Script planned to spoof Nativity story

A draft script for a Christmas episode of Blackadder, set in Biblical times, has been unearthed during research for a new book.

In Blackadder In Bethlehem, Rowan Atkinson's character is the owner of the stables where Jesus was born..

The script was written in 1988 and handed over by writer Richard Curtis to the author of a new book about the history of the show.

Jem Roberts said his ‘jaw dropped’ when Curtis gave him the document, which was only an outline with some pages of dialogue. Roberts called it ‘the rough workings of a comic genius’

He told the BBC that the script never got made because Curtis thought it was ‘a strange cross between Fawlty Towers and Life of Brian’ and felt he couldn’t live up to either. Curtis also said he feared causing too much offence.

Instead, he parodied Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol with Blackadder in the Scrooge role.

The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend is published on Thursday. Click to buy from Amazon.

Published: 7 Oct 2012