Television series

Blackadder

Name: Blackadder
Genre: Comedy, History
Released: 1983
Cast: Stephen Fry, Patsy Byrne, Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Rowan Atkinson

Four historical eras, one recurring joke: an ambitious, cowardly schemer named Edmund Blackadder claws for status while surrounded by idiots, and loses anyway. Sharp, quotable, gleefully cruel to its own hero, it sharpened across its four series from broad medieval farce into some of the most quotable dialogue British sitcom ever produced. Best for anyone who likes wit with teeth in it.

TVMaze rating

8.4

If you liked this

Monty Python's Flying Circus1969

The absurdist DNA that Blackadder inherited and sharpened into narrative form. Same appetite for deflating pomposity and history, delivered as pure sketch chaos rather than plot.

But No characters to follow, no story, just sketches — some brilliant, some baffling, none of Blackadder's structure.

Fawlty Towers1975

The other contender for best British sitcom ever, built on a similarly furious, put-upon central performance and the same delight in humiliation as comedy.

But Only twelve episodes and a single hotel setting — nowhere near Blackadder's historical sweep.

Yes Minister1980

Swap swords for civil servants and you get the same joke: powerful men outmanoeuvred by the people supposedly beneath them, told in impeccably constructed dialogue.

But Talkier and gentler — the satire is verbal fencing, not slapstick, and moves at a walking pace.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Duck Soup1933

Same target, same weapon: puncture the pomposity of power and war through a cowardly schemer's-eye view — just five decades earlier and even less interested in coherence.

Fifty years before Blackadder, the Marx Brothers were already turning war, diplomacy and royal absurdity into anarchic farce, undermining every institution they touched with total contempt.

But Silent-era rhythms and vaudeville logic — the jokes come from chaos and wordplay, not character or plot.

A Bit of Fry and Laurie1987

Melchett and the Prince Regent reunited for pure sketch comedy, showing exactly what those two do when they're not in period costume.

But Sketch format means hit-and-miss pacing, and some of it feels very of-its-decade now.

Jeeves & Wooster1990

Fry and Laurie again, this time playing off each other directly as valet and idiot master — gentler, warmer, but the comic chemistry is unmistakably the same.

But Posher and cosier than Blackadder, with none of its cynicism or bite.

The Young Ones1982

Made by many of the same alternative-comedy circle around the same time, it's louder, punkier proof of what British sitcom was allowed to do in the early eighties.

But Deliberately grating and chaotic where Blackadder is precise — this is comedy as demolition, not construction.

Mr. Bean1990

Atkinson stripped of dialogue entirely, running the same instinct for physical disaster and dignity-loss that made Edmund's schemes so satisfying to watch collapse.

But Almost wordless and much broader — nothing like Blackadder's verbal cruelty and plotting.

QI2003no page yet

Fry hosting a panel show built entirely on the pleasure of being cleverly, tangentially wrong about history — the curiosity Blackadder mocked, played straight and delighted.

But No narrative at all, just chat and trivia — a very different kind of pleasure.

Horrible Histories2009

Made for children but sharper than it needs to be, it takes Blackadder's trick of mining real history for absurdity and does it as sketches with songs.

But Aimed squarely at kids — funny for adults in short bursts, but not built for a full evening.

Kaamelott2005no page yet

Nearly identical premise — a smart man trapped among fools in a mythologised past — proving the format travels across cultures untranslated in spirit, only in language.

A French sitcom set at King Arthur's court, told in short bursts of exhausted, bureaucratic bickering between knights who are all idiots — Blackadder's medieval series reborn in another language entirely.

But You'll need subtitles, and the humour leans on very French comic rhythms that take an episode or two to click.

Wolf Hall2015

Strip the jokes out of Blackadder II's court intrigue and you get this: same machinery of ambition and survival under a volatile monarch, minus the safety net of comedy.

The same Tudor court, the same lethal politics, the same low-born man scheming his way up — played completely straight, with the menace Blackadder's Elizabethan series only pretended at.

But Slow, hushed, and genuinely bleak — there is no punchline here, only consequence.