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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Read through History dramatised, 29 July 2001
This is a script-based book of all the four Blackadder series', not including the newest Millennium edition. The presentation, layout, illustrations and 'the other bits' are very good, and also very funny. The book also links the four historical periods and tells us what happened to the main characters after each series ended. It has almost been turned into a historically interesting novel, with the scripts woven in. There is also a cast list and synopsis for each series/play. The appendix's, which can be found throughout the book, includes very funny accounts of instruments of torture, medieval medicines, the Mrs Miggins' Coffee House Tariff, Duties of... Clothes bills, Passage from Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, Baldrick's family tree, Baldrick's school, Index of Blackadder's finest insult etc... For a Blackadder fan this surly is a must. It should be in every library and in every drama club! It's a lot of fun acting and there's so many to choose from - you'll never get bored! It's a jolly good read too!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Giving this the mental equivalent of a standing ovation!, 25 July 2001
By A Customer
Throughout the annals of history one dynasty--a singular lineage of crossbred loons--has been at the fore of the British revival. This family bears the name of Blackadder, and they are doomed by heriditary curse to suffer being a git for all of eternity. We all know Edmund Blackadder and his loyalist village idiot Baldrick, as they clamber through the menacingly black Dark Ages, the silly fickleness of the Elizabethan times, surviving the insanity of being Regency peasantry, and finding themselves stuck in a squalid dug-out on the last platoon against an encroaching WWI German army, with nothing to protect themselves with but some unclean spoons and a dead homing pigeon. Some of Blackadder, as we all know, is so utterly hilarious that if it'd be any funnier, we might as well have our ribs removed. Chroniclers Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, Rowan Atkinson and John Lloyd have put together this plump alternative history to the days of yore: "Blackadder (1485-1917): The Whole Damn Dynasty." In it we see all 24 scripts in a superbly well-presented way, plus casting lists, scores of intricate illustrations and photographs, extensive introductions and prefaces, and heaps of extra bits, thingummies and wossnames. In it, you'll find what happened after "1066 and All That" in a satirically funny way, lampooning such works as Will Cuppy's "The Complete Fall and Decline of Practically Everybody". We see how medicinal condiments helped to heal medieval sicknesses (apply leeches, burn 'em off, saw the sore part off, etc.), and we even get a glance of one of the misappropriated pages of Dr Johnson's rare dictionary. Any Blackadder fan would be as happy as a Frenchman with a pair of self-removing trousers with this brilliant book which is as cunning as a fox who has just been made Professor of Cunning at Oxford University. All the proceeds go to the charity Comic Relief, and if it weren't enough by itself, there is an independent section featuring all of Blackadder's finest insults. After "The Black Adder", "Blackadder II", "Blackadder the Third" and "Blackadder Goes Forth", go and seek out the "Blackadder Back And Forth" video to complete your collection. And try and avoid fierce winds; faces with mile-wide smirks set in concrete look amusingly silly.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Cunning Book You Could Buy, 16 July 2000
By A Customer
His wit is sharper than a gothic spire, he's destined to spend the rest of his life surrounded by people with the intellects of particularly stupid mashed potato, and he's more cunning than an army of super-intelligent foxes with pHd's in cunning. He's Edmund Blackadder, and here, you can read the exploits of every Blackadder there ever was, for this is the Whole Damn Dynasty. O.k, so what do you need a collection of scripts for, when you can just rent/buy the video's? What about those bits of dialogue you could never understand because they were drowned out by laughter? This is especially annoying when it's a punchline. Now you can catch exactly what was said. Alternatively, you could do what my friend and I do - act out the scripts for fun, just for the sake of putting on those silly voices (Baaaah!). Well, it keeps us amused. Although the most recent episode Back And Forth is not contained here (the book came out first), it does contain other episodes you're less likely to find, like the hidden gem, The Cavalier Years. The final reason I can think of is that if you are inclined to collect Blackadder scripts, up until now, all that was available were fan's transcripts off the net - often full of mistakes, and omissions (they don't know what was being said under all that laughter either). So go forth and purchase the collected works of the Slimy Bastard Formerly Known As...The Black Vegetable. It's the most anticipated book since How To Know When You Need Glasses was published in extra-large print.
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