Thoughts upon watched 'Blackadder Back & Forth' for the first time last night
Posted Sat Jan 20 13:48:55 GMT 2001 by Mike4SOTCAA
I'm interested in the psychology here. How is it *possible* for so many hitherto talented, intelligent, brilliant, hilarious people to participate in this project and for not ONE of them to pipe up 'Hang on a minute...um, this isn't really up to scratch is it?' I can't understand it all. Is Stephen Fry as thick as shit these days or something? How can Elton, who satirised the comedy industry so sharply in 'Inconceivable', honestly be proud of this material?
I expected it to be bad, but the sheer insulting, crowd-pleasing, no-joke, contempt-for-the-audience awfulness of it just knocked me for six. Why didn't they realise how bad it was? I mean, I know being involved in a project often blinds performers to finer flaws, but...no, I'm staggered that they thought the script had any merit at all.
And the cunt producer was in the 'making of' doc that followed (done in the style of a Baldrick video diary - fuck off back to your dig, Tony) saying that he 'tried to retain the magic of old Blackadder, but do it on a bigger scale'. AAAGGGHH!!! THE IGNORANCE!!! THE SHEER IGNORANCE.
And will there be any redress? Nope. The reaction of the press was of the 'it's nice to see them all again' variety. So they'll be allowed to do it all over again.
Subject: Re: Thoughts upon watched 'Blackadder Back
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Posted By 'Gee' on Sat Jan 20 14:25:30 GMT 2001:
Haven't seen it Mike but I guess they did it for the cash. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it made with Lottery money? Ben Elton is a spent farce now and he should really pack it all in as he annoys the fuck out of me.
Subject: Re: Thoughts upon watched 'Blackadder Back
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Posted By Justin on Sat Jan 20 16:06:18 GMT 2001:
Still, what matters is that terribly moving finale from Goes Forth, eh? That legitimises anything the whole cast and crew does for evermore. It will be sincerely mentioned every time Richard Curtis gets interviewed on Radio 4, and will pep up the end of any feature Bruce Dessau writes for the rest of his life.
This is a quote from Curtis in the "Now That's Funny" book...
"I haven't for years watched the other Blackadders [ie apart from the first series]...I have your traditional double reaction: you can't believe how bad some of it is.... No matter how hard you try on sitcoms, out of six episodes two are good, two are all right and two are weak."
The trouble with that is that the six episodes he's referring to are two Blackadder The Thirds, two Blackadder Goes Forths and two Vicar Of Dibleys. And Notting Hill is *still* the worst film I have ever paid money to see.
Subject: Re: Thoughts upon watched 'Blackadder Back
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Posted By 'Gee' on Sat Jan 20 18:41:59 GMT 2001:
Well Justin I hope you learnt your lesson. Don't give Curtis any more money.
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