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 a vulgar friend in his first appearance and then a successful rival of Blackadder in a later episode of series 2 and 4. He also played a decidedly Flashheart-like Robin Hood in "Back & Forth". Lee Cornes also appeared in an episode of all three Curtis-Elton series. He appeared as a guard in the episode "Chains" of "Blackadder II"; as the poet Shelley in the episode "Ink and Incapability' of "Blackadder the Third"; and as firing squad soldier Private Fraser in the episode "Corporal Punishment" of "Blackadder Goes Forth". More established actors, some at the veteran stage of their careers,