Amy and Amiability

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“Amy and Amiability”
Blackadder episode

Amy Hardwood, "wetter than a haddock's bathing costume"
Episode no. Season 3
Episode 5
Written by Ben Elton
Richard Curtis
Directed by Mandie Fletcher
Guest stars Miranda Richardson
Warren Clarke
Original airdate 15 October 1987
Episode chronology
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"Sense and Senility" "Duel and Duality"
List of Blackadder episodes

"Amy and Amiability" is the fifth episode of the third series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder.

[edit] Plot

The Prince Regent has lost vast amounts of money playing a game called "cards", where participants are dealt five cards and the goal is to give away your money away to your opponents as quickly as possible (George is apparently "a natural"). He is therefore forced to search for a rich wife and hence a sizable dowry. Blackadder begins to look through the newspapers, but notices a portion removed by Baldrick; an article about his favourite highwayman, The Shadow.

Amy Hardwood (played by Miranda Richardson), daughter of a powerful industrialist, seems the only option despite the fact that she says things like, "what about George's lovey-wovey poems that won my hearty-wahty?". The Prince, whose idea of a love letter includes the line "You'll be staring at my bedroom ceiling from now til Christmas, you lucky tart!" doesn't seem likely to succeed on his own, so Blackadder writes his lines for him ("Do you mind if I just change one thing, Your Highness? The words ").

All goes well until Blackadder discovers that Amy's father is broke, upon which he breaks the engagement, though too late to prevent the Prince spending several thousand pounds on wedding gifts. Blackadder puts on a mask and cloak and saddles up Baldrick and turns to the life of a highwayman, succeeding in robbing a noblewoman. He soon discovers that Amy Hardwood is in fact herself the notorious highwayman, The Shadow. She pretends to be in love with Blackadder to steal the Prince's money and the wedding gifts, but Blackadder turns her in for a £10,000 reward. He stows the reward in the biscuit tin where the prince finds it. However, Blackadder convinces the Prince Regent to play a game of "cards" with him.

[edit] Historical and cultural references

  • This episode contains a reference to the Prince's eventual real-life bride, Caroline of Brunswick, who is dismissed as a candidate for having a horrible personality. The real George did in fact marry Caroline of Brunswick and the marriage was an unmitigated disaster.
  • The balcony scene is adapted from a scene in the play Cyrano de Bergerac, in which Christian de Neuvillette uses Cyrano's words to court the beautiful Roxanne.
  • The episode also anachronistically alludes to criticism of The Times in the 1980s.

[edit] Trivia

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