Twist of fate that handed Tony Robinson his breakthrough in Blackadder

02 June 2023 , 18:08

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It's not entirely unusual for Sir Tony Robinson to be served a turnip in a restaurant by a sniggering waiter. Several times a day for several decades, someone has asked him if he has a cunning plan. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Landing the role of loveable idiot Baldrick in legendary sitcom Blackadder back in the early 1980s dramatically changed the course of Tony’s life.

But he very nearly missed out after another actor was cast in the pilot, an episode lost in the archives until now.

As the iconic comedy celebrates 40 years since it first aired on BBC One, the 76-year-old actor and broadcaster has investigated the origins of the show that made him.

He also reflects on the “Road to Damascus moment” that launched him into the Oxbridge comedy set, including Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and the show’s writer Richard Curtis.

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Tony as Baldrick (BBC)

But he is relentlessly mocked by his Blackadder co-stars for remaining so giddy about it.

He says: “I tend to talk about Blackadder more than any of the others. They take the p*ss out of me because of how much I’m prepared to talk about it.

“The reason I’ve realised is that when it first started, all the others were well on their way to having a glittering career.

“Ben Elton had already written The Young Ones. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie had got their own TV series. Rowan Atkinson had been on tour.

“I had been a jobbing actor. Getting that role in Blackadder transformed my life completely, in a way that it’s unlikely that anything else would have done. For me it was a miracle moment.”

Tony didn’t even have to audition for the part, which he recalls was “only eight lines and none of them were funny”.

Cast on one of the stamps

He says: “They hadn’t concentrated very much on the casting of Baldrick, it was very much a servicing role. The Head of Comedy had seen me doing a comic role in a BBC South West show and he put me down in his list of ‘Vaguely humorous’ and cast me.

“Will you be in Rowan Atkinson’s new show? Well f*** me, yes I will.”

But in a twist of fate, a BBC strike delayed the pilot and by the time it was made, Tony had another job in a Greek tragedy at the National Theatre.

Tony says: “It was a great job, an unheard of year-long contract, but it meant I wasn’t available to do the pilot and another actor, Philip Fox, was cast.

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“When they eventually phoned and said we’ve got a series, my reaction was, ‘Oh, I’m really pleased for him’. But they said, ‘Don’t you remember, we said we would want you?’.

“I remembered then that yes, a producer had said that to me, but I thought it was the kind of bullsh** that producers always employ when they want to get out of an embarrassing situation so I’d never taken it seriously.”

Philip Fox played Baldrick in first episode (BBC SCREEN GRAB)

The role, as Edmund Blackadder’s dogsbody, gave Tony his longed-for chance to work with those Oxford and Cambridge comedy sketch troupes.

He says: “I left school at 16 with four O Levels, I hadn’t even been to university. All those programmes which I’d loved since childhood, from That Was The Week That Was, through to Not Only… But Also and Monty Python, were my humour.

"They were my rhythms. I always thought if I could be involved in programmes like that, I would have contributions that I could make.

“From the moment I went into the Blackadder rehearsal room, it worked like that. I knew I was home. I felt as though everyone should have seen that I came into the room as Cinderella in her rags, but I don’t think that anybody noticed.”

Now, Tony and his Blackadder co-stars are even to appear on Royal Mail stamps to celebrate the 40th anniversary – an enormous thrill for someone who was an avid collector and says: “I’d rather tear my fingers off than get rid of my stamp collection.”

The dad-of-two, who lives in West London with wife Louise, adds: “I was the nerdy little boy who collected stamps. If you had said to that little boy, actually you will be on the first class stamp, he wouldn’t have believed it. I’m so giggly about it.

Tony is proud of his role as Baldrick (UKTV)

“I want to buy a whole block of them and frame them and put them up on my wall. My wife is also going to put them on all her Christmas cards.”

For the 40th GOLD is showing Blackadder episodes, the previously unseen lost pilot and a documentary.

In Blackadder: The Lost Pilot, Tony goes on a quest to find out where Blackadder began and the story of the unseen episode. Then in Blackadder: A Cunning Story, he takes a look back at the making of the entire series, with contributions from fans including Jack Whitehall and Ardal O’Hanlon.

Tony adds: “Blackadder is a piece of TV history that I’m very proud to have been a part of – eventually.”

* Blackadder: The Lost Pilot is on GOLD on June 15 at 9pm.

* Blackadder: A Cunning Story is on GOLD on June 16 at 9pm.

* Episodes from all four series will show weeknights on GOLD in June. Blackadder’s boxset is also available on Sky, Virgin and NOW.