Blackadder is the name that encompassed four series of a BBC One period British sitcom, along with several one-off instalments.

Although each series is set in a different era, all follow the " misfortunes " of Edmund Blackadder ( played by Atkinson ), who in each is a member of a British family dynasty present at many significant periods and places in British history.

It is implied in each series that the Blackadder character is a descendant of the previous one, although it is never mentioned how any of the Blackadders manage to father children.

Each Blackadder and Baldrick is also saddled with the company of a dim-witted aristocrat whose presence Blackadder must somehow tolerate.

Blackadder II is set in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I ( 1558 – 1603 ), played by Miranda Richardson.

The principal character is Edmund, Lord Blackadder, the great-grandson of the original Black Adder.

Blackadder the Third is set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a period known as the Regency.

In the series, E. Blackadder Esquire is the butler to the Prince Regent, the Prince of Wales ( the prince is played by Hugh Laurie as a complete fop and idiot ).

The final episode of this series, " Goodbyeee ", is known for being extraordinarily poignant for a comedy – especially the final scene, which sees the main characters ( Blackadder, Baldrick, George, and Darling ) finally going " over the top " and charging off into the fog and smoke of no man's land to presumably die.

Another significant difference is that the character of Prince Edmund presented in the pilot is much closer to the intelligent, conniving Blackadder of the later series than the snivelling, weak buffoon of the original.

In a twist on Charles Dickens ' A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Blackadder is the " kindest and loveliest " man in England.

It is set on the turn of the millennium, and features Lord Blackadder placing a bet with his friends – modern versions of Queenie ( Miranda Richardson ), Melchett ( Stephen Fry ), George ( Hugh Laurie ) and Darling ( Tim McInnerny ) – that he has built a working time machine.

While this is intended as a clever con trick, the machine, surprisingly, works, sending Blackadder and Baldrick back to the time of the dinosaurs, where they manage to cause the extinction of the dinosaurs, through the use of Baldrick's best, worst and only pair of underpants as a weapon against a hungry T. Rex.

* Baldrick is a character in the BBC comedy series Blackadder played by Tony Robinson.

* Freddie Frobisher, the flatulent hermit of Lindisfarne, is featured in Blackadder the second, episode Beer.

Richardson is known for her role as a comedic Queen Elizabeth I, aka Queenie, in the British television comedy Blackadder II.

In the television comedy series Blackadder, Richard III is portrayed by Peter Cook in an alternative version of history as a doting, kindly man who treats his nephews with affection.

He is unintentionally killed by Edmund, the titular " Blackadder " ( Rowan Atkinson ), when Edmund thinks he is trying to steal his horse.

The character shift from Prince Edmund in the first series to Lord Blackadder in the second is credited to the involvement of Ben Elton, who joined as the show's co-writer alongside Richard Curtis.

He first became known as one half of the Fry and Laurie double act, along with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, whom he joined in the cast of Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster from 1987 to 1999.

Captain Blackadder claims to have joined the army in 1888, when " if you saw someone in a skirt, you shot him and nicked his country ".

In 2000 the fourth series, Blackadder Goes Forth, ranked at 16 in the " 100 Greatest British Television Programmes ", a list created by the British Film Institute.

Also in the 2004 TV poll to find " Britain's Best Sitcom ", Blackadder was voted the second-best British sitcom of all time, topped by Only Fools and Horses.

This was followed by a second series, Blackadder II ( 1986 ) set during the reign of Elizabeth I, a third series Blackadder the Third ( 1987 ) set during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the reign of George III, and finally Blackadder Goes Forth ( 1989 ) in 1917, set in the trenches of the Great War.

The Black Adder was the first series of Blackadder and was written by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson, and produced by John Lloyd.

It was the following insult directed at Lord Percy by Edmund Blackadder: " The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr. Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Percy?

In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 and voted for by industry professionals, Blackadder Goes Forth placed 16th.

Sir Edmund Blackadder and his servant, Baldrick, are the last two men loyal to the defeated King Charles I of England ( played by Stephen Fry, portrayed as a soft-spoken, ineffective, slightly dim character, with the voice and mannerisms of Charles I's namesake, the current Prince of Wales ).

Blackadder: Back & Forth was originally shown in the Millennium Dome in 2000, followed by a screening on Sky One in the same year ( and later on BBC1 ).

Throughout the year, the specially-commissioned film Blackadder: Back & Forth was shown in Skyscape ( a separate cinema on the site sponsored by BSkyB ).

The alternatives incursion began with The Young Ones ( 1982 – 84 ), written by Rik Mayall, Ben Elton and others, and continued with Blackadder ( 1983 – 89 ).

She is well known for her role as Mrs Miggins in Blackadder the Third ( co-written by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis ).

In addition to his acting on Blackadder, he also wrote and narrated several Jackanory-style children's programmes, encouraged by Richard Curtis.

* In the episode " Dish and Dishonesty " of Blackadder the Third, Blackadder tells the Prince, who has been granted money by Parliament, to " take out the drawings for that beach hut at Brighton!

For example, in the British sitcom Blackadder Goes Forth, set in 1917 ( 27 years before the word was first used ), the character General Melchett declares that he likes the term and orders his batman to take note of it because he wants to " use it more often in conversation ".

In " Private Plane ", when pushed by Blackadder, Darling lets slip that he attempted to transfer to the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps ( although he says there is nothing " cushy " about this ).

Blackadder shares his trench with Private S. Baldrick, and Lieutenant George.

* Blackadder Goes Forth ( 1989 ) " Major Star ", " Private Plane "

* The episode of Blackadder Goes Forth entitled Private Plane reuses scenes from the film during the flying sequence.

Australian tastes can be eclectic when it comes to imported comedy from other English speaking countries, with American series like M * A * S * H, Seinfeld, and The Simpsons acquiring devoted followings in Australia-but so too such quintessentially British comedies as Fawlty Towers, The Goodies, Blackadder and The Office.

In her novel Possession, A. S. Byatt wrote of one of her characters ( Blackadder ) Leavis did to Blackadder what he did to serious students: he showed him the terrible, the magnificent importance and urgency of English literature and simultaneously deprived him of any confidence in his own capacity to contribute to or change it.

Such was Hanna's identification with by-elections that in 1987 he was a guest star in Blackadder the Third, reporting on S. Baldrick's victory at the rotten borough of Dunny-on-the-Wold in the episode Dish and Dishonesty ( and credited as " his own great-great-great-grandfather ").

mima's collections contains works by Frank Auerbach, Ben Nicholson, Stanley Spencer, Elizabeth Blackadder, Ken Currie, Gwen John, Dame Elisabeth Frink, Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Howson, David Bomberg, L. S.