Upstart Crow

The sharp, sarcastic wit of Ben Elton is delightful, and the way he plays with words is positively gigglesome. If you liked Blackadder, you'll like this, I guarantee it.

Not a bad effort in trying to replicate the Blackadder historical comedy template. Mitchell is fantastic as the bard. Downie is adequate but a poor man's Rick Mayall, but Heap is dreadful in his Stephen Fry role. As you would expect from Ben Elton, some of the writing is sharp and witty but it doesn't quite reach the highs of his earlier efforts.

It's not very good at all. Kind of shockingly bad. How could something with this cast & title be this bad? And yet, and yet...

Struggling to watch this, the only thing that saves the canned laughters and the very dated jokes of Elton is Mitchells deliveries and Heaps over-acting, and to a lesser extent, the Gervais parody.