Blackadder

Blackadder Back and Forth - The forgotten special

Written by: Rhianna Evans
Published: Sunday 31st December 2023

It was November 2nd 1989, millions watched as Captain Blackadder blew his whistle, and just when the audience thought Baldrick was going to save the day with one last cunning plan, he didn't, he couldn't. The platoon charged, they were gunned down in a hail of bullets, and as the footage slowed and eventually faded into a sea of poppies audiences up and down the country wept. Broadcast just ahead of Remembrance Sunday this was the final episode of Blackadder... or was it?

In the aftermath, it was almost universally agreed that Blackadder Goes Forth had perhaps the greatest ending in sitcom history. Yet, despite this, the calls for a fifth outing for Edmund, Baldrick and the gang have never really gone away. Over the years we've heard occasional murmurings that something might happen in the not-too-distant future. Richard Curtis once floated the idea of Blackadder as a university lecturer, whilst Tony Robinson revealed that some of the team had even planned a movie set in the 1960s, complete with Baldrick reimagined as Bald Rick, the drummer in a band. However, despite the occasional brief Comic Relief reunions, these ideas never came to fruition, except of course, that one time, at the turn of the new millennium.

Blackadder Back and Forth has a complicated and unique history. The special was commissioned as an attraction of sorts by the New Millennium Experience Company who were looking for something distinctly British to be shown exclusively in a specially built cinema funded by Sky Television, the SkyScape cinema, which was located just south-east of the newly built Millennium Dome. There were initial plans for an Only Fools And Horses special, but eventually Sky turned their attentions to Blackadder.

John Lloyd (who produced all four previous series of Blackadder) explained the situation in Jem Roberts' The True History of The Black Adder:

Ben [Elton] wasn't free, and he and Richard [Curtis] didn't want to do it, so I got the job. Because they didn't want to write it, we were going to do a sort of historical sketch show, linked by Blackadder and Baldrick. Years ago I said to the BBC that they should invest in doing the history of Britain from a Blackadder perspective. So, slightly like what they've done with that rather wonderful adaptation of Terry Deary's books, Horrible Histories, you can actually do teachable school history, say the Battle of Hastings, and have Tony and Rowan drop in for comments, you know, "Well, Baldrick, what did you think of William the Conqueror?", "Oh, I didn't like him Sir, I thought he was a big fat bastard..." And you'd have proper actors doing sketches and so on.

Both Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson agreed to take part, whilst acclaimed comedy writers, Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley also came on board - they were tasked with creating the historical sketches that would punctuate the special. It seemed that (unlike most rumoured Blackadder reunions) this millennium episode was actually going to happen; but although this was intended as a homage by the team, it was inevitable that this special was going to be billed as the triumphant return for Blackadder, albeit without Blackadder's original writers. So, in realising this, Ben Elton and Richard Curtis decided to write the script, and in doing so the whole project took on an entirely new form. It was now going to be less of a sketch show and more of a grandiose Blackadder mini-movie, with a whacking great budget to boot. It was intended to be one of the key attractions for visitors to the Dome (or rather the cinema just adjacent to the Dome) playing eight times a day throughout the New Year period.

There were now big expectations for this "new Blackadder", tentatively billed as Time for Blackadder. Everyone was returning; Rowan Atkinson happily voiced his delight for the new project, declaring that he'd always had ambitions to bring Blackadder to the big screen. Although John Lloyd was reportedly upset not to be producing, he ducked in to see the first read-through and years later stated that, despite initial disappointment, there were no hard feelings.

Filming began at Shepperton in early Spring of 1999 and was scheduled into an extremely tight two months.

Meanwhile, a fierce rights dispute was breaking out between Sky (who had allegedly paid £4 million for exclusive broadcast rights) and the BBC, who felt that Blackadder should naturally return to its home on BBC television, and that "the stars agreed to do it on the basis that it would be on BBC One".

The dispute was eventually resolved with Sky broadcasting the special for the first time in 2000, on October 1st. This left the BBC at a disadvantage, they were forced to wait an absurdly long time to premiere the episode, their first showing was in April 2002, a year and a half after Sky.

At least the eventual BBC One repeat on New Year's Eve 2003 saw Blackadder's millennium reunion scheduled in its rightful place, because fundamentally, Blackadder Back and Forth is a New Year special, complete with a Christmas tree and a rather fine-looking garlic pudding.

We join Blackadder on Millennium's Eve, he's hosting a dinner party with some probable descendants of Lord Melchett (Stephen Fry), Queen Elizabeth I (Miranda Richardson), Captain George or the Prince Regent (Hugh Laurie) and of course, Darling (Tim McInnerny). Baldrick is doing the cooking, and sadly his culinary skills haven't improved much since his time in the trenches. He apparently coughs all over an avocado, and that's just for the starter. Luckily, he doesn't get time to serve the coffee, because after Baldrick's finished in the kitchen, the special promptly takes on a science fiction twist.

In a loose parody of H.G. Wells' classic The Time Machine, Blackadder tells his guests that he has, in fact, singlehandedly done what the world's greatest minds could not do. He and Baldrick have built themselves a time machine. Blackadder boldly challenges his party guests to a wager, telling them he can recover any artefacts from history, and bring them back before New Year rings out.

But this is Blackadder we're talking about. His bet was not on the level. The whole thing is, in fact, an elaborate con. He has tasked Baldrick with the job of working on a "to-the-letter" re-creation of Leonardo da Vinci's plans for a time machine, something that really looks the part... and miraculously, Baldrick delivers. Still, Blackadder only really expects this ramshackle box to do a bit of perfunctory juddering, and following that, he will be able to emerge triumphant, holding a few old props that will apparently fool his extremely gullible guests.

But there's a twist: this time machine, that Baldrick has apparently built out of a bit of old wood and a fruit machine, actually works. Baldrick and Blackadder open the doors of their giant carriage clock, only to be greeted by the vast wastes of pre-historic earth and a giant T-Rex. Luckily the duo do manage to escape... with the aid of Baldrick's pants.

It had been little over ten years since Blackadder Goes Forth had concluded. Yet, despite the long period away, the entire cast slipped effortlessly back into their roles.

Thanks to Sky's hefty investment, this was likely the most expensive episode of Blackadder ever made, and it shows. For years fans had to watch blurry copies of Blackadder II on VHS, so, to get an opportunity to see Queenie and Nursie sitting together in beautiful high-definition was a treat for all concerned. The series had never looked so good, and had never been able to move through the different eras of Blackadder so swiftly. There's a whistle stop tour through Roman times, then over to the Battle of Waterloo and we even meet Rik Mayall as Robin Hood.

The problem was, there was just too much ground to cover in half an hour. Many fans looking back at the special had remembered it being at least an hour long; at thirty minutes it felt all too fleeting. A full 90-minute film of Back and Forth would have given us more time in the different eras.

Ben Elton voiced his frustrations at the time constraints of the special, "We had to do the whole two thousand years in twenty-eight minutes, it was pure frustration, in that it was all we could do."

Blackadder and Baldrick encounter the repercussions of their space-time-continuum meddling, and must work together to undo their history-altering mistakes. Unfortunately, the duo have no idea where they're going because Baldrick forgot to write the dates on the display in felt tip pen. Blackadder looks despondently at it, and then Rowan delivers one of his most beautiful line readings:

So, the date we're heading for, is two watermelons and a bunch of cherries.

Back and Forth had a new dynamic to it, as it was the first ever Blackadder not to use an audience laughter track. The show copes amazingly well with this shift and even uses the lack of laughter to create new comedic beats. When Blackadder and Baldrick meet up with the Roman incarnation of General Melchett, Stephen Fry delivers a beautifully timed 'Bahh!' which was performed in such a way that the surreal pause after it would have been lost amidst audience laughter.

However, the BBC did eventually re-dub the special for Back and Forth's initial showing, this version is currently available on BBC iPlayer. The only commercial release came from Sky, who released the special as it originally premiered.

Throughout the whole production there had been an enormous effort put in by the entire team to get every little detail right. If you were lucky enough to have seen the episode at the start of the new millennium in the SkyScape cinema, you could have purchased a special booklet (that was made to profit Comic Relief). It included the full script (which showcased some of the material initially put together for the special by Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley) and Baldrick's alternative plans for a Millennium Dome, which - you guessed it - involved a giant turnip. Baldrick also recorded his own video diary, which served as a kind of making-of documentary for the DVD release.

Because of Back and Forth's slow drip of a release, it was hard to gauge its success. Today people look back at the mini-movie with enormous fondness. But it wasn't typical at this time for sitcoms to come back after years away. It was the 2003 return of Only Fools And Horses that started the tentative trend of the festive sitcom reunion. And over the years, many other classic comedies have followed, from 2006 to 2013 The Royle Family returned repeatedly and to huge triumph on Christmas Day, as did Gavin & Stacey in 2019. In this day and age, Blackadder Back and Forth would be right at home alongside them.

However, the team that created it, approach the episode more hesitantly. Some of the more recent Gold documentaries have very much brushed the special aside. Perhaps it's merely due to the complicated rights dispute making it hard to license clips, but maybe it is also due to the fact that the presence of this Blackadder special existing after the perfection of the Goes Forth ending was feared to take away from Blackadder's legacy. Ultimately, nothing could have been more impactful, and more final for Blackadder, than Goes Forth's profound finale.

Conversely, Back and Forth left Blackadder and Baldrick as victors. Purely from a fan's perspective, it is lovely to see the duo "win", and to hear such a triumphant rendition of the theme song from Howard Goodall, almost certainly it's Blackadder's best ever.

Ben Elton reflected on Back and Forth: 'It turned into a bit of a "Your country needs you" thing. You don't normally start projects with a venue and say, "well, let's fill it" but we did get very excited about it. It's a convivial family entertainment with familiar friends, faces, and Stephen Fry in the shortest skirt in history, and that will be an extremely pleasant way to spend twenty-five minutes. But it's not the next place for Blackadder.'

One of the most intriguing aspects of the special, is that so few people are aware of its existence. It's the 'secret Blackadder episode', and one that is every bit as funny as its predecessors. In short, the only thing wrong with Blackadder Back and Forth was that it followed sheer perfection, and that's not a bad result for a hastily arranged reunion to celebrate the new millennium.