Show Notes
Today Tony is talking to his old friend and collaborator, the screenwriter Richard Curtis. They share memories of making Blackadder from the early years to how it all ended. Along the way, they discuss Richard’s comedy roots and how he became a top comedy screenwriter: meeting Rowan Atkinson at Oxford Uni; working on Not The Nine O’Clock News; the influence of Fawlty Towers and plans for a Blackadder series set in the 1960s that never happened. Plus, they read lines from the Blackadder pilot script and discover where Baldrick’s ‘cunning plan’ catch-phrase comes from.
Last year Blackadder turned 40, to mark the occasion, Tony made a TV show in which he tracked down the lost Blackadder pilot to discover the truth of Blackadder's beginnings. For the show, Tony interviewed many old friends and people who are central to making Blackadder the success it was, as well as Blackadder superfan David Mitchell, who is featured in Cunningcast Series 2, Episode 4. You are hearing Tony’s unedited, behind the scenes chat with Richard Curtis recorded for the TV programme. The show is called Blackadder: The Lost Pilot and you can watch it on Sky, Virgin & Now.
Richard Curtis was Blackadder’s mastermind and writer, alongside Ben Elton. He’s one of Britain's most successful screenwriters and producers, with credits including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Mr Bean, The Vicar of Dibley, Love Actually, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Yesterday. He’s also the co-founder of Comic Relief.
Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson
X | Instagram
With
Richard Curtis
Credits:
Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg
Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville
Blackadder: The Lost Pilot is produced by Red Sauce
A Zinc Media Group production
Follow:
X @cunningcastpod
Instagram @cunningcastpod
YouTube @cunningcast
If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.
Thank you, Love Tony x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Tony Robinson's Cunningcast
Tony looks back at the best bits of Cunningcast Series 3 with series producer Melissa FitzGerald.
In this bonus episode of Cunningcast, Tony Robinson is joined by biblical scholars John Barton and Francesca Stavrakopoulou to explore the Dead Sea Scrolls and what they reveal about the origins of the Bible and early Christianity. From their dramatic discovery in the late 1940s and recent AI-led re-dating, to the startling variety of ancient Jewish and Christian texts—including lost gospels and strange infancy stories of Jesus—they uncover a world of belief far more diverse and surprising than the Bible alone suggests. As Francesca says, “these texts show the sheer variety of early Christian belief and stories about Jesus that were in circulation.”
Today Tony is joined by an Anglican priest, John Barton, and an atheist scholar, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, to strip away myth and reverence and reveal the Bible as a messy, brilliant, centuries-long experiment in storytelling, belief, politics, and power. Full of sex, violence, poetry, argument, and big ideas, the Bible emerges not as a single holy book but as one of the most influential and fascinating collections of texts ever written. As Francesca says, ‘whether we believe it or not, the Bible is one of the most important cultural icons of our time.’
In this special collaborative episode, Tony Robinson sits down with Time Team’s Helen Geake for an immersive dive into ‘The House of Wolf’, his gripping new historical saga. Tony reveals how decades of archaeology, storytelling, and acting shaped the novel’s vivid world of Alfred the Great, political intrigue, and everyday Anglo-Saxon life. Together, they explore the magic of Time Team, the thrill of discovering traces of real people in the landscape, and why England has always been shaped by its ties to Europe. With the insight of an actor, the heart of a storyteller, and the mud-soaked experience of a field archaeologist, Tony reveals how real lives, real landscapes, and real discoveries shaped his most ambitious work yet.
The third part of Tony’s chat with The Beatles biographer Ian Leslie, exploring the emotional and creative partnership between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They discuss how Lennon’s 1966 “more popular than Jesus” remark shook him, how the Beatles abandoned touring for studio experimentation, and how Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman became catalysts for John and Paul pulling apart. Business conflicts, especially over management, deepened divisions even as the band continued producing remarkable work, culminating in Abbey Road. Despite a turbulent breakup, Lennon and McCartney slowly rebuilt a loose friendship before Lennon’s death, and the Beatles’ artistic legacy continues to shape modern music.