A draft script for a never-produced Christmas episode of the BBC comedy series Blackadder has been discovered during research for a new book. The script, titled Blackadder in Bethlehem, features Rowan Atkinson's character as the owner of the inn where Joseph and Mary seek shelter.
The story includes Baldrick, the Three Kings, and a talking turkey. Written in 1988 by Richard Curtis, the script was given to comedy historian Jem Roberts, who includes fragments in his book The History of the Black Adder, published this week.
Curtis abandoned the idea, according to the book, 'for fear it would cause too much offence'. Instead, the Dickensian-themed Blackadder's Christmas Carol was produced and broadcast on 23 December 1988.
Roberts told the BBC he was amazed when Curtis printed out the document from his computer and handed it to him. 'My jaw dropped when I saw I was holding a lost Blackadder script,' he said.
The script is set on 24 December at the Blackadder Inn in Bethlehem, with an opening scene featuring Blackadder and Baldrick discussing a turkey for the 'most important night in the history of this hotel'. A subsequent scene shows Baldrick in the kitchen with a turkey that remonstrates with him about being plucked and eaten.
Roberts described the script as 'the rough workings of a comic genius', noting that it was incomplete. The book marks the 30th anniversary of the first pilot episode of The Black Adder and was written with the cooperation of Curtis, Ben Elton, producer John Lloyd, and the cast and crew.
