Firth.
Firth. Colin Firth in Blackadder Back and Forth. Page updated January 2
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FILM: A film charting British history since Roman times, made especially for the Millennium Dome in London. SCREENWRITERS: Richard Curtis and Ben Elton DIRECTOR: Paul Weiland PRODUCER: Sophie Clarke-Jones [Tiger Aspect Film, specially produced for the New Millennium Experience Company/Sky Television] STARRING: Rowan Atkinson [Sir Edmund Blackadder], Tony Robinson [Sodoff Baldrick], Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Colin Firth [Shakespeare], Kate Moss [Maid Marian], Rik Mayall [Robin Hood], Miranda Richardson [Queen Elizabeth], Tyrannosaurus Rex et al WHERE TO SEE IT: The Millennium Dome [2000], Sky TV and BBC [2001] ABOUT THE FILM: Filmed on Hankley Common, Elstead near Farnham, Surrey, UK June 1999, Blackadder Back and Forth is an irreverent trek through British history. At the 1999 New Year's Eve dinner party given by Edmund Blackadder to some familiar old friends, Sir Edmund's faithful sidekick Baldrick builds a time-machine, from Leonardo da Vinci's designs, using old cereal packets. As it happens.... the machine is difficult to control, and the duo spin randomly through history, causing chaos.
Excerpts from the screenplay* - the scene where Blackadder bumps into a hairy playwright by the name William Shakespeare [Colin Firth] SCENE 6: Elizabethan Corridor Blackadder exits into the corridor, rushes around the corner and runs straight into a fellow with a ruff - papers go everywhere. Blackadder:
Oh,
I'm so sorry...
Shakespeare: Will Shakespeare, yes. Don't say it! I know - you hated 'Two Gentlemen of Verona'. This one's much better. Blackadder: Well, bugger my giddy aunt. You couldn't just sign something for me, could you?
Blackadder
produces one from his jacket.
Shakespeare, though puzzled by the pen, signs the 'Macbeth' frontispiece. Thank
you. Blackadder moves away - then has a thought.
Shakespeare: Yes? Blackadder turns and knocks Shakespeare down with one clean punch. Blackadder:
This
is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next four hundred years.
Have you any idea how much suffering you are going to cause. Hours spent
at school desks trying to find one joke in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'?
Years wearing stupid tights in school plays and saying things like 'What
ho, my lord' and 'Oh, look, here comes Othello, talking total crap as usual.'
Oh, and...
Shakespeare: Who's Ken Branagh? Blackadder: I'll tell him you said that. And I think he'll be very hurt. Blackadder
leaves.
Later,
as Blackadder makes it back to modern times, he finds home is not the same:
life have been drastically changed due to his adventures. So he sets off
again to put everything right.
SCENE 20: Elizabethan Corridor Blackadder: I'm a very big fan, Bill. Shakespeare: Thank you. Blackadder: Keep up the good work. 'King Lear' - very funny.
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Shakespeare:
Certainly.
