Atkinson was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy,and among the top 50 comedians ever, in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. In addition to his 1981 BAFTA, he received an Olivier Award for his 1981 West End theatre performance in Rowan Atkinson in Revue. He has also had cinematic success with his performances in the Mr. Bean movie adaptations Bean and Mr. Bean's Holiday, and also in Johnny English (2003), and the sequels Johnny English Reborn (2011) and Johnny English Strikes Again (2018). He also appears as the titular character in Maigret (2016-present).
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Early life:
Atkinson, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England, on 6 January 1955.
His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945.His three older brothers are Paul, who died as an infant; Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the UK Independence Party leadership election in 2000; and Rupert.
Atkinson was brought up Anglican, and was educated at Durham Choristers School, a preparatory school, St Bees School, and Newcastle University, where he received a degree in Electrical Engineering. In 1975, he continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, the same college where his father matriculated in 1935, and which made Atkinson an Honorary Fellow in 2006.
First winning national attention in The Oxford Revue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1976, he had already written and performed early sketches for shows in Oxford by the Etceteras — the revue group of the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), and for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), meeting writer Richard Curtis, and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.
Career:
Radio
Atkinson starred in a series of comedy shows for BBC Radio 3 in 1979 called The Atkinson People. It consisted of a series of satirical interviews with fictional great men, who were played by Atkinson himself. The series was written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis, and produced by Griff Rhys Jones.
Television:
After university, Atkinson toured with Angus Deayton as his straight man in an act that was eventually filmed for a television show. [citation needed] After the success of the show, he did a one-off pilot for London Weekend Television in 1979 called Canned Laughter. Atkinson then went on to do Not the Nine O'Clock News for the BBC, produced by his friend John Lloyd. He featured in the show with Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith, and was one of the main sketch writers.
The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to him taking the lead role in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder (1983), which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis. After a three-year gap, in part due to budgetary concerns, a second series was broadcast, this time written by Curtis and Ben Elton. Blackadder II (1986) followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in the two more sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) (set in World War I). The Blackadder series became one of the most successful of all BBC situation comedies, spawning television specials including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988), Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (1988), and later Blackadder: Back & Forth (1999), which was set at the turn of the Millennium. The final scene of "Blackadder Goes Forth" (when Blackadder and his men go "over the top" and charge into No-Man's-Land) has been described as "bold and highly poignant". During the 2014 centennial of the start of World War I, Michael Gove and war historian Max Hastings complained about the so-called "Blackadder version of history".
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