Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-03
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, PAL, Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6

Amazon.co.uk Review
One of the best comedy series ever to emerge from England, Black Adder traces the deeply cynical and self-serving lineage of various Edmund Blackadders from the muck of the Middle Ages to the frontline of World War I. In his pre-Mr Bean triumph, British comic actor Rowan Atkinson played all five versions of Edmund, beginning with the villainous and cowardly Duke of Edinburgh, whose scheming mind and awful haircut seem to stand him in good stead to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury -- a deadly occupation if ever there was one. Among tales of royal dethronings, Black Death, witch-smellers (who root out spell-makers with their noses), and ghosts, Edmund is a perennial survivor who never quite gets ahead in multiple episodes. Jump to the Elizabethan era and Atkinson picks up the saga as Lord Edmund, who is perpetually courting favour from mad Queen Bess (Miranda Richardson) and is always walking a tightrope from which he can either gain the world or lose his head. Subjected to bizarre services for her majesty (at one point, Edmund is asked to do for potatoes what Sir Walter Raleigh did for tobacco), Edmund -- like his ancestor -- can never quite fulfill his larger ambitions. The next incarnation we encounter is in late-18th-century Regency England. This time, Blackadder is a mere butler to the idiotic Prince Regent (Hugh Laurie in a brilliantly buffoonish performance) and is caught in various misadventures with Samuel Johnson, Shakespearean actors, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and William Pitt the younger. With a brief stop in Victorian London for a Christmas special, the series concludes with several episodes set during the Great War. The new Edmund is a career army officer, but a scoundrel all the same. Shirking his duties whenever possible and taking advantage of any opportunity for undeserved reward, this final, deeply sour, and very funny Blackadder negotiates survival among a cadre of fools and dimwits. No small mention can be made of Atkinson's supporting cast, easily among the finest comic performers of their generation: besides Laurie and Richardson, Stephen Fry, Tony Robinson, and Tim McInnerny. --Tom Keogh

DVD Description
For the first time every Blackadder episode is packaged together in a special boxset, including Blackadder's Christmas Carol, Back and Forth and The Cavalier Years. This six disc set has a running time of 763 minutes.

Customer Reviews

Legendary series, DVDs lacking extras though
If you've never seen Blackadder before, here is your chance to put that right. Everyone has their favourite series and favourite episodes, but there's always something for everyone with Blackadder; both visual humour and verbal humour too.

It's fantastic to own all the Blackadders in one set, including the extra one-offs which were made such as "Blackadder's Christmas Carol", but in some ways the DVD set is a bit disappointing. With the publishers going to the trouble of issuing this set in a new fancy box, there are no real new extras for the fans that have been there from the start. It would have been nice to have a couple of commentaries at least.

However Blackadder alone is worth 5 stars, and if you don't own any of the series on DVD(as I didn't either), this is the perfect set. The DVD set has an attractive design and takes up very little space on the shelf.

All the Blackadder you could ever want
It seems amazing now that the BBC should ever have commissioned such a series (and it probably wouldn't do it now) but from a slightly dodgy premise - historical comedy through various ages - the team (Atkinson, Robinson, McInnerney, Laurie, Fry, Richardson, Elton and Curtis etc.)created a genuine classic. The first series was a bit shaky but after that it grew better and better over the years until the final series - set in the trenches of World War One - achieved not only the usual sackloads of laughs but real pathos. A great show that will continue to stand the test of time. Lead on Slack Bladder!

A very stylish boxset.
This is a 6-disc boxset of all four series of Blackadder with subtitles, two feature-length specials ("Blackadder's Christmas Carol" (with subtitles) and "Back and Forth" (without subtitles)), a 15 or so minute mini-feature having Blackadder in the time of Cromwell ("The Cavalier Years"), and a 30 minute making of documentary about Back and Forth (but does cover the series of Blackadder as well - analyzing the characters etc) "Baldrick's Video Diary". And all of this comes in a very stylish, specially designed limited edition box... 4cm thick (so very shelf-friendly) and made to look like an 'olde worlde' book.

And I just wanted to also say... for anyone who has been dreading or putting off seeing series one because of bad reviews - it's not bad it's just different. It's not got Ben Elton's style but it does still have the essence of Blackadder - the sarcasm and cynicism of Edmund, the not-so-cunning plans of Baldrick, and the total idiocy of Percy. The only real difference is that Baldrick's a bit cleverer (worth seeing it for that IMO) and Blackadder's a bit Mr Bean-ish (with a squeaky voice and goofy look), but the character hierarchy is still the same. It also has a lot of before-they-were-famous appearances, such as Angus Deayton and Jim Broadbent (DCI Roy Slater, Del Boy's arch enemy in Only Fools and Horses). It does take some getting used to but it really is just as hilarious as the others at times.

Overall, if you love Blackadder this is the set to get.