View source for The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend by J F Roberts

{{infobox1
|title=The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend
|sort=True History of the Blackadder: Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend, The
|author=J F Roberts
|reviewer=Robert James
|genre=Entertainment
|rating=3.5
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Maybe
|isbn=978-1848093461
|pages=464
|publisher=Preface Publishing
|date=October 2012
|summary=Informative but surprisingly boring, this is one for Blackadder completists only.
|cover=1848093462
|aznuk=1848093462
|aznus=1848093462
}}
If you need to know everything about the history of ''Blackadder'' and all who worked on it, this is probably the book for you. It has in-depth biographies of all of the main actors involved, lots of details about their prior achievements, and a huge amount of information which includes scripts of deleted scenes. That said, it's staggering that a book about one of the funniest TV programmes ever made can be anywhere near this dull.

Sadly, the turgid writing style of JF Roberts makes this one hard to recommend despite the inclusion of interviews with the likes of Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Stephen Fry, John Lloyd and Brian Blessed. It's an experience which is rather more like reading a school textbook than anything I've had since - well, since leaving school. There's surely more on what happened prior to ''Blackadder'', especially the various roles people played in the Footlights, than anyone really cares about. The decision to write it as if the TV programme was real history is an interesting one but basically gives us lines such as ''the big, bearded Yorkshireman Jane Austen,'' which are presumably meant to be comedic but rather miss the mark.

In fairness, it has its good points - some beautiful photographs for a start, while the six pages or so on the quite stunning conclusion to Blackadder Goes Forth is nearly as moving as watching it always is. The deleted scenes vary massively in quality but a few of them are worth reading, at least. It's also rather touching to see the pride the stars still seem to feel at being associated with such a fabulous programme, and the last chapters give a tantalising tease that we may not have seen the last of the series. Overall, though, I'm rather disappointed with this one.

I'll go for a mild recommendation to buy for ''Blackadder'' completists who have a lot of time on their hands. If you don't have hours to spend with the rather leaden prose, then I'd suggest borrowing it from the library and skipping to 'Parte The Fifth', which deals with ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' and is by far the most interesting.

Fans of television shouldn't miss the excellent [[The Penguin TV Companion by Jeff Evans]].

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