Blackadder pilot was 'ghastly' | Says Tony Robinson, as stills from the episode are released © BBC

Blackadder pilot was 'ghastly'

Says Tony Robinson, as stills from the episode are released

Tony Robinson has called the pilot episode of Blackadder ‘ghastly’ ahead of its first airing on television.

The Baldrick actor – who was supposed to be promoting the broadcast – admitted the first bash at the sitcom was sometimes ‘tedious’ as the script made ‘a desperate attempt to explain the whole concept’. 

But he notes that there are ‘flashes that are really, really good’, adding: ‘It just shows you how inspiration travels – you can start off with something ghastly and then you make the leap, and suddenly you’ve got something interesting.’

Sir Tony, now 76, was not in the pilot episode where the role was taken by Philip Fox – as seen in stills from the episode newly released by broadcaster Gold, such as the one below. Fox went on to have a career as a character actor appearing in the likes of Midsomer Murders and Walking the Dead.

Blackadder pilot with Philip Fox as Baldrick

Sir Tony had been cast as Baldrick from the start, but a strike hit the BBC and he instead signed a year-long National Theatre contract. After that was up, the series was ready to go into production and he rejoined the cast.

Speaking to this week’s Radio Times, he recalls: ‘In a way, series 1 was itself a pilot. In the first week’s rehearsal, immediately we knew what was wrong and what was right, but it was already on the production line and we couldn’t really change it that much.’

Another still from the Blackadder pilot

In another interview, here, he adds that rediscovering the pilot was a revelation. ‘ I must have seen the pilot, but it was 40 years ago,’ he said. ‘The memory had completely faded away, but as soon as you see it again, the memory becomes very vivid. I was enormously excited to watch the pilot.’

He added that although he talks about the show so often, he often felt like he didn’t really have the authority as ‘was just a hired turn who turned up for six weeks every two years for filming’.

But he recalls working with ‘the most dazzling comic minds of the moment’ was an eye-opening experience for someone who didn’t share the  Oxbridge background of most of the rest of the team. 

‘I was the new boy, which is ironic because I was a decade older than all of them! Accepting me as one of them was one of the high points of my life.’

» Tony Robinson on revisiting the series for a 40th anniversary documentary">Tony Robinson: 'I was just a hired turn. There's so much I don't know about Blackadder'

• Sir Tony Robinson presents Original Blackadder: The Lost Pilot on Gold at 9pm on June 15

Published: 6 Jun 2023

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