Edmund Blackadder to a lord ("Blackadder II"), a knight (""), a royal attendant ("Blackadder III"), a shopkeeper ("Blackadder's Christmas Carol"), to an army captain ("Blackadder Goes Forth"). Throughout each series, Blackadder is a self-serving, cynical opportunist concerned solely with increasing his own influence, status and wealth. His character is symbolized by the adder, the United Kingdom's only native venomous snake, which sometimes appears in the series as a visual motif. With the exception of the first Blackadder incarnation, Prince Edmund, each Blackadder is generally cynical, charismatic and intelligent. While he is haunted by bad luck, he is usually very capable of manipulating
Blackadder II the previous series, as the puritanical Lady Whiteadder in "Beer"; and Stephen Fry's comedy partner Hugh Laurie, who appears twice, first as the drunken Simon Partridge in "Beer" and in the final episode as the evil Prince Ludwig. Laurie was later given a larger role as George in the next two series. Also Bob, played by Gabrielle Glaister, a former classmate of Ben Elton's, made her first appearance. Several of the characters were seen in similar guises in later series. The opening titles are accompanied by a mock-Elizabethan arrangement of Howard Goodall's "Blackadder" theme played on a recorder and an