Tony Robinson suggests Blackadder Series 5
- Tony Robinson, talking about Blackadder, has said "I do see a version of the show coming back"
- He added: "I know everyone is busy doing wonderful things, but we all have fond memories so I'm sure we would work it out"
Tony Robinson has revived the idea of Blackadder returning.
Speaking in an interview reported by The Sun, Robinson - who played Baldrick in the hit sitcom - said: "I do see a version of the show coming back."
Since the comedy ended in 2000 with the Back & Forth special there have been repeated rumours it may return, but nothing has materialised to date. A poll last year named the programme as the classic TV show that most people would like to be revived.
Robinson said: "There are a host of other periods in history which could be turned into a six-part Blackadder series. We'd have to get the old group back together again. I know everyone is busy doing wonderful things, but we all have fond memories so I'm sure we would work it out."
The Sun says it believes Atkinson and cast regular Tim McInnerny support a reboot too.
Robinson previously suggested a reunion in 2015. However, speaking in a BCG interview in 2016, he elaborated: "I would have thought it more unlikely than likely. It would only happen if Richard Curtis and Ben Elton actually wanted to sit down and do it. They've got so many of their own projects on that it doesn't seem very likely that they would; particularly when a number of people from Blackadder feel that we went out on such a high, that even if we produced a series that was better than Blackadder Goes Forth, nobody would think it was better because they wouldn't be in the place they were in in the Blackadder days. It's not just the show itself, it's how you were at that time."
He added: "'Blackadder Live on Stage' has been talked about. Particularly in Australia there are a lot of people who would love us to do that. I suspect there's an algebraic equation, on one side there's the number of divorces in the company, and on the other the amount of money we need!"
The first series of the sitcom, broadcast in 1983, was set in the latter half of the 1480s, whilst Blackadder II was set some seventy years later, amidst the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Blackadder The Third saw Hugh Laurie co-starring as Prince George in late-1700s Regency England, whilst the final series, Blackadder Goes Forth, was set in the trenches of World War I.
Specials charted the Victorian age, the turn of the Millennium, and the English Civil War of the 1640s.
The most persistent rumoured setting for a fifth series has been London in the 'Swinging Sixties', with Blackadder and Baldrick leading a pop band.
Ben Elton has been busy writing BBC sitcom Upstart Crow, whilst Richard Curtis is currently working on his next film, All You Need Is Love. Rowan Atkinson will soon be seen on the big screen again in Johnny English Strikes Again, the third movie in the bumbling spy franchise.