The Foretelling The Foretelling "The Foretelling" is the first episode of the BBC sitcom "The Black Adder", the first series of the long-running comedy programme "Blackadder". It marks Rowan Atkinson's début as the character Edmund Blackadder, and is the first appearance of the recurring characters Baldrick (Tony Robinson) and Percy (Tim McInnerny). The comedy actor Peter Cook guest stars as King Richard III. "The Black Adder" is a historical comedy set in late Medieval England on the cusp of the Tudor Period, and centres on the eponymous "Black Adder", the pseudonym adopted from this episode onwards by Edmund Plantagenet, Duke of Edinburgh.
Blackadder from this series ranked number three in a list of the top 25 television "putdowns" of the last 40 years by the "Radio Times" magazine: "The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr. Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Percy?" "Blackadder the Third" is set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a period known as the Regency. In the series, Edmund Blackadder Esquire is the butler to the Prince Regent, the Prince of Wales (the prince is played by Hugh Laurie as a complete fop and idiot). Despite Edmund's respected intelligence and abilities, he has no