BLACKADDER OF WORLDSTAGE

Late last year, Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson brought back their classic TV characters of Edmund Blackadder and Sodov Baldrick (respectively) - but they did so in a sketch during the "We Are Not Amused" benefit at the Royal Albert Hall. (The benefit was to fill the coffers of the Prince's Trust.)

This time out, Blackadder was an immoral banker who picked up his title of Lord at the Parliamentary gift shop. He was the head of the Melchett, Melchett and Darling Bank which ws in debt to the tune of £20billion. Because of that, Lord Blackadder was called to testify before a committee of MPs investigating the financial crisis.

Lord Blackadder blamed his gardener Baldrick and millions of others like him for the problem by running up debts for ‘luxury items such as fuel and food’.

Baldrick had a cunning plan to get the country out of debt but Blackadder sneered that it would have to be ‘so brilliant that it would win a place at Oxford University – even if it had a Northern accent’. But as usual in such schemes by the pair, it didn't pan out.

So the characters of Blackadder and Baldrick, reborn souls who were inducted into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame for Christmas of 2002, crossed over into a different fictional universe, that of the Theater, WorldStage.

Here are a couple of scenes from that sketch:

BCnU!