Blackadder’s Christmas Carol (1988)
A kind Victorian shopkeeper gets a visit, and learns to be nasty.
Run the story backwards: the spirit shows a good man what being bad would get him, and he likes what he sees.
You love British comedy and you have had enough of being told to be nice.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the Victorian setting and a spirit showing a man past and future.
Changes: the direction of travel. Rowan Atkinson’s Ebenezer Blackadder starts generous and ends grasping, and Robbie Coltrane is the Spirit of Christmas.
Whose story is it?
Ebenezer Blackadder’s.
How much time does it ask?
42 minutes, first shown on BBC1 on 23 December 1988. Written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton.
Rowan Atkinson, Robbie Coltrane. BBC.
Where to find it
Blackadder: The Ultimate Edition, DVD — Amazon
Other ways to get it: DVD, Region 2 (UK players) — Amazon · Find where it’s streaming — JustWatch
Common questions
What happens in Blackadder's Christmas Carol?
It reverses the story. Ebenezer Blackadder begins as a generous Victorian shopkeeper; after the Spirit of Christmas shows him past and future, he decides the bad have all the fun and becomes mean.
More Christmas Carols: A Christmas Carol (MGM, 1938) · Scrooge (1951), with Alastair Sim · A Christmas Carol (1984), with George C. Scott