Blackadder, the comic creation of Rowan Atkinson who appeared in four BBC comedy series, is returning to the BBC for the first time in 12 years, by royal appointment.

The popular character will appear in a trailer promoting concerts in Buckingham Palace gardens for the BBC's Music Live festival marking the Queen's Golden Jubilee.

Atkinson will reprise his role, appearing as a modern-day civil servant, Sir Osmond Darling-Blackadder, keeper of the Her Majesty's lawnsprinkler.

The trailer was due to run earlier this week but has now been delayed until the end of February out of respect for the death of Princess Margaret.

Reactionary

It has been written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, who, between them, wrote three of the four series. The first series was written by Curtis and Atkinson.

The new Blackadder is a reactionary who has been asked formally to announce the jubilee concerts but thinks they are a terrible idea.

"We don't want thousands of people wandering around here, willy-nilly," he says in the trailer.

"I said to her: 'You're the Queen, not Fat Boy Slim'. If I have it my way, it won't be happening."

'Extraordinary'

The trailer was filmed in secret at Buckingham Palace state rooms and gardens.

Nick Vaughan-Barratt, the BBC's events creative director said: "The promo shows our attitude towards the jubilee is a contemporary attitude and also that the palace has got a good sense of humour."

"It has been the most extraordinary thing we have negotiated," he added.

Blackadder returned for a one-off special filmed for the arrival of the millennium in 1999 and it was shown at the Millennium Dome in Greenwich before being screened on BSkyB.