What can the Royal Family do to retain the affection of the Great British public ? How about joining the army , flying an Apache helicopter and zapping mad mental theocrats in Afghanistan ? Things were slightly different in 1987 and killing very bad people wasn't allowed . Instead someone somewhere thought it might be a good idea to bring in the somewhat lowly regarded Queen's children to lead an all star celebrity IT'S A KNOCKOUT and involve Edmund Blackadder and Stuart Hall . Edmund Blackadder was always the man to hate in British television in the late 1980s being a cruel sadist and who would ever think that in 2013 that after seeing THE GRAND KNOCKOUT TOURNAMENT in he'd be only the second most despicable person on screen . Of course Rowan Atkinson isn't playing Edmund Blackadder , he's playing someone called Lord Knock of Alton but he's Blackadder in everything but name
The show itself revolves around those zany assault courses that made IT'S A KNOCK OUT a popular TV show in the 1970s where people dress up in strange costumes and run around tripping all over the place while getting soaked with hoses while Stuart Hall collapses in to hysterical laughter ( I bet you're not laughing now Stuart ) and there's two differences with this edition
1 ) It's for charity
2 ) The contestants are major celebrities from Britain , American and Australia
As for the first point if there's a need for charity might it not be a good idea to scrap the civil list thereby negating the need for Fergie's expensive dresses and Prince Edwards expensive hairdressing bill ? As for Australia they are mainly represented by George Lazenby because Australia didn't have very famous actors back then except for Rod Taylor and Errol Flynn and Errol Flynn wouldn't be seen dead in this
The tournament is won and Lord Knock states that " It's always sad to pick out a winner when all have behaved with such consummate absurdity . But let the losers take comfort in the thought that they will never ever look so foolish again . " This isn't actually correct since in 1992 Fergie was seen with a financial adviser who was giving her advice her husband wouldn't approve of and the presenter Stuart Hall ... well we all know what happened to him and his notoriety will live long after him . When a republican watches a show and their pernicious hatred isn't focused on the royals that tells you something about the nugatory morals of Stuart Hall . Off with his head
