, tighter, cheaper, much, much cheaper than the last one.
Well, that's, that's our great leader Michael Grade.
That's right.
Has said that he wanted it cheaper, was that the point? Yes, that's right.
Cheaper and funnier.
He wanted more jokes per pound! So, I think the JPP ratio has increased substantially.
Well, we won't be able to judge from this little clip but let's have a brief, fragrant nosegay from the latest Blackadder.
EVIL LAUGHTER Tell me, young crone, is this Putney? Putney, that it be.
"Yes, it is," not "That it be.
" You don't have to talk in that stupid voice to me, I'm not a tourist.
I seek information about a wise woman.
The wise woman.
The wise woman? Yes, the wise woman.
Two things, my Lord, must ye know of the wise woman.
Yes? First she is a woman! And, second, she is Wise? You do know her, then.
No, just a wild stab in the dark - which is, incidentally, what you'll be getting, if you don't start being a bit more helpful.
APPLAUSE So, not only are we getting more jokes to the pound, but we're Much better value.
Yeah.
So much better value.
And that terrible pudding basin haircut is gone.
Yes, it's gone.
Yes.
And the beard, I mean, you look a bit, I mean, I would imagine many a young lady might fancy you in that.
Dashing.
Dashing is the word, yes.
Well, it was, it was my own beard, it's not stuck on.
And it was, it was an attempt, really, to make me look completely different from the character in the first series, who as you say, did look absolutely terrible.
And this character is, as you probably gathered from that clip, extremely different.
He's really quite smart, and quite smarmy and quite romantic.
There's a lot of romanticism, I think, in this new series, which there wasn't before.
Did you have a hand in writing it? I didn't this time.
Last time I did and this time I didn't.
Is that because Michael Grade wanted it funnier? Yes.
No, he wanted it cheaper.
Cheaper! So I didn't, no.
And this was largely written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, and, I think, as a result of my not being involved, actually, I think it's slightly, it's slightly better.
It's slightly funnier for that reason.
Is it in relation What relation is Blackadder to this new Blackadder II? Right, Blackadder II is the bastard great-great grandson of Blackadder I.
So, although we never saw Blackadder I with either a wife or a girlfriend, or anything, he obviously found some wench somewhere with which to procreate, so Well, with that extraordinary codpiece he had, I'm surprised he was able to do anything.
Exactly.
Is it the start of what the Americans would call a dynasty? Well, yes, there's a thought that next series, if this series goes well, then the plan is next time to probably make Blackadder VII, rather than Blackadder III, which is to move on a few hundred years instead of only moving on 100 years like we have in this series into the Elizabethan period, and to move on to the kind of First World War, we think, is quite a funny idea.
Which might be Von Blackadder, which is the idea of a German air ace who iswho is the bastard, bastard great-great-great-great, grandson of Blackadder II, and then on into And then go on to Blackadder XII? On to Blackadder XII, or Staradder.
The new Blackadder was an instant hit and provided us with many of television's best-loved lines and moments.
Rowan, however, would always downplay how funny he was personally, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
I regard myself as, I think, as more of an actor than I am a comedian, to a certain extent.
I mean, I seem to specialise in comedy because it's probably what I do best but, otherwise, I think the skills that you employ as a comedian are veryare very actory sort of skills and I can't, as you can tell, just sit here and be funny.
I've got But, now, is that a burden? I've got to hide behind a character.
Is that a burden - because you know that people expect people of your stature to come on and be funny? Now, do you find that as a weight? Well, not so much any more, in a way, because it's almost quite a well-known cliche now that people who are funny on-screen are not remotely amusing off-screen.
I mean, Eric Morecambe was a classic exception to that rule.
He was a terribly funny man at all times, whenever you met him, and it's a wonderful talent, but it's a talent that I certainly haven't got and it's a talent that I think most comic performers of my ilk don't have.
God had a good day when he gave you your face, didn't he? But is it your fortune or your misfortune? Well, I think it's been fortunate, all right, so far.
I mean, I don't think about it a lot.
I don't think about the faces that I pull, I just try andtry and be amusing inside a characterful persona, and generally the face suddenly starts As in fact starts to take off.
here, when you're walking down the street and you're here walking down the street on Not The Nine O'Clock News and waving to any person who happens to take an interest in you.
By the 1990s, Rowan was introducing a new character to his fans, the sometimes infuriating, sometimes lovable, Mr Bean.
At the same time, we were saying goodbye to Blackadder, who met a surprisingly poignant end in the trenches of World War I.
That reduced people to tears, that ending of Blackadder.
To a certain extent, that sad ending was thought up when we thought that the whole series - this was before it was ever screened and when it was being written, it's when the writers were convinced that the whole series was going to be lambasted for being tasteless, you know, for making any jokes about a situation as serious as the First World War.
So, that ending was put there to, sort of, that was our serious bit, to sort of justify and to try to allay the criticism that actually never came, that no-one actually thought, in the end, that it was particularly tasteless.
You remember it all very fondly, Blackadder.
Yes, I do, actually, yes.
It was a terrific time.
What I enjoyed, really, was the shared responsibility, the fact that there was such a good team of folk to act with and to work with, and if you were in the middle of a scene and you, you know, you were having a little difficulty with it, or you didn't think that you were being particularly amusing, then you knew at any minute Tony Robinson as Baldrick was going to walk in with an extremely amusing vegetable and then you could, you know, you could metaphorically throw the ball to him and let him play with it for a while and you could sit back and Why did you stop? I mean, that was a kind of inevitable finish, but it didn't have to be.
Why did you stop after four series? No, I mean, he The Blackadder and most people in it tended to die at the end of every series, in fact, it wasn't just, that was a particularly memorable death, but there was a death at the end of at least two of the other series as well, and, so, you know, merely the fact that he died in that series doesn't mean to say that, in theory, he couldn't come back.
Come back again, yeah.
Although I suspect that he won't.
Mr Bean would go on to become an international sensation and appear in two hit films.
Another of Rowan's creations, the not-so-secret agent Johnny English would do the same, confirming his position as one of our most successful entertainment exports.
So, how does he manage to keep hitting funny bones in countries right across the globe? Perhaps our final clip contains something of the answer, capturing, as it does, a comedy master in full flow.
Pray silence, please, for the father of the bride.
Ladies and gentlemen, and friends of my daughter.
There comes a time in every wedding reception when the man who paid for the damn thing is allowed to speak a word or two of his own.
And I should like to speak, much as my wife sang in the service that we've all just enjoyed with no real notes.
As far as I'm concerned my daughter could not have chosen a more delightful, charming, witty, responsible, wealthy, let's not deny it, well-placed, good-looking and fertile young man than Martin as her husband.
And I therefore ask the question why the hell did she marry Gerald instead? If I may use a gardening simile here, if this entire family may be likened to a compost heap, and I think they can, then Gerald is the biggest weed growing out of it.
I think I'd be more inspired by the sight of a cowpat.
Gerald is the sort of man I think people emigrate to avoid.
He's the sort of chap who fosters kamikaze units, resolved to drive their cars into his living room until one of them is lucky enough to get him.
As for his family, they are quite simply the most intolerable herd of steaming social animals I've ever had the misfortune of turning my nose up to.
I spurn you as I would spurn a rabid dog.
I would like to propose a toast to the caterers.
Whether it's a speech at a wedding, a man falling down a hole, or simply a very rubbery face, with Rowan Atkinson, it's always pure comedy, and, when it comes to successfully pulling it off, he's shown time and time again that he's simply one of the best.
# Everyone who meets his way # Oh, our love is like the flowers # The rain and the sea and the hours Oh, our love is like the flowers
With just a look, a sudden movement or a raised eyebrow, he can have audiences in stitches.
Add the extraordinary verbal dexterity he used with such devastating effect in Blackadder and you have one of the ultimate comedy cocktails that fans have been enjoying since he first arrived on the scene, with appearances like this.
All right, your essays.
Discuss the contention that Cleopatra had the body of a roll top desk and the mind of a duck.
LAUGHTER Oxford and Cambridge board O-level paper, 1976.
Don't fidget, Bland.
The answer Yes.
Jones M, Orifice, Sediment and Undermanager - see me afterwards.
Most of you, of course, didn't write nearly enough.
Dint, your answer was unreadable.
Put it away, Plectrum.
If I see it once more this period, Plectrum, I shall have to tweak you.
Do you have a solicitor, Plectrum? You're lying, Plectrum, so I shall tweak you anyway.
See me afterwards to be tweaked.
Yes, isn't life tragic? Don't sulk, boy, for God's sake.
Has matron seen those boils? And here, Rowan is interviewed about performances like that one by Mary Marquis in 1980.
You're almost a physical manifestation of a caricaturist like Rowlandson or, in the present day, Gerald Scarfe.
What is it in you which tempts you to reveal to the rest of us characters which are very obviously people that we recognise and yet there's something else as well? Hmm! Well, I don't know what it is about me, or in me, it's just something that you find that you can do and, therefore, you feel as though you should do it, if people want to enjoy watching it.
I mean, I think that a lot of the characters I do are rather extreme, and they tend to be large, and even some of them reach into the grotesque, but I do hope that there's enough acting, if you like, goes into them to keep them credible.
I mean, I hope that although a lot of the characters are extreme, they should be real as well, and I don't only do extreme characters.
In particular, in the live show that we're touring at the moment, I think it's there are a lot of characters, and, indeed, in Not The Nine O'Clock News, I think there are quite a few characters that are quite low-key.
And there I suppose it's where the acting is more obviously, I hope, credible.
When you're talking about people doing very little, the people that, some of the people you portray Yes.
I was thinking particularly of the man in church.
Oh, right, yes.
who's really doing nothing at all Yes.
and yet, it, from you, calls out qualities of mime, for instance, and very acute observation, as well.
Right.
Right, the Yes, the church sketch that we're doing in the live show at present was first thought up by my co-writer, Richard Curtis, and he just had this idea, and he knows the sort of wavelengths on which I work, so he's very good at suggesting ideas that are possible, was the idea of a guy sitting in a church listening to a sermon, and there's nothing happening, at least ostensibly, I mean, there's no plot, particularly, to the sketch, but it's just watching what that guy does.
And, you know, sitting in a church, what you do, you watch and then you You know, there's a lot of that, a lot of looking up and down, and then there's just the falling asleep, and it's just the way that people do fall asleep in churches, still trying to stay To stay alive! To stay awake and alive and this guy, he just falls very close to Richard, who's sitting beside me, and then he just falls into a ridiculous posture on the floor.
And it is a sketch and it is a character who's doing nothing, really, but it's just the doing of nothing that can be very funny.
Rowan's big television break was Not The Nine O'Clock News.
The show turned him, Mel Smith, Pamela Stephenson and Griff Rhys Jones into household names.
A year after it launched, Rowan was booked for what was genuinely a show-stopping appearance on Parkinson.
It's been my pleasure for the past two years to share office space with a gang of certifiable lunatics who avoid identification by calling themselves Not The Nine O'Clock News.
Jointly and separately, they've both delighted and horrified the nation with their anarchic humour.
Out of this combination of talent has emerged a young man who's been called Britain's greatest comedy hope since John Cleese.
He's a strange mixture and an interesting psychological study.
In real life, he's a farmer's son from Newcastle who is quiet to the point of being invisible.
Onstage, he often displays a kind of manic energy Come on! which has led him to being described as this semi-lunatic simmering psychopath.
For God's sake, hurry up! He's so slow, isn't he? It's pathetic.
It's pathetic.
Come on, let's get on with it, come on.
Let's get the bloody show on the road, for goodness' sake.
Come on.
Wait! Who Who are we bloody waiting for, anyway? Rowan Atkinson.
Rowing? Rowan Atkinson.
Oh, Ron, oh, Ron, Ron, are you there, Ron? Come on, Ron, you're all right, come on! If you I tell you, Ron, come on, don't be shy.
I tell you, if you don't do it, I'll do it.
Right, stuff it, I'll do it.
Rowan Atkinson.
I'm here, thank you very much.
APPLAUSE What happened when you first tried that marvellously manic character out? 'Cause that was on Not The Nine O'Clock News, wasn't it? Yes, that's Not The Nine O'Clock News, yes.
It was, I think, probably in this very studio.
Was it? In this very studio that I first sat, very nervous, in the audience, 'cause it's a very nerve-racking thing to do, I can tell you, sit amongst those real people there, just to be about to perform, and I stood up, and I was in the middle of spouting and thisand this commissionaire came down from the back who hadn't been told of the fact that some strange member of the public was going to stand up and then shout at everyone.
So he came up and he stood in front of me and said, "All right, Sir, it's all right, come on.
"Just, just, just come quietly.
" And I said, and I said, "I'm on television.
" And he was facing me, away from the camera, and this was all shown, actually, in the second edition of the first series, all this happening, and the camera was luckily facing me, so it wasn't facing him, and the look of realisation on his face when he discovered that he actually was, his back at least, was on television and the look of complete horror.
Then he just turned, turned and disappeared.
A great deal of your humour is very visual humour.
You also observe people - or do you observe people? I mean, or can you demonstrate how watching human behaviour, you can transfer that into humour? It's just, yes, it's just, it's just the very ordinariness of life that I so like watching.
I've never consciously, again, copied any, any individual.
Characterisations that you tend to do tend to be based on people who you might have seen ten years ago but you can't remember for the life of you who they are, and they've just somehow, their mannerisms and things and just the idea of people I mean, it sounds like an old cliche derived from the cliche that, you know, truth is stranger than fiction, and, actually just the way, you know, the person sitting opposite you on the train behaves, like a very Right, a quick demonstration of a very ordinary, very inoffensive person doing nothing but somehow being funny.
I'll do it.
So, he stands up.
And he's standing up, and he sits down.
And it's just that kind of thing.
Strange.
APPLAUSE Of course, one of the things about that kind of comedy, too, is in observing, or breaking the cliche, again, of how people respond in certain situations.
I mean, I know that you do one about drunkenness, don't you? Oh, right.
Which reverses what people normally think about.
Well, yes, it's there, it's it is a cliche about trying to act drunk, is you feel as though you should act drunk and actually they say that the key to it is to act sober, and just to try and be sober, and it's just, it's just the fact that everyone exaggerates everything to such an extent, and they're sitting there Yes, you're right, yes.
And it's just that, it's just that you try and make things bigger all of the time, and drunkenness is an example.
Two years after that appearance came a role that would make Rowan Atkinson even more recognisable and define his work for the next decade.
It was, of course, Blackadder.
Here he is on Wogan before the original series had even gone out when the only clue to the character was some very distinctive hair.
You've been wearing that haircut for a bet, have you? Which haircut? This one.
Yes, no, this is, this is the haircut of the character that I've been working with for nearly a year now, and it's a programme which will be coming on television quite soon, at the end of May.
It's something I didn't really want to talk about a tremendous amount because I know the haircut makes it difficult not to want to know what kind of character that could possibly lead a normal life with this cut, but it's a situation comedy, it's six half-hour programmes and it's called The Blackadder and it'll be on towards the end of May, I believe.
And we still haven't finished it, so A touch of the medieval, I would say.
It is, exactly right.
Yes.
It's set in medieval times.
Quite.
Don't want to say too much.
No, I don't.
I get a lot of people on this show, do you notice, who refuse to tell me anything about themselves or the shows that they're doing! It's a mystery, yes.
Well, it's best to keep people waiting in anticipation.
Yes, it's that thing of not wanting to blow things up too much so people expect everything.
Yeah.
And then they're bound to be disappointed when they see it.
I hope you won't be disappointed when you see it, but, anyway, it's coming soon.
Do you see your face as your greatest asset, your facial dexterity? Mark how kindly I put that! Yes, facial dexterity.
It's something that I never I never realised I had until I was about 20, 21, only seven years ago, when I realised that I did have this face that seemed to have all the permutations that could be funny.
And the problem is that you don't You know, one doesn't like to be labelled a face-puller because you feel as though if you have got a face that, you know, that's malleable and canand can go like that you know, and can twist about, that you feel that people are going to assume that you're just, you know, that's all you can do and if in doubt, go, you know and then someone'll laugh.
But you don't want that, so I try and use it in a characterful way so that every character has his face and it tends to be different from some other characters, but I But, yes, it's funny how sometimes, though, when you're asked a question and you can't remember what the question was halfway to the end.
Facial dexterity.
Yes, facial dexterity, of course! Of course, yes.
You've always had an ambition to do a film.
Yes.
And I understand you've fulfilled that, have you? Well, yes - well, I mean, I've done those filmed versions of stage shows.
Yes.
But otherwise, but I've always wanted to play a part in a James Bond film.
I really always wanted to be the villain.
I always wanted to be the man who said, "Not so fast, Mr Bond.
" Do you know that man? Just when he's about to escape, "Not so fast, Mr Bond.
" And I always wanted to say that in a film.
But I did one last November, I think it was, which is the new Sean Connery Bond film, Never Say Never Again, which will be out sometime towards the end of the year, I suppose.
But, unfortunately, I don't play a villain, I play a goody-goody.
I played the British consul in the Bahamas, who's very, very dry.
And It's not a serious part, is it? It's My ambition fulfilled! No, no, not really, no, it's got, it's got But at least it'sit's a nice, I think, quite rounded character.
You wouldn't have any ambitions to play the part of Bond himself? Well, actually, actually Cubby, old Cubby, is looking for another James Bond.
Would I like to play James Bond? I, no, I once thought I'd like to play Doctor Who.
But I didn't.
Such a shame Rowan never got to play the Doctor.
As he demonstrates here, he's certainly got the acting range.
I want to fire some emotions at you.
Blimey.
Love.
Hate.
Sexy.
Bored.
Evil.
And, finally, suicidal.
Rowan and Richard Curtis weren't overly happy with the first series of Blackadder, but still felt the potential was there for something special.
So, Blackadder was reborn as a cynical Elizabethan schemer.
He had charm, even a certain sex appeal, and a loyal but ludicrous assistant, Baldrick, forever in tow.
This new series of Blackadder, is it different from the humour of the first series? Has it changed at all? Well, it's not particularly different in style from the humour of the first series but I think it's significantly improved.
A lot of the problems with the first series I wasn't a great fan of the first series, I have to say.
I thought it had its moments, but I thought that the moments were two few and far between, and this is an attempt to tighten it all down to make it simpler, tighter, cheaper, much, much cheaper than the last one.
Well, that's, that's our great leader Michael Grade.
That's right.
Has said that he wanted it cheaper, was that the point? Yes, that's right.
Cheaper and funnier.
He wanted more jokes per pound! So, I think the JPP ratio has increased substantially.
Well, we won't be able to judge from this little clip but let's have a brief, fragrant nosegay from the latest Blackadder.
EVIL LAUGHTER Tell me, young crone, is this Putney? Putney, that it be.
"Yes, it is," not "That it be.
" You don't have to talk in that stupid voice to me, I'm not a tourist.
I seek information about a wise woman.
The wise woman.
The wise woman? Yes, the wise woman.
Two things, my Lord, must ye know of the wise woman.
Yes? First she is a woman! And, second, she is Wise? You do know her, then.
No, just a wild stab in the dark - which is, incidentally, what you'll be getting, if you don't start being a bit more helpful.
APPLAUSE So, not only are we getting more jokes to the pound, but we're Much better value.
Yeah.
So much better value.
And that terrible pudding basin haircut is gone.
Yes, it's gone.
Yes.
And the beard, I mean, you look a bit, I mean, I would imagine many a young lady might fancy you in that.
Dashing.
Dashing is the word, yes.
Well, it was, it was my own beard, it's not stuck on.
And it was, it was an attempt, really, to make me look completely different from the character in the first series, who as you say, did look absolutely terrible.
And this character is, as you probably gathered from that clip, extremely different.
He's really quite smart, and quite smarmy and quite romantic.
There's a lot of romanticism, I think, in this new series, which there wasn't before.
Did you have a hand in writing it? I didn't this time.
Last time I did and this time I didn't.
Is that because Michael Grade wanted it funnier? Yes.
No, he wanted it cheaper.
Cheaper! So I didn't, no.
And this was largely written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, and, I think, as a result of my not being involved, actually, I think it's slightly, it's slightly better.
It's slightly funnier for that reason.
Is it in relation What relation is Blackadder to this new Blackadder II? Right, Blackadder II is the bastard great-great grandson of Blackadder I.
So, although we never saw Blackadder I with either a wife or a girlfriend, or anything, he obviously found some wench somewhere with which to procreate, so Well, with that extraordinary codpiece he had, I'm surprised he was able to do anything.
Exactly.
Is it the start of what the Americans would call a dynasty? Well, yes, there's a thought that next series, if this series goes well, then the plan is next time to probably make Blackadder VII, rather than Blackadder III, which is to move on a few hundred years instead of only moving on 100 years like we have in this series into the Elizabethan period, and to move on to the kind of First World War, we think, is quite a funny idea.
Which might be Von Blackadder, which is the idea of a German air ace who iswho is the bastard, bastard great-great-great-great, grandson of Blackadder II, and then on into And then go on to Blackadder XII? On to Blackadder XII, or Staradder.
The new Blackadder was an instant hit and provided us with many of television's best-loved lines and moments.
Rowan, however, would always downplay how funny he was personally, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
I regard myself as, I think, as more of an actor than I am a comedian, to a certain extent.
I mean, I seem to specialise in comedy because it's probably what I do best but, otherwise, I think the skills that you employ as a comedian are veryare very actory sort of skills and I can't, as you can tell, just sit here and be funny.
I've got But, now, is that a burden? I've got to hide behind a character.
Is that a burden - because you know that people expect people of your stature to come on and be funny? Now, do you find that as a weight? Well, not so much any more, in a way, because it's almost quite a well-known cliche now that people who are funny on-screen are not remotely amusing off-screen.
I mean, Eric Morecambe was a classic exception to that rule.
He was a terribly funny man at all times, whenever you met him, and it's a wonderful talent, but it's a talent that I certainly haven't got and it's a talent that I think most comic performers of my ilk don't have.
God had a good day when he gave you your face, didn't he? But is it your fortune or your misfortune? Well, I think it's been fortunate, all right, so far.
I mean, I don't think about it a lot.
I don't think about the faces that I pull, I just try andtry and be amusing inside a characterful persona, and generally the face suddenly starts As in fact starts to take off.
here, when you're walking down the street and you're here walking down the street on Not The Nine O'Clock News and waving to any person who happens to take an interest in you.
By the 1990s, Rowan was introducing a new character to his fans, the sometimes infuriating, sometimes lovable, Mr Bean.
At the same time, we were saying goodbye to Blackadder, who met a surprisingly poignant end in the trenches of World War I.
That reduced people to tears, that ending of Blackadder.
To a certain extent, that sad ending was thought up when we thought that the whole series - this was before it was ever screened and when it was being written, it's when the writers were convinced that the whole series was going to be lambasted for being tasteless, you know, for making any jokes about a situation as serious as the First World War.
So, that ending was put there to, sort of, that was our serious bit, to sort of justify and to try to allay the criticism that actually never came, that no-one actually thought, in the end, that it was particularly tasteless.
You remember it all very fondly, Blackadder.
Yes, I do, actually, yes.
It was a terrific time.
What I enjoyed, really, was the shared responsibility, the fact that there was such a good team of folk to act with and to work with, and if you were in the middle of a scene and you, you know, you were having a little difficulty with it, or you didn't think that you were being particularly amusing, then you knew at any minute Tony Robinson as Baldrick was going to walk in with an extremely amusing vegetable and then you could, you know, you could metaphorically throw the ball to him and let him play with it for a while and you could sit back and Why did you stop? I mean, that was a kind of inevitable finish, but it didn't have to be.
Why did you stop after four series? No, I mean, he The Blackadder and most people in it tended to die at the end of every series, in fact, it wasn't just, that was a particularly memorable death, but there was a death at the end of at least two of the other series as well, and, so, you know, merely the fact that he died in that series doesn't mean to say that, in theory, he couldn't come back.
Come back again, yeah.
Although I suspect that he won't.
Mr Bean would go on to become an international sensation and appear in two hit films.
Another of Rowan's creations, the not-so-secret agent Johnny English would do the same, confirming his position as one of our most successful entertainment exports.
So, how does he manage to keep hitting funny bones in countries right across the globe? Perhaps our final clip contains something of the answer, capturing, as it does, a comedy master in full flow.
Pray silence, please, for the father of the bride.
Ladies and gentlemen, and friends of my daughter.
There comes a time in every wedding reception when the man who paid for the damn thing is allowed to speak a word or two of his own.
And I should like to speak, much as my wife sang in the service that we've all just enjoyed with no real notes.
As far as I'm concerned my daughter could not have chosen a more delightful, charming, witty, responsible, wealthy, let's not deny it, well-placed, good-looking and fertile young man than Martin as her husband.
And I therefore ask the question why the hell did she marry Gerald instead? If I may use a gardening simile here, if this entire family may be likened to a compost heap, and I think they can, then Gerald is the biggest weed growing out of it.
I think I'd be more inspired by the sight of a cowpat.
Gerald is the sort of man I think people emigrate to avoid.
He's the sort of chap who fosters kamikaze units, resolved to drive their cars into his living room until one of them is lucky enough to get him.
As for his family, they are quite simply the most intolerable herd of steaming social animals I've ever had the misfortune of turning my nose up to.
I spurn you as I would spurn a rabid dog.
I would like to propose a toast to the caterers.
Whether it's a speech at a wedding, a man falling down a hole, or simply a very rubbery face, with Rowan Atkinson, it's always pure comedy, and, when it comes to successfully pulling it off, he's shown time and time again that he's simply one of the best.
# Everyone who meets his way # Oh, our love is like the flowers # The rain and the sea and the hours Oh, our love is like the flowers