Blackadder and 'The Pyrates'

By Richard Curtis and Ben Elton

Works under consideration: 17
Dark Angels in my head: 1
Inspirations: 1 (today it’s Edmund Blackadder)
Pyrates: 3
Widgets to create: #110 Jerry Falwell Shrek meter (measure YOUR gullibility)


Inspiration?
It’s all around.

Hitting the spot?
How do you hit the spot every time? That sweet spot where you think you’re going to die from laughter?

If you want to learn how to write think of what inspired you. Think of the writer/comedian, think of the work/riff, think of the scene/line and type it out. That’s right copy it and see how they ‘spend their words.’ Repeat with double line spacing and now take your idea/character and take them through the same scene. Repeat until it’s inside your gut (the place you should write from, read Natalie Goldberg’s ‘Writing Down The Bones.’)

Blackadder II
Hence this excerpt from Blackadder II ‘Chains.’ It’s Blackadder’s reply to Ludwig ‘the fat-headed German chamber-pot.’ It makes me laugh but also hits the spot. The spot being a well deserved target hit with accurate unrelenting withering flame.

The video is nine minutes so you may want to get it out on DVD. Here’s the speech that I copied out. Well I actually typed out the whole episode and took three of my sitcom characters through the whole plot. See below.

Blackadder has just listened to Ludwig do some very poor impersonations.

BLACKADDER:
What else have you got in your astoundingly inventive repertoire, I wonder? A brilliant drunk Glaswegian, no doubt! A hilarious black man ‘See you Jimmy’, ‘Where am dat warty melon?’ Fabulous! I can’t wait to see your side-splitting poof and your funny little croaky one who isn’t anyone in particular, but is such a scream! And most of all, I like the one you do all the time, the fat-headed German chamber-pot standing in front of me!

Ludwig’s pleasant demeanour starts to crack.

- END -

I’ve highlighted in bold the line that made me want to write comedy.


PYRATES
These characters started as a sketch when I was writing with a partner (Rest in Peace Andy) and I wrote a sitcom for them ‘The Pyrates.’ Did I mention that they live in the present day, well there was a thunder storm, a LARGE bolt of lightening, and they happened to be transported through time. Yes. It does happen.

The Main Characters
Captain Nice
Well mannered, insistent on good grammar, and given to outrageous poses

Woody
He has peg legs, peg hands, and a peg nose, given to morose poetry, well known in the squirrel community.

Granite
A very large, very angry Pyrate, given to setting himself on fire, for “FUN!”


Yep Pyrates, not Pirates, that would be sissy.


More from them some other time. Till then…

“Toot Toot! And Pip Pip HORRAY!”