By Jeff Pfeiffer
Happy Holidays! ‘Tis the season to be jolly, and also to look back at some Christmas memories. What better way to be jolly than to enjoy some Yuletide TV programs from the past? Throughout the month I’ll be looking back at some famous, and perhaps some not-so-famous, Christmas shows from television days gone by. Hopefully you’ll find them as merry in their various ways as I do.
First off is a program I was reminded of when I saw it on BBC America the other night — Blackadder’s Christmas Carol from 1988. The hilarious Blackadder sitcom aired in the 1980s and starred Rowan Atkinson. In each of the show’s four series, Atkinson played a member of the Blackadder family who is present at various times in British history, from Elizabethan times to World War I. Each Blackadder is a mean-spirited sycophant, intent only on raising his own social status by any means necessary, often at the expense of others.
But in this Christmas episode, set in the Victorian era, a fun twist is added to both the Blackadder series and to A Christmas Carol, as this Blackadder actually starts the story off as the kindest man in London — so kind that he is often taken advantage of in the way his relatives have abused others. Over the course of a Christmas Eve visit from a ghost (a hilarious Robbie Coltrane), however, Ebenezer Blackadder quickly sees the “error” of his kindhearted ways.
Lots of witty lines and great comic performances from now well-known actors like Atkinson, Coltrane, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Jim Broadbent and Miranda Richardson offer a nice reversing of the tried-and-true Dickens chestnut.
If you missed it on BBC America, they usually air it again around Christmastime, and we’ll keep you posted.