A warm welcome - Rowan Atkinson is Toby the devil
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson, born 6 January 1955, CBE, is an English actor, comedian, and screenwriter best known for his work on the sitcoms "Blackadder" and "Mr. Bean". He is considered one of the funniest actors in British comedy, and amongst the top comedians ever.
The famous short sketch in the video below is a stunning performance of puns and irreverent jokes at Christians, atheists, adulterers, lawyers and more.
- Language Notes and Explanations
- a heck of something= used for emphasis to mean "very". Heck is a late 19th century term from northern English dialect, a euphemistic alteration of hell.
- nitwit: a silly or foolish person, one with very little intelligence, who has no clue what they are doing - Synonyms: fool, blockhead, booby. Origin: 1920-25, from nit (German dialectal variant of nicht) + wit (=intelligence)
- catch someone= see again
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0:00
Ah, hello. Hello. It's nice to see you all here. Now, as the most perceptive of you probably realized by now, this is Hell and I'm the Devil.
0:25
Good Evening! But you can call me Toby if you like, we try to keep things informal in here as well as infernal. That's just a little joke of mine; I tell it every time.
0:40
Now you are all here for... Eternity! Ooh, which I hardly need tell you it's a heck of a long time. So you'll all get to know each other pretty well by the end.
0:54
But for now I'm going to have to split you up into groups. Will you stop screaming? Thank you.
1:00
Now murderers, over here please - thank you - looters and pillagers, over here, thieves if you could join them, and lawyers you're in that group too.
1:10
Ah, Fornicators, if you could step forward. My God there're a lot of you. Could I split you up into adulterers and the rest? Male adulterers if you could just form a line in front of that small guillotine in the corner there.
1:40
Ah, The French, are you here? OK. If you could just come down here with the Germans. I'm sure you'll have plenty to talk about.
1:50
Ok, ahm.. Atheists, atheists over here please, you must be feeling a right bunch of nitwits. Never mind.
2:15
And finally, Christians. I have to say I'm sorry. I'm afraid the Jews were right. If you could come down here that would be really fine. Thank you. Ok, right, are there any questions? Yes?
2:30
No, I'm afraid we don't have any toilets. If you read your Bible, you might have seen that it was "Damnation without relief", so if you didn't go before you came, then, I'm afraid you're not going to enjoy yourself very much, but then I believe that's the idea.
2:50
Ok, Well, it's over to you Adolf, and I'll catch you all later at the barbecue. Bye!