Ink and Incapability
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| Blackadder Episode | |
| Ink and Incapability | |
 Prince George and Samuel Johnson |
|
|---|---|
| Air date | 24/09/1987 |
| Writer(s) | Ben Elton, Richard Curtis |
| Director | |
| Guest star(s) | Robbie Coltrane |
| ← Prev Dish and Dishonesty |
Next → Nob and Nobility |
Ink and Incapability is an episode of the BBC sitcom Blackadder.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Samuel Johnson (played by Robbie Coltrane) seeks Prince George's patronage for his new book, A Dictionary of the English Language. George does not grasp the purpose of the Dictionary ("I know what English words mean! I SPEAK English! You must be a bit of a thicko...") but Blackadder persuades him. Confusion over Baldrick's fire-starting methods leads them to believe the book has been burned. Blackadder attempts to find out where a copy is kept so Baldrick can steal it. Johnson announces there is no copy(Johnson: Making a copy is like fitting wheels to a tomato, pointless and time consuming). The Blackadder, Baldrick and the Prince attempt to recreate the Dictionary before Johnson discovers the tragedy (Blackadder: "Have you got 'C'?" Baldrick: "Yes. 'C: A big blue wobbly thing that mermaids live in.' "). Ultimately the error is discovered, but it is revealed that Baldrick did not burn the dictionary but Blackadder's manuscript: "Edmund, a Butler's Tale", written under the pen-name "Gertrude Perkins". Dr. Johnson departs in a fit of anger which is brought on when Baldrick causes Johnson to realise the dictionary is missing the word "sausage". Blackadder also discovers it is missing the word "aardvark" (a word he had considerable trouble defining while trying to recreate the dictionary). The episode ends with Baldrick lighting a fire and this time actually burning the dictionary.
[edit] Significance
The theme of unsuccessful attempts to better oneself is continued in Ink and Incapability. In this case Dr Johnson says that Edmund: A Butler's Tale would have made him and "Gertrude Perkins" millionaires -- but alas, this is not to be.
[edit] Trivia
- Well-known poets Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge appear in this episode, hanging round Mrs. Miggins's coffee shop and lamenting their drug addiction, tuberculosis and other woes. They are billed in the credits as "romantic junkie poets."
- There is also a joke about dictionaries being primarily used to look up naughty words.
- Samuel Johnson actually published his dictionary in 1755, seven years before the Prince was born. Johnson died in 1784, 25 years before Prince George became Regent. Likewise, Byron, Shelley and Coleridge, though contemporaries of each other and the Prince, would never have met Johnson.
- Thomas More was beheaded, not burned at the stake.
