Rowan Atkinson Returns to West End with Mr Bean and Blackadder

Rowan Atkinson will return to the West End stage next February in Rowan Live, performing Mr Bean, Blackadder and characters from across his career in a limited run of 30 performances.

The show will pair his most famous television sketches with new routines written specifically for the production. Material will draw on shows including Not the Nine O'Clock News, the 1979 satirical series where Atkinson first made his name.

Who is writing the new material?

Atkinson will reunite with his long-time collaborators. Richard Curtis, who co-created Blackadder and wrote Mr Bean, is writing new material alongside Ben Elton, the Blackadder writer, and Howard Goodall, the series' composer. The four last worked together on the Blackadder franchise, one of the most successful British sitcoms of the 1980s.

Curtis and Atkinson's partnership dates to the late 1970s, when their sketch work on Not the Nine O'Clock News launched both careers.

Why now?

Atkinson said the anniversary prompted the return. "It is 40 years since I last did a comedy sketch show in the West End," he said in a statement.

He expanded on the reasoning: "I thought it would be fun to perform again the sketches that began it all for myself and [writer] Richard Curtis, and in which my most well-known characters originated, alongside some surprise new material written especially for this show."

What can audiences expect?

The production structure follows a retrospective format:

• Classic sketches from Not the Nine O'Clock News and other TV work
• Performances of Blackadder and Mr Bean material
• New, previously unseen routines created with Curtis, Elton and Goodall
• Described by Atkinson as including "surprise new material"

The 30-performance run makes it one of the shorter West engagements for a performer of Atkinson's stature, suggesting premium demand for tickets when booking opens.

Rowan Live opens at a West End venue in February, marking Atkinson's first sketch-based stage show in four decades — and a rare chance to see the characters he built on television performed live with their original creative team.