164 - Blackadder Goes Forth

Comedy Slab

This week we review - (Series 4 Episode 6)
Blackadder Goes Forth is set in 1917 on the Western Front in the trenches of World War I.
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".
Finding himself trapped in the trenches with another "big push" planned, his concern is to avoid being sent over the top to certain death.
His comrades in arms 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. Baldrick (Tony Robinson).
Rather than the Germans, who remain 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 from the front, and Melchett's bureaucratic assistant, Captain Kevin Darling (Tim McInnerny).
Written by Richard Curtis, Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson.
Produced by Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow and Richard Boden.
A BBC tv Production.
Blackadder is available here: https://bbc.in/38L9c5m
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