Never mind Leicester winning the league, what odds would you have got on Ben Elton being funny again? But hold the front page Elton has got his mojo back. Well, everything is relative. After his appalling The Wright Way it looked like the acclaimed comic might never make us laugh again. But he has done it with Upstart Crow, which, let’s not mince words, is Blackadder Does The Bard.
David Mitchell plays the lead role as the playwright who is looking for a big break while irritating his family with his pretentious use of florid language. Liza Tarbuck plays his wife, Harry Enfield plays his dad. Enfield doesn’t have many lines but seems to be enjoying himself. In fact there’s a cheery mood throughout the first of six episodes - the loud studio laughter feels pretty genuine.
There is lots to like here, even when it feels derivative. While Shakespeare struggles to come up with a script for Romeo and Juliet he also has to deal with various Blackadder-ish petty rivals. Mark Heap is as excellent as ever as master of the revels Sir Robert Greene, even if it does feel as if he is channeling Lord Melchett.
Other echoes of Blackadder pepper the script. There’s a “woof woof” which is very Flashheart and as one point Shakespeare comes up with “a plan”. The word “cunning” feels as if it is on the tip of Mitchell’s tongue but then he says “corking” instead. Upstart Crow has the rhythms, cadences, comedic mix-ups, wordplay, wit and random slapstick violence that made the Ben Elton/Richard Curtis/Rowan Atkinson classic so memorable.
It’s weird that Elton has done so well here after The Wright Way. Maybe his skill is doing things that are not set in the present. He is the nephew of historian Sir Geoffrey Elton so maybe a passion for the past runs in the family. It is the “modern” jokes that feel out of place. As has already been noted, Spencer Jones as “big in Italy” actor Will Kempe is basically doing an impression of Ricky Gervais, while there is a gag about how the best way to get on in politics is by rogering dead farmyard animals at university. A riff about a broken down coach being substituted with a “ donkey replacement service” feels as if it has fallen straight out of an Elton stand-up routine.
But these are small quibbles. The cast also includes Helen Monks from Raised By Wolves, Gemma Whelan from Game of Thrones and stand-up Rob Rouse as Shakespeare's servant Bottom who definitely isn't like Baldrick. All add to the merriment. Odds bodkins, forsooth, yay verily and all that, this is worth watching.
Upstart Crow, BBC2, Mondays, 10pm.
