Editing Richard Curtis (section)

==Early writing career==
Collaborating with [[Rowan Atkinson]] in [[The Oxford Revue]], he appeared alongside him at his breakthrough [[Edinburgh Festival Fringe|Edinburgh Fringe]] show. As a result, he was commissioned to co-write the BBC Radio 3 series ''[[The Atkinson People]]'' with Atkinson in 1978, which was broadcast in 1979.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jan/31/tvandradio Radio Picks], ''The Guardian'', 31 January 2007</ref> He then began to write comedy for film and TV. He was a regular writer on the BBC comedy series ''[[Not the Nine O'Clock News]]'', where he wrote many of the show's satirical sketches, often with Rowan Atkinson. Curtis co-wrote with [[Philip Pope]] for [[The Hee Bee Gee Bees]]' song "Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices)", released in 1980, to parody the style of a series of [[The Bee Gees]]' disco hits. In 1984 and 1985, Curtis wrote material for ITV's satirical puppet show ''[[Spitting Image]]''.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Spitting Image plans ITV return |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3720773.stm |access-date=29 September 2019 |work=[[BBC News]]}}</ref>

First with Atkinson and later with [[Ben Elton]], Curtis then wrote the ''[[Blackadder]]'' series from 1983 to 1989, each season focusing on a different era in British history. Atkinson played [[Edmund Blackadder|the lead]] throughout, but Curtis was the only writer who participated in [[List of Blackadder episodes|every episode of ''Blackadder'']]. The pair continued their collaboration with the comedy series ''[[Mr. Bean]]'', which ran from 1990 to 1995.

Curtis had by then already begun writing feature films. His first was ''[[The Tall Guy]]'' (1989), a romantic comedy starring [[Jeff Goldblum]], [[Emma Thompson]] and Rowan Atkinson and produced by Working Title films. The TV movie ''[[Bernard and the Genie]]'' followed in 1991.

In 1994, Curtis created and co-wrote ''[[The Vicar of Dibley]]'' for comedian [[Dawn French]], which was a great success. In an online poll conducted in 2004 [[Britain's Best Sitcom]], it was voted the third-best sitcom in British history and ''Blackadder'' the second-best, making Curtis the only screenwriter to create two shows in the poll's top 10 programmes.{{cn|date=June 2024}}