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Baldrick is a fictional character featured in the television series Blackadder. He serves as the servant, sidekick, and frequent punching bag of Edmund Blackadder, and is played by the actor Tony Robinson. Just as Blackadder exists in many incarnations throughout the ages, so does Baldrick; wherever there is a Blackadder there is a Baldrick serving him. Initially Baldrick was the smart one and Blackadder the idiot, but as Blackadder's social status has fallen so has Baldrick's intelligence, while Blackadder's rises with each series.
Intelligent or not, Baldrick is always one for inventing "cunning plans", which are generally ridiculed by Blackadder, who nevertheless ends up using them.
Other traits shared by all Baldricks (except possibly the first one) are sheer disgustingness and an obsession with turnips.
The medieval Baldrick was probably the only Baldrick of the four who could really be described as clever. Baldrick, an ex-dung shoveller (a respected position, which he had worked very hard to get - earlier jobs include milking pigs and mucking out lepers), first met Prince Edmund at the feast before the Battle of Bosworth Field. The two, along with Lord Percy, toasted their new friendship, unaware that from that point onwards, their descendants' lives would be eternally entwined.
Although cleverer than the Prince, Baldrick holds him in some sort of awe. He often leads cheers in the Prince's honour (along with Lord Percy, who tries hard to join in), fills his head with illusions of grandeur, and often ends up doing his dirty work. This included carrying the decapitated body of Richard III and sleeping with the Spanish Infanta, Edmund's fiancee, so that Edmund didn't have to. The latter task resulted in several injuries, including a seriously blackened eye. When Baldrick is abandoned by Edmund in the final episode, a tear falls from his eye.
It was this Baldrick who suggested the title 'The Black Adder' for Prince Edmund, which his descendants later adopted as a surname.
The Elizabethan Baldrick is the servant and bondsman, rather than a friend, to Lord Blackadder, who mistreats him, and, Baldrick claims, at first tried to kill him. He has a bedroom in Blackadder's house, but has also been forced to sleep in the gutter and on the roof. He has a tendency to eat dung. Baldrick has been in Lord Edmund's service longer than either of them care to remember. Yet although his master treats him with the sort of contempt reserved for lepers, he remains intensely loyal.
This Baldrick, whilst perhaps not as dim as his descendants, is much stupider than the original. A kindly soul, Baldrick's lack of formal education is compensated for by his basic streetwise cunning. Whilst his 'cunning plans' do sometimes have a strange, twisted and often perverse logic and cunning to them (one suggestion was that Blackadder repay his debts by making money as a male prostitute, another is to disguise a 'mad, wild, killer bull' as a rooster and entering it in a cock fight), he does show an entertaining display of stupidity. In one episode, Blackadder attempts to teach Baldrick how to add. Baldrick's conclusions, which include 'two beans plus two beans equals some beans', 'two beans plus two beans equals three beans... and that one' and 'two beans plus two beans equals a very small casserole', leads Blackadder to comment 'to you, Baldrick, the Renaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn't it.'
It was also in this series that the first signs of Baldrick's love of turnips was shown, in the episode 'Beer', where he and Percy famously discover a turnip shaped like a 'thingy'. Baldrick later describes the incident as 'triffic'.
Baldrick once went on an 'all mouse diet' by hanging a piece of cheese off of the end of his nose and lying with his mouth open, hoping that mice would scurry in. He later tried the same thing, with a mouse on the end of his nose to catch a cat, for variety.
Baldrick was also bridesmaid at Lord Blackadder's wedding, Queenie kept him as a pet calling him Lassie (Baldrick didn't complain) and he stuck two pencils up his nose, so that he could attended a Royal fancy dress party as a pencil case.
The Baldrick of Regency Britain works as a dogsbody to Mr. E. Blackadder esq., butler to Prince George. He lives in a pipe in the upstairs water closet of the Palace.
The third Baldrick is much more noticeably stupid and guillotine by waiting until your head has been cut off, then 'springing into action' and running 'around and around the farmyard, and out the farmyard gate', in the style of a chicken, and
Blackadder also claims that Baldrick has never changed his trousers, and implores him never to do so, for they are, Blackadder claims, akin to Pandora's Box.
Although he is now on a similar social standing to Blackadder, he still receives the same level of abuse as his Elizabethan ancestor. Edmund punches him, kicks him, breaks a milk-jug over his head, threatens to cut him up into strips and tell the prince that he walked over a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat and promises one minute of hellish tortures involving a small pencil.
However, despite his noticeable disabilities, this Baldrick has more success than any of the others. In an election rigged by Blackadder, he is elected MP for Dunny-on-the-Wold, a rotten borough, although he was intended to be a puppet for Blackadder to manipulate. He is later made a Lord by Prince George, and is, therefore, eligible to sit in the House of Lords (although whether or not he ever does so is another matter). He also succeeds where no Baldrick has succeeded before or since, in calling Blackadder a 'big nosed, rubber faced, bastard'.
Baldrick uses the money he received as a Lord to buy his dream turnip. Blackadder later destroys it.
Baldrick isn't given any sort of first name until the third series, when he speculates that it might be "Sod Off", since his childhood friends would say "Sod Off Baldrick". A diplomatic Blackadder opts to record him as "S. Baldrick". This name appears to have been adopted by his descendants.
Private Baldrick is a soldier in a First World War trench, serving under Captain Blackadder and Lieutenant George. His hero is Lord Flashheart.
Equally as disgusting as the third Baldrick, Private Baldrick is, without a doubt, the stupidest of the Baldrick dynasty to date. His 'cunning plans' verge on those of an insane person. Examples include carving his name on a bullet, in relation to the old saying 'a bullet with your name on it', his explanation being that if he owns the bullet, it won't ever kill him as he won't ever shoot himself ('shame' comments Captain Blackadder), and the chances of there being two bullets with 'Baldrick' carved into them are 'very small indeed'.
Private Baldrick's hobbies include cookery, his specialities including:
This Baldrick is also a poet. His greatest poem is, without a doubt, 'The German Guns'. The words are:
Baldrick was particularly surprised when Captain Blackadder guessed the final line. He also does a fantastic Charlie Chaplin impression (although some believe it to be a slug balancing act).
Despite his stupidity, Private Baldrick (however inadvertently) delivers the most profound speech of the lot. In preparation for 'the final push', tension is high, and Baldrick demands, "Why can't we just stop sir? Why can't we jusy say 'no more killing, let's all go home'? Why can't we pack it in? Why?". Neither Captain Blackadder nor Lieutenant George are able to come up with a good answer.
It is believed that Private S. Baldrick was killed going 'over the top' in 1917.
Other members of the family have been seen in various Blackadder specials. They generally appear to be similar to the character seen in Blackadder the Third, possibly suggesting that he has become the "definitive" Baldrick. They are:
(In probably the most poignant scenes of the series, Blackadder, Baldrick, and George sit in the dug-out, waiting for the big push. There is a real sense of time being on their hands)
The character is named for the baldric.
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