Blackadder: The Cavalier Years Blackadder: The Cavalier Years Blackadder: The Cavalier Years is a 15-minute one-off edition of "Blackadder" set during the English Civil War, shown as part of the first Comic Relief Red Nose Day on BBC1, broadcast on Friday 5 February 1988. The show featured all series regulars except Tim McInnerny and Hugh Laurie with Warren Clarke as a guest star. The episode begins in November 1648. King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland has already lost the Civil War. Only two men remain loyal to him: Sir Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), the sole descendant of the Blackadder dynasty at the
Blackadder meeting between Richard Curtis and comedian Ben Elton led to the decision to collaborate on a new series of Blackadder. Recognising the main faults of the first series, Curtis and Elton agreed that "Blackadder II" would be a studio-only production (along with the inclusion of a live audience during recording, instead of showing the episodes to an audience after taping). Besides adding a greater comedy focus, Elton suggested a major change in character emphasis: Baldrick would become the stupid sidekick, while Edmund Blackadder evolved into a cunning sycophant. This led to the familiar set-up that was maintained in the following