Since 1935 actors have been appearing on our screens as Dr Samuel Johnson in short dramas, TV movies, sitcoms and documentaries. Intriguingly, the depictions of this man’s life are as diverse as the range of genres in which they are articulated. Writing in the eighty-sixth number of his one man periodical, The Rambler, Johnson stated that ‘there are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.’ The most concise survey of on-screen depictions of Johnson reveals the same truism, with each production in some way editing Johnson’s life and character to its own ends and ultimately perpetuating a caricature that has subsequently both found an unlikely (but not undeserved) place in television comedy history and has (perhaps more disturbingly) made a side step into documentary.
Johnson’s most formidable and best remembered works are indicative of a desire to provide his own age with the ‘definitive’ version of a series of crucial texts. Most famously Johnson produced his Dictionary in 1755: a text which took nine years to produce. Johnson also worked for much of his life on a new edition of the works of Shakespeare, and in his final years composed the towering Lives of the English Poets, a work which provided biographical introductions to over fifty poets published throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This latter example is indicative of Johnson’s sustained interest in life writing. Throughout his career the same precision and detail applied during the composition of his Dictionary is applied to the writing of biographical accounts (notably, The Account of the Life of Richard Savage). Johnson, more than most, was a man who was deeply aware that future generations would be sifting through the historical moment in which he had lived and a brief survey of his works indicates a persistent desire to ‘set the record straight’. Indeed, not only did Johnson make an enormous contribution to the field of literary biography, he also became the subject of biography himself in James Boswell’s affectionate and not insubstantial Life of Johnson. It would, therefore, no doubt come as quite a surprise to Johnson to learn that it is neither his works nor Boswell’s that provide the image of Johnson shared by the public consciousness today, but instead a brief performance by Robbie Coltrane in a cult episode of Blackadder first broadcast in 1987.
Coltrane was far from the first to portray Johnson on the small screen. In the 1930s Johnson was depicted by Robert Atkins in three short productions in England and America: the most notable being the short comedy Johnson was no Gentleman, which as early as 1939 attempts to subvert long-standing preconceptions of Johnson’s good reputation for comic effect. Johnson again appeared on television in 1957 when he was portrayed by Peter Ustinov in a one-off episode of the educational show Omnibus. Johnson continued to make brief cameo appearances in anthology shows throughout the 1960s, played by Robert Eckles in one instalment of Camera Three (‘The Image of Pope’, 1963) and Roger Livesey in a single episode of Espionage (‘The Frantic Rebel’, 1964). 1971 saw the first film dedicated to Johnson himself with the Scottish Television production of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, in which the lead character is played by Timothy West.
Pre-empting Blackadder in some ways, this biopic plays hard and fast with the chronology of Johnson’s life, forcing as much as possible into his final decades. The film is right to exploit Johnson’s friendship with Boswell (played by Julian Gover, who is currently enjoying a reoccurring role in Game of Thrones as Grand Maester Pycelle), although there is a sense that Boswell is the far more interesting character in the film. Indeed, this is true of the production as a whole. Whilst there is an undeniable thrill in seeing figures such as David Garrick and Oliver Goldsmith on the screen the extent of time paid to establishing the characters of Johnson’s literary companions serves to render him something of a supporting character in his own biopic. The film, which has only enjoyed a single broadcast, has not been well remembered, leaving Coltrane to give his definitive performance in 1987.
Having subsequently become widely regarded as a classic of British comedy, ‘Ink and Incapability’ appears in the third series of Blackadder, delivering a wealth of gags aimed squarely at an audience relatively familiar with the long eighteenth century. Although there are an abundance of fairly niche references to the literature of the period, it is worth noting that the majority of these jokes are achieved through an anachronistic reordering of history. It might seem churlish and unfair to scrutinise a sit-com with limited pedagogical ambition, but it is significant since the conflation of Johnson’s achievements into single moments of storytelling does seem a persistent trend in his depiction. The episode sees Samuel Johnson appealing to a young Prince George for patronage even though his Dictionary was published in 1755, seven years before the Prince was born. The Prince is also Regent in the episode, despite Johnson having died in 1784: over twenty years before Price George’s Regency. Much humour is mined from Johnson’s rallying of the Romantic poets to help support him in his dispute with Blackadder, although both Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley were born after Johnson died. Coleridge, who is also present, was only twelve years old at the time of Johnson’s death. It is likely that the inclusion of such figures was intended to highlight the high esteem in which Johnson was regarded by the literary elite that surrounded him, but that Wordsworth and Shelley carry more cultural currency than his actual contemporaries (such as Garrick or Goldsmith). However, despite these wilful inaccuracies the episode is highly successful in using its brief running time to depict a vision of Johnson which encompasses much of what he was remembered for.
Though the dictionary is clearly central to the episode it is also fascinated with the establishing (and troubling) of Johnson’s reputation as ‘the cleverest man in England.’ At the time that his Dictionary was published Johnson had been a regular contributor to The Gentleman’s Magazine and he had enjoyed success with the Life of Richard Savage. However, it is likely only in the aftermath of the Dictionary that he would have been characterised as something similar to the ‘renowned brainbox’ described here. Blackadder is instead dealing with Johnson’s subsequent reputation, as characterised by the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, which allows Edmund Blackadder to bump heads with the mythic Johnson of posterity.
Edmund is sceptical of the good Doctor’s unrealistic reputation, and in articulating his distaste he kicks off the clever word play and lexicographical humour that characterises the episode’s strongest jokes: ‘But, today, something’s even wronger. That globulous fraud, Dr. Johnson, is coming to tea.’ Of course, ‘wronger’ is Edmund’s neologism; a word he has invented (as is ‘globulous’). This line follows Edmund’s concession that Johnson is only a genius if that word can be defined as “a fat dullard or wobblebottom; a pompous ass with sweatly dewflaps.” When Coltrane’s Johnson does eventually appear, Edmund relishes the opportunity to taunt him with invented words that are missing from his dictionary:
Johnson: (places two manuscripts on the table, but picks up the top one) Here it is, sir: the very cornerstone of English scholarship. This book,
sir, contains every word in our beloved language.
George: Hmm.
Edmund: Every single one, sir?
Johnson: Every single word, sir!
Edmund: (to Prince) Oh, well, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the Doctor my most enthusiastic contrafibularities.
Johnson: What?
Edmund: `Contrafibularities’, sir? It is a common word down our way.
Though clearly entertaining, the script is also hinting at some of the crucial questions raised by the production and distribution of a ‘definitive’ dictionary. As the bathos of this sequence foregrounds, the sheer ambition of such a task is unrealistic. How can Johnson account for region and dialect, or words that are ‘common […] down our way’? This even provides the episode’s penultimate punchline, as a frustrated Johnson storms out upon realising that he forgot to include the word ‘sausage.’ Earlier, is Edmund’s use of the word ‘wronger’ actually wrong? Similarly, what makes his definition of genius any less valid than anyone else’s? Without a dictionary, what authority can be used to contradict him, and what gives the dictionary power to define such things? Once again it his Dictionary that is the star of the show, as Johnson himself is largely reduced to a fleeting cameo.
That being said, it is in the nuances of the script that a knowing viewer can see that the writers have done their research. For instance, Johnson champions Edmund’s novel, Edmund: A Butler’s Tale, mistaking it for the work of Edmund’s pseudonym Gertrude Perkins (also allowing for a timeless gag about the most successful authors having female pen names: ‘Everybody’s doing it these days… Mrs. Radcliffe, Jane Austen– […] James Boswell is the only real woman writing at the moment, and that’s just because she wants to get inside Johnson’s britches.’). This fits with Johnson’s real interest in furthering the cause of women novelists; an interest which ultimately led to his championing of Frances Burney’s Evelina.
The immediate legacy of ‘Ink and Incapability’ is a one-off thirty minute episode of the 1993 anthology series Screenplay titled ‘Boswell & Johnson’s Tour of the Western Isles.’ Loosely adapting Johnson’s A Journey to the Islands of Scotland, this production sees Johnson again portrayed by Robbie Coltrane (who, previous to Blackadder had already played Johnson in a 1987 stage production of ‘Your Obedient Servant’). This production makes a wise move in focusing on a very specific moment later in Johnson’s life. Coltrane, though still playing a broad comedy version of Johnson, is able to justifiably play him as the author aware of his own celebrity; and indeed, much of the fish out of water comedy comes from his indignation that the native Scots fail to recognise his eminence. The genre of travel narrative frees the screenplay from worrying too much about plot and instead strings together some of the more humorous observations from the Journey. Unsurprisingly the script avoids the more derogative or indeed racist elements of its primary text. By adapting an existing text this is perhaps the most successful and accurate depiction of Johnson yet produced.
Most recently Johnson has appeared on television screens in the critically praised BBC4 docu-drama, Samuel Johnson: Dictionary Man (2006). By approaching Johnson within a documentary this production does much to remedy the short comings of previous depictions, taking special care to correctly articulate the chronology of the dictionary’s production. A pleasing mix of talking heads, close investigation of the artefact itself, and some (slightly incongruous) dramatised moments provides a thorough and inspiring introduction to Johnson’s project. Roger Ashton-Griffiths makes a fine Samuel Johnson, as he is seen to appear every ten minutes or so to speak aloud famous quotes seemingly in conversation. Visually the ghost of Coltrane’s earlier depiction is still present and arguably the two performances are equally caricatured (but this is perhaps to be expected if he is only to be seen on screen for a few minutes at a time speaking his own famous sound bites.) Justifiably much time is spent in this documentary emphasising the importance and significance of the dictionary. A side-effect, however, is that this becomes as much a sentimental celebration of Johnson’s memory as it is a thorough investigation of his life and work. However, as an introduction to his life, and his dictionary (which, once again takes the centre stage) this is a highly competent production, hopefully rekindling interest in Johnson’s work and achievements.
Depictions of Johnson on television have frequently seen him cameo as a supporting character. The man is often shelved in favour of his reputation and his greatest work is recurrently seen to eclipse any insights into his own life story. A disproportionate amount attention has been paid to the final decades of his life, or, elsewhere, his life has been depicted as having happened all at once. For a figure so intrinsic to the instigation of the genre of literary biographical writing it is surprising that film makers have yet to attempt to capitalise upon the wealth of material that Johnson generated and create a drama that seriously attempts to thoroughly depict the life and times of one of eighteenth-century England’s finest men of letters.