This Much Is True

Although I didn’t know many of the other regular cast members personally, I instantly liked Rowan Atkinson. The thing that fascinated me most was his nervousness. I don’t know if he still is, but he was extremely anxious and shy and he used to get angry with himself for getting things wrong. His stammer is not evident now — but he definitely had a faltering delivery then, and it used to infuriate him. He was such a good actor: he was his own fiercest critic. He was never nasty to anybody else, but he just couldn’t bear it when he made mistakes and would work himself into a frenzy. It was painful to see; his face would contort with rage at himself.

When I was in America, I went to the first night of his one-man show at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway, Rowan Atkinson at the Atkinson. It was brilliant but I could feel that it wasn’t going down well with the audience — people just couldn’t understand his humour — and I knew he’d be terribly disappointed. After the first night party, everybody went to Sardi’s restaurant on West 44th Street. Rowan was already well known for Blackadder — the place was packed. Then the reviews came out and they were bad. It was fascinating to see how all the people at the party just drifted away — one minute the room was full of babble and a great throng of merrymakers, the next minute there were only about six people left, and I was one of them. I can’t remember who else stayed on, but it was a chilly experience because America does not like, cannot deal with, and is afraid of failure. Rowan was a failure that night. He has never been one since, but he was that night. I think it was the audience who failed him.

After a two and a half year break, Blackadder returned in early 1986. The second series was set in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. I got the call to play a new character, Edmund Blackadder’s aunt, Lady Whiteadder. Lady Whiteadder is one of my most memorable and much-loved characters — but Blackadder II almost didn’t get commissioned. Although the first series had enjoyed something of a cult success, it had been outrageously expensive to make, so expensive that Michael Grade, the BBC’s new network controller, had needed a fair amount of persuasion to give the new series the green light. But the terrifyingly charming producer John Lloyd wound him round his little finger — and the rest is history.

Blackadder II, however, was a much pared-back affair. The episodes were all shot in the studios at the BBC’s Television Centre in Wood Lane, using minimal rickety cardboard and wooden sets, in front of a live audience. Ben Elton came on board as the new writer and he also doubled-up as a (very funny) warm-up guy. We didn’t really rehearse our scenes any more than for anything else I’ve worked on — we did one rehearsal on camera, then we just went for it. The show was presented as it was and I don’t think it changed much from beginning to end.

Working for television with a live studio audience is a curious thing, because the spectators help you to time the laughs, but it’s not like acting for the stage: you have to act for the cameras. In fact, quite often the audience members watch it on a screen rather than actually being in front of the set itself, so while you are aware of their reaction, it’s your performance captured on film which matters. Filming on a small set, the camera men stand quite close to the action, and can zoom in close to focus on your face; so often, the real comedy comes as much from the close-up shots of the cast’s facial expressions (especially Rowan’s, of course, whose facial gymnastics are legend) as the fast-paced flow of the characters’ witty repartee. It’s a dual experience in that respect, and you must rely on your director.

I relied on Mandie Fletcher, the clever young director with eight years’ experience in theatre work, who had directed episodes of the BBC hit shows Butterflies and The Fainthearted Feminist, whom I hadn’t known previously but I grew to really respect and like. She later said: ‘I was put onto Blackadder as some kind of punishment by the Head of Comedy, I remember. I wasn’t that experienced then, and arriving was like walking into a public school halfway through the second term in the middle of a pillow fight.’^[16] It reminded me rather of a much nicer version of Footlights so I knew just what she meant.