Rowan Atkinson was born on January 6, the twelfth night of Christmas. In keeping with that theme his parents gave him the middle name of Sebastian, after the brother of Viola on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”.
He was born in Consent, Co Durham, England. His father owned a farm in the area, but he was brought up in a residential area. He had two older brothers Rupert and Rodney. He went to Public school in England. He attended Newcastle University before going to Oxford in 1975, and it was at Oxford that he met screenwriter Richard Curtis, with whom he wrote and preformed comedy revues at the Oxford Playhouse and later at the Edinburgh fringe.
“Rowan used to be shy with a rubbery face”-says his former headmaster.[1]
“The other boys made him pull funny faces. I’m sure they had been imitations of me and my colleagues “, adds headmaster Grove.
Rowan Atkinson was the youngest of three sons. By the time he was thirteen, he had won a scholarship to a private school. After he had been studying there for a while he got involved in acting. By the time he was seventeen, he had already acted in a play at the Edinburgh Festival.
His teachers predicted a future in acting, but despite this, Rowan still wasn’t planning a career in entertainment.
A happy accident finally unlocked Rowan’s talents while he was practising a script in 1976. He was playing around pulling faces for ten minutes in front of a mirror when he realised what he had done. “I discovered my face”, he said later.
John Lloyd, a BBC producer, says: “It was one of those things which happen very rarely in your life, when you realise you are in the presence of genius. I was convinced he would be more famous than Chaplin”.[2]
Events in Order
- Wrote and performed comedy revues with Richard Curtis at the Oxford Fringe Playhouse and the Edinburgh
- Feature acting and writing debut , “The secret Policeman ’ s Ball”
- Joined the English series “Not the Nine O’ Clock News” as a writer (with Richard Curtis) and performer
- Named BBC Personality of the Year
- Co-wrote (with Richard Curtis) and started (in the title role) as the BBC-TV series, “The Black adder”
- First non- comic feature role , “Never Say Never Again”
1985 Starred in the West End production of «The Nerd”
- Starred in “Black adder Goes Forth”
- Starred in the West End production of “The Sneeze”
- Co-wrote (with Richard Curtis) and starred in the English series, “Mr. Bean”
- Reprised role of Mr. Bean for the big screen comedy “Bean”
- Appeared in “Maybe Baby”
- Offered a scene-stealing comic turn as an Italian tourist who is selected to participate in a “Rat Race”
- Starred as a bumbling spy who can’t get anything right in comedy “Johnny English”
Starred in “Black adder II” (first collaboration with Ben Elton)
Starred in “Black adder the third”
Starred in the British sitcom “Thin Blue Line”
Atkinson’s Film Career
Top Selling Rowan Atkinson’s Films
- Love Actually (2003)
- Johnny English (2003)
- The Complete Mr. Bean (1995)
- Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
- The Lion King (1994)
Often works with…
Tony Robinson
Hugh Laurie
Stephen Fry
Miranda Richardson
Tim McInnerny
In 1980 “Not the Nine O’ Clock News” won the British Academy Award as the Best Light Entertainment Series, with Atkinson winning the top honor for his performance. He was also named BBC Personality of the Year. In February 1981, Atkinson became the youngest person to have a one-man show in London’s West End. That three month sell-out seasons at the Globe Theatre won him the Society of West End Theatres Award for Comedy Performance of the Year.
In 1983, Atkinson was offered the role of Inspector Clouseau In Blake Edward’s “The Pink Panther”, but turned it down. Instead, Atkinson directed his first film for the training film company Videos Arts, which won him a Gold Award.
Atkinson made his major feature film bow with a small, yet comical role in the James Bond thriller, “Never Say Never Again”. In the late ‘80s he starred in a few films penned by Curtis.
Rowan Atkinson become famous starring in “The Blackadder”, a BBC ” situation tragedy” co-written with Curtis. The show spawned three sequel series- “Blackadder II”, “Blackadder the Third” and “Blackadder Goes Forth”. Rowan Atkinson then went on to star as another memorable character in ITV’S Mr. Bean, which was made into a successful feature film in 1997. With virtually no dialogue, the comedy and its star become famous worldwide. Running for six years, Mr. Bean developed a cult following and by the late ‘90s had spawned a feature film.
Although he made strong showings in films like “The Witches and Four Weddings and a Funeral”, and lent his voice to the popular animated feature, “The Lion King”, Atkinson went back to television, with a new series, “The Thin Blue Line”. Based on comical adventures of a police station, the show didn’t fare well with audiences and only lased two seasons.
During the late ‘90s he started having some commercial exposure for products like Barclaycard and M&M chocolate candy. Back into films by the start of the new millennium, Atkinson has landed roles in Maybe Baby (2000), Rat Race (2001) and Scooby-Doo (2002).
Filmography
Rowan is a man who brought us Black Adder I trough IV, The Tine Blue Line, and of course Mr. Bean. Thanks to the success of TV series Rowan is famous in all world.
Some of the best movies and TV series are…
Mr. Bean
Since his first appearance in 1989, Mr. Bean has achieved a massive following around the world – he’s now recognized as the most popular British comedy export since Benny Hill. Some people even thinking of him as sex symbol. His visual humour and celebrate sight gags transcend linguistics frontiers, and have earned comparisons with the great silent movie star Buster Keaston – although apparently his character was based on the work of French comic genius Jacques Tate.
Mr. Bean is a British comedy television series, starring Rowan Atkinson. The programmed was produced by Tiger Television, later renamed Tiger Aspect productions (a company in, which Atkinson has a stake), for the Thames Television and originally shown on ITV. It is written by Atkinson, Robin Driscoll and Richard Curtis.
The first episode was broadcast on 1 January 1990, with the final episode, “Goodnight, Mr. Bean”, on 31 October 1995. In the United States the show has been broadcast on the PBS intermittently over the past few years and is now available on DVD.
In the show, Atkinson plays a selfish, sometimes ingenious, and generally likeable buffoon who frequently gets into hilarious situations due to his various schemes and contrivances. The show relies upon physical comedy, with very little dialogue.
It features Mr. Bean trying to undertake what would normally be considered simple tasks, such as going swimming or taking an exam. One of his acts, most beloved by fans is stuffing a turkey and getting it stuck on his head. The popular US sitcom Friends later reused this same joke. The humor largely comes from his original solutions to any problems and a total disregard for others when solving them.
Mr. Bean is the only significant character in the program (save for Teddy, his lovable stuffed teddy bear). Other character exist simply as foils for his various antics, and besides the star, there are only two recurring supporting characters; his sometime “girlfriend” Irma Gobbl (played by Matilda Ziegler) and Mr. Sprout, who often seen in a light blue Reliant Regal superman.
Mr. Bean is alone in the world, is frequently childlike, and often seems unaware works.
A movie, Bean, was made based on the show in 1997, but this broke from the show’s tradition by using a subplot with more developed characters. Instead of being the sole center of attraction, Mr. Bean here played second fiddle to the travails of a typical suburban Californian family. Many fans of the original series were quite disappointed with this Americanization and break from format.
Bean Animated Series
The character was revived again in the 2002 animated series, Mr. Bean, again featuring little soundbites or mumbling.
Some people have questioned the point of an animated Mr. Bean-although he is now capable of far stranger adventures (and facial expressions), they lock the interest generated when it was an actual person doing it.
The series is notable, however, for following up on the “alien” origin theory for the character, with its final episode revealing a race of identical Beans.
Not the Nine O’ Clock News
Before The Thin Blue Line, before Mr. Bean, before Blackadder, Rowan Atkinson starred in (and wrote for) the BBC’s collection of topical comedy, Not the Nine O’ Clock News. Running from 1979 to 1982, the show was what Americans have compared to a half-hour long version of the “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday Night Live (although not everyone would agree with that).
Pamela Stephenson who wound up on SNL a few years later, also appeared on Not the Nine O’ Clock News along with future Alas Smith & Jones stars Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. A better American show to compare this to would be HBO’s 1983 series Not Necessarily The News, which many remember for the Sniglets segments besides the news paradise. It was a direct, American style, of Not the Nine O’ Clock News, and lased until 1990.
Keeping Mum
Contains strong language and moderate nudity.
The sleepy English hamlet of little Wallop is about to receive a rude awakening, as the absent-minded Reverend Walter Goodman, his dissatisfied wife Gloria, and their two children, Holly and Petey, await the arrival of their new housekeeper, Grace Hawkins.
Love Actually
Contains sex scenes and strong language.
Set in contemporary London in the two months before Christmas, it weaves together a series of touching and hilarious stories, which end in not one, but lost and lost of romantic climaxes on Christmas Eve.
Johnny English
Contains mild language and comic violence.
During the course of the story we follow our hero as he attempts to single-handedly save the country from falling into the hands of a despot.
Scooby-Doo
Contains mild action violence and sex references.
Scooby and the gang will have to forget everything they know about fake ghouls and phony creatures to crack the case, save themselves and possibly the world.
Rat Race
Donald Sinclair owns the biggest, snazziest, flashiest, high rolling-est casino in Los Vegas. And to entertain some of his wealthiest patrons, he’s created the most original high stakes game that Sin City has ever seen.
Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie
Bean works as a caretaker at Britain’s formidable Royal National Gallery, and his bosses want to fire him because he sleeps at work all the time, but can’t because the chairman of the gallery’s board defends him. They send him to USA, to the small Los Angels art gallery instead, where he’ll have to officiate at the opening of the greatest US picture ever (called “Whistler’s Mother”).
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Charles (Hugh Grant) is s confirmed bachelor with a colourful romantic background who meets the perfect woman, Carrie (Andie MacDowell), at a friend’s wedding.
The Witches
A young boy stumbles onto a witch convention and must stop them, even after he has been turned into a mouse.
Mr. Bean Volume
Rowan Atkinson returns as the hilarious, legendary character Mr. Bean in the long awaited launch of Mr. Bean on DVD.
Delighting all ages with his madcap antics, fans can relive classic Bean episodes whilst younger family members can be introduced the crazy world of Mr. Bean.
Maybe Baby
A comedy about a couple who are trying to conceive a child.
Conclusion
It was a pleasure to write about one star like Rowan Atkinson. The first what I thought about this man was that he is just Mr. Bean, but it is not like that at all. He did lot of another things. He is very special and complete person. He makes me laugh even when he doesn’t act. I really enjoyed doing my work about him because, every time I saw a picture of him picture I laughed. I hope that you find out that Rowan Atkinson is not just Mr. Bean, that he is a family man, actor, writer, producer …
We all should enjoy in our lives and try to make our days much funnier, because only that is the only way to live longer.
I hope I managed to show what humor really is. Every nation has its own way to make us laugh and no matter how, it is important that we accept it in a good way as they want us to do.
After all this I only can say that we all should laugh more because it is very god for health and it helps us to be in a good mood.
Bibliography
- www.britishcomic.com
- www.britishhumor.tv.com
- www.rowanatkinson.com
[1] Michael Harris; David Mower; Anna Sikorzyńska: Opportunites: Upper Intermediate, 2002,str. 26
[2] Ibidem