Blackadder Back And Forth was the supposed trump card up the sleeve of those given the arduous task of attempting to drum up public support for the Millennium Dome project back in 1998. Unfortunately, it's a bum deal.
I had decided that even if all the reports about the big tent on the Thames were true, at least what promised to be a searing slice of political satire would make the trip worthwhile. Therefore, it was with considerable surprise that, post show, I ruminated on the fact that the most expensive episode of one of the funniest sitcoms ever made, failed to elicit as much a chuckle from me or anyone else among the disturbingly small crowd that bothered to go and see it.
It was excruciating. Smiles? Admittedly, there were a couple. Quizzically raised eyebrows? Infinitely more. Actual laughs? Not one. And to add insult to injury, we were forced to watch it in the Murdoch-sponsored Baby Dome, aka Skyscape, which according to the blurb is "a dramatic silver building with futuristic roof sails which serves as the Dome's spectacular entertainment centre." That's a cinema to you and me.
Boasting the usual stellar cast of Rowan Atkinson and his period pals Stephen Fry, Miranda Richardson, Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnerney, Rik Mayall and Tony Robinson, the thinking behind Blackadder Back And Forth is weasle-esque in its cunning. Using plans drawn up by Leonardo daVinci, Baldrick creates a time machine which, much to his own and Edmund's astonishment, works. The pair subsequently travel through history unwittingly rearranging vital events in Britain's past with disastrous consequences for everybody concerned.
Lame Script
However, as soon as Edmund realises the potential for self-advancement which stems from ownership of such a contraption, the pair travel through history again, this time deliberately rearranging vital events in Britain's past with disastrous consequences for everybody concerned except them. Despite this promising Back To The Futuristic plot, the 25 minute show lacks the pace, humour, guile and verbal contortions for which its notoriously cheap small screen predecessors were renowned. A case of too many bucks spoiling the broth, perhaps, and a criminal waste of a good idea.
Many of the show's shortcomings can be attributed to the fact that writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton were catering for family audiences who would be watching the show in a den of stifling political correctness. No place, then, for the show's trademark vernacular such as this pliable gem, reputedly improvised by Hugh Laurie during filming: "Gosh, this is as exciting as discovering that, due to an administrative error, the new boy in dorm is in fact a girl with big breasts, a spirit of adventure, a packet of condoms, two friends and no pants."
The lameness of the script might also have much to do with the fact that it was written by two of the busiest men in showbiz. When first approached, Curtis and Elton initially resisted the temptation to dust off Baldrick's underpants, but finally relented under pressure of the "Your country needs you!" variety, despite their unspeakably hectic schedules (Curtis was in the middle of filming Notting Hill, while Elton was writing a novel, planning a movie and looking after his baby twins).
In a Sunday Times interview, a characteristically blunt Elton confessed that agreeing to write Blackadder Back And Forth probably wasn't a great idea: "Look, I don't think what we've done is ideal, to be honest . . . we did get excited about it but the Dome probably isn't the best place for Blackadder."
He needn't worry. If present trends continue, very few people will get to see it.