Free The True History of the Blackadder by J. F. Roberts Page A

for the latter role, and the way that Lloyd & Marshall presented their four-part saga, with a meticulously constructed alternative reality in which their alter egos smoked pipes with the rest of Oxford’s Inklings in the 1930s (as outlined in the Radio Times ), also gave Lloyd his first experience of rewriting history, creating an entire false reality to surround a single comedy programme.
    Unfortunately (and perhaps due to a deliberately disappointing and far from epic conclusion), Hordes of the Things was swiftly forgotten by all but the most retentive fantasy fans, until BBC7 repeats finally paved the way for a CD release in 2009. With Tolkien still titanic box office, if we enjoyed a British film industry, it could form the basis for the best British spoof film since the Pythons were in their pomp.
    N OT N OW N ATIONWIDE
    There’s a whole book to be written about the enormous success and lasting influence of Not the Nine O’Clock News – but this is not it. The struggling growth and heyday of the show will have to be glimpsed only in fleeting detail, as the seventies give way to the eighties and a whole new comedy landscape opens up in British culture.
    Prior to starting on the series, Atkinson had enjoyed another sell-out Edinburgh Fringe show alongside Curtis and Goodall at the Wireworks, a huge, bare venue which required him to help design and build his own stage – a dream come true for such a passionate engineer, but one which proved an almost impossible task. Rowan remembers, ‘It was a tremendous engineering and technical exercise and you couldn’t see the stage from the gallery, except from the front row … It was a huge and horrible exercise really, the whole thing. In the end you look back and say, “It was all worth it,” but I’m not absolutely convinced that it was.’ These technical niggles didn’t stop the show from having a Fringe First to take back to London as work started on the new programme.
    Having amassed his final team for a full series in October 1979, John Lloyd immediately had pause for thought. ‘We had this famous lunch, and I’m sitting there thinking, “I can’t imagine what I’ve done here, I’ve made the most horrible mistake … apart from a skip out of the back of Madame Tussaud’s, I can’t think of a more weird collection of people.” It was the most uncomfortable lunch, we had absolutely nothing to say to each other, and rehearsals started a couple of dayslater.’ The stunning and chameleonic Pamela Stephenson had entered the fray after Lloyd had scoured the comedy world to find the right female quarter for his cast, with both Victoria Wood and Alison Steadman turning him down, until (in true H2G2 fashion) Pamela’s dazzling personality called to him at a party, and his chat-up line soon developed into an invite to join the hottest comedy team in the country. ‘The first time people saw Pamela,’ Lloyd complains, ‘she turned up in a microskirt, very tottery high heels, and loads of make-up and lots of nail varnish, and I remember seeing Mel and Rowan – who always did, and still do, have a very similar sense of humour – standing behind a pillar laughing themselves stupid thinking, “This is John’s shag!” And it was so unfair, because it wasn’t true, I never slept with Pamela!’
    The show’s viewing figures were not encouraging at first, which was good news for everyone in a way as much tinkering with the format was required throughout the first series. Lloyd says, ‘In the theatre, you’ve basically got one shot to do it, and if it’s crap on the first night, that’s your lot. With telly or radio, you can do the first series and make an awful mess of it, and in the second series – if you get one – you can improve it. And that is basically what I have done all my life – every first series I’ve done, virtually, has been a disaster … The only show I did that was good to start with was The News Quiz .’
    But the first series, although