Blackadder will "never" return, says co-creator Ben Elton

“There is never going to be another — I can tell you that now," he told The Sun, putting an end to a recent rumour that the show will be revived.

“Every time Tony [Robinson, who plays Baldrick] does an interview he says, ‘Oh, I think there might be another,’ but don’t listen to Baldrick on this one, you need to hear it from me or Richard [Curtis] as we write it."

Written by Curtis and Rowan Atkinson, Blackadder ran for four series on the BBC from 1983 to 1989, plotting through history from the reign of Richard III to the First World War.

It spawned a handful of other spin-offs including a Comic Relief special in 1988 and comedy film Blackadder: Back and Forth in 2000.

But Elton said that they won't be returning to the series because the "semi-half arsed revivals” in the early 2000s were “s***”, and because he doesn't want to ruin his relationship with Curtis and Atkinson, who played Edmund Blackadder.

“Blackadder wasn’t easy, it wasn’t a particularly happy experience for everyone," he said. "It was very tense, lots of egos, lots of frustrations but through it all everyone remained friendly and deeply respectful. But it was edgy."

He continued: “Richard went in all the time and it was very hard for him but I was like, ‘f*** ’em, if they’re going to spend three hours discussing whether vole or gerbil is a funnier word, when Richard and I had written vole because we know it’s a funnier word, and they’ll come back with vole at the end — then I don’t want to sit through that debate".

Well that's the end of that, then...