the real war horse documentary channel 4

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Blackadder himself describes Haig's attempts at an advance as no more than 'another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin' and, when asked by Melchett for suggestions to improve the troops' morale, jokingly suggests Haig's resignation and suicide. įield Marshal Douglas Haig, whose orders are alleged to have resulted in hundreds of thousands of British deaths at the battles of Passchendaele and the Somme, is continually referenced. Later in the same episode, Blackadder describes the Great War as 'a war which would be a damn sight simpler if we just stayed in England and shot 50,000 of our own men a week'. In ' Private Plane', after receiving word that Blackadder and Baldrick may have been killed when shot down over German lines, Melchett tries to cheer George up by showing him a life-size model (measuring seventeen square feet) of land recaptured by the British, a commentary on the high human cost and small physical gains achieved by attacks in the middle years of the war. In the episode ' Corporal Punishment', Blackadder justifies the shooting for food of a carrier pigeon (which turns out to be Melchett's pet, Speckled Jim) by saying, 'With 50,000 men getting killed a week, who's going to miss a pigeon?' This episode sees Blackadder being sentenced to death by firing squad for the act, a reference to the capital sentences carried out under the laws of war in force at the time. The idea that the soldiers suffered whilst their commanders remained safely distant from the action was also referenced on many occasions, such as when Melchett says to Baldrick, 'Don't you worry my boy, if you should falter, remember that Captain Darling and I are behind you!', to which Blackadder responds, 'About 35 miles behind you!'. The dialogue is marked throughout by satirical musings about the nature of the war, its origins and the effects on the soldiers who suffered over its course.

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This is signified by the red tabs on the collar of his uniform and the red band on his service cap.īlackadder Goes Forth is darker in tone than the previous three Blackadder series and most sitcoms, and presents an anti-war message. Although Blackadder and Darling are both captains, Darling has seniority because he is a staff officer. Their animosity is mutual, largely as a result of Blackadder exploiting the comic potential of Darling's surname at every opportunity. Despite the two being of equal rank, Blackadder treats Darling with contempt – while the former is on the front line, the latter is 'folding the general's pyjamas'. More than the Germans, who are generally unseen, Blackadder's nemeses come in the form of his superior, the eccentric General Melchett ( Stephen Fry) who rallies his troops from a French château 35 miles (56 km) from the front, and Melchett's bureaucratic assistant, Captain Kevin Darling ( Tim McInnerny). The aforementioned comrades are his second-in-command, idealistic upper-class Edwardian twit Lieutenant George St Barleigh ( Hugh Laurie) and their profoundly stupid but dogged batman Private S. The series thus chronicles Blackadder's attempts to escape the trenches through various schemes, most of which fail due to bad fortune, misunderstandings and the general incompetence of his comrades. Finding himself trapped in the trenches with another 'big push' planned, his concern is to avoid being sent ' over the top' to certain death.

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Captain Edmund Blackadder ( Rowan Atkinson) is a professional soldier in the British Army who, until the outbreak of the Great War, has enjoyed a relatively danger-free existence fighting natives who were usually 'two feet tall and armed with dried grass'.

īlackadder Goes Forth is set in 1917 on the Western Front in the trenches of World War I. However, some historians and politicians have criticised it for presenting a critical view of the war, reinforcing the popular notion of ' lions led by donkeys'. In 2000 it was placed 16th by industry professionals in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes compiled by the British Film Institute. ĭespite initial concerns that the comedy might trivialise the war, it was acclaimed and won the British Academy Television Award for Best Comedy Series in 1989. The series references famous people of the time and criticises the British Army's leadership during the campaign, culminating in the ending of its final episode, in which the soldiers are ordered to carry out a lethal charge of enemy lines. The series placed the recurring characters of Blackadder, Baldrick, and George in a trench in Flanders during World War I, and followed their various doomed attempts to escape from the trenches to avoid death under the misguided command of General Melchett. Blackadder Goes Forth is the fourth series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 28 September to 2 November 1989 on BBC1.