Miranda Richardson she prefers new work rather than the classics because of the history which goes with them. In 1985, Richardson made her film debut as Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, in the biographical drama "Dance with a Stranger". Around the same time, Richardson played a comedic Queen Elizabeth I, aka Queenie, in the British television comedy "Blackadder II". Following "Dance with a Stranger", Richardson turned down numerous parts in which her character was unstable or disreputable, including the Glenn Close role in "Fatal Attraction". In this period, she appeared in "Empire of the Sun"
Blackadder essentially to play himself. Political commentator Vincent Hanna played a character billed as "his own great-great-great grandfather" in the episode "Dish and Dishonesty" of "Blackadder the Third". Hanna was asked to take part because the scene was of a by-election in which Baldrick was a candidate and, in the style of modern television, Hanna gave a long-running "live" commentary of events at the count (and interviewed candidates and election agents) to a crowd through the town hall window. Howard Goodall's theme tune has the same melody throughout all the series, but is played in roughly the style of the period