Ink and Incapability
| "Ink and Incapability" | |
|---|---|
| Blackadder episode | |
Title card, illustrating the "press" theme of the episode.
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| Episode no. |
Series 3 (Blackadder the Third) Episode 2 |
| Written by | Ben Elton, Richard Curtis |
| Original air date | 24 September 1987 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
Robbie Coltrane
Jim Sweeney
Steve Steen
Lee Cornes
"Ink and Incapability" is the second episode of the third series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder.
Samuel Johnson (Robbie Coltrane) seeks Prince George's patronage for his new book, A Dictionary of the English Language. The Prince – seeking to amend his reputation as an "utter turnip-head" – is interested, but Blackadder tries to turn him against the idea, condemning the dictionary as "the most pointless book since How to Learn French was translated into French". It soon emerges that Blackadder resents Johnson for apparently ignoring his novel Edmund: A Butler's Tale which, under the pseudonym of "Gertrude Perkins"; he had secretly sent to Johnson in the hope that he would get it published.
Johnson has a meeting with the Prince, during which George fails to grasp the purpose of the Dictionary because he thought Dr. Johnson's new book was a story about heroes, heroines and villains, while Blackadder annoys Johnson by continuously inventing and using new words to convince him that his work is incomplete. However, on learning that Dr. Johnson had also intended, if given the Prince's patronage, to promote Edmund: A Butler's Tale – a book Johnson considers to be the only one better than his (which Blackadder sarcastically assumes to be named Dictionary II: Return of the Killer Dictionary) – Blackadder persuades George that he should, in fact, support the dictionary.
When Blackadder seeks to retrieve the dictionary for Johnson, Baldrick admits that he has used it to light a fire for the Prince; Blackadder resolves to find out where a copy is kept and have Baldrick steal it, threatening all manner of hellish tortures involving a small pencil that could rival an eternity in Hell with Beelzebub in five minutes if he does not comply. Repairing to "Mrs. Miggins' Literary Salon", where Johnson and his drunken, drug-addicted admirers Lord Byron (Steve Steen), Shelley (Lee Cornes) and Coleridge (Jim Sweeney) are socialising, Blackadder attempts to find out where a copy is kept, but Johnson indignantly proclaims that there is none, and when asked what he would do if the dictionary were to get lost, Johnson and his devotees smugly respond that they would simply kill the one responsible. Returning to the palace, Blackadder desperately attempts to recreate the Dictionary before Johnson discovers the truth. Baldrick and George try to assist, but their efforts are of little help.
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