Ten Years Before Mr Bean, Rowan Atkinson Was Already Doing This | Parkinson on BBC

By The Michael Parkinson Channel

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Rowan Atkinson is a farmer's son from Newcastle who is, in real life, quiet to the point of being invisible. On stage he has been described as a semi-lunatic, simmering psychopath. He is not entirely sure where one ends and the other begins. This interview was filmed in 1981. Mr Bean would not exist for another decade. Watch Atkinson's face during this conversation and you will see exactly where he came from. In this conversation with Michael Parkinson, he talks about the first time he performed his manic audience character at a Not the Nine O'Clock News recording, only to be approached mid-performance by a commissionaire who had not been told about him and tried to remove him quietly. The camera was facing Atkinson. The commissionaire only realised he was on television when he saw the look of horror on his own face reflected back at him. He turned and disappeared. Atkinson talks about John Cleese as still the funniest man in Britain, about Peter Sellers as his primary influence, and

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