Blackadder the Third Baldrick sometimes calls Blackadder "Mr. B."). There are three main sets: the Prince's quarters, which are large and lavish, the below-stairs kitchen hangout of Blackadder and Baldrick, which is dark and squalid (though in fairness, very large and with a very high ceiling), and finally Mrs. Miggins' coffeehouse. Mrs. Miggins' pie shop was a never-seen running gag in "Blackadder II"; she — or at least, a descendant of hers — is now finally shown, played by Helen Atkinson-Wood. The plots of the series feature a number of then-contemporary issues and personalities, such as rotten boroughs, Dr. Samuel Johnson (played by
Blackadder Goes Forth for the "Blackadder" series: We wanted a place and a time that could reproduce to a certain extent the claustrophobia and the sordidness of medieval England, and the best way to do that is to set it in the middle of a war. Co-writer Richard Curtis has said that before writing the series, the writers read a number of books about the war and decided that the First World War was a particularly apt subject for a situation comedy, finding that "actually, all the lead up to the first world war was very funny, all the people coming from communities