Nob and Nobility

"Nob and Nobility" is the third episode of the third series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder. Blackadder is disgusted with the English obsession with the the Scarlet Pimpernel, the great hero who has saved so many French aristocrats from the Revolution underway in France. As he puts it, London is full of "garlic-chewing whoopsies crying 'ooh la la' and looking for sympathy all the time just because their fathers had their heads cut off". He sees no m... more

"Nob and Nobility" is the third episode of the third series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder. Blackadder is disgusted with the English obsession with the the Scarlet Pimpernel, the great hero who has saved so many French aristocrats from the Revolution underway in France. As he puts it, London is full of "garlic-chewing whoopsies crying 'ooh la la' and looking for sympathy all the time just because their fathers had their heads cut off". He sees no merit in the Scarlet Pimpernel who is simply saving members of England's traditional enemy: "Was the man who burnt Joan of Arc simply wasting good matches?". After Blackadder disparages the Pimpernel, two effete noblemen, Topper (Tim McInnerny) and Smedley (Nigel Planer), bet him a thousand guineas that he can't go to France, rescue an aristocrat and present him at the French Embassy Ball. Blackadder accepts, but instead of actually going to France, he takes the far safer course of hiding in the kitchen for a week (relying on the fact the... less