"Blackadder Goes Forth" (1989) TV series

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

28 September 1989 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy | History | War

Plot:

In this final series, Blackadder is a World War I army captain trying to survive at the front lines at the Western Front.

Plot Keywords:

Officer | Satire | WWI | 1910s | Soldier

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Rowan Atkinson	...	Captain Edmund Blackadder (6 episodes, 1989)
Tony Robinson	...	Private S Baldrick / ... (6 episodes, 1989)
Stephen Fry	...	General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett (6 episodes, 1989)
Hugh Laurie	...	Lieutenant The Honourable George Colthurst St. Barleigh (6 episodes, 1989)
Tim McInnerny	...	Captain Kevin Darling / ... (6 episodes, 1989)

Runtime:

30 min (6 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 | Ireland:15 | Australia:PG | Singapore:PG | Portugal:M/6

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

Tim McInnerny affected a nervous tick in his eye for the character of Captain Darling, but after the six-week rehearsal and shooting schedule was over, the tick had become second nature and it took him a further two months to get rid of it.

Quotes:

Lord Flasheart: [off stage] Hey girls, look at my machinery!
[feminine squeals of delight off stage - cue to Flasheart entering room buttoning up his files]

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Story of Bean (1997) (TV)

WWI comedy series with great lines

While I can think of plenty of WWII comedies, comedies about WWI are few and far between. Okay, there is Chaplin's Shoulder Arms, but then I fail to think of anything - apart from these glorious 6 half-hour long pieces of British Comedy. There are reasons for this scarcity, most notably that hardly anything happened during the war, except that millions of soldiers died in their muddy trenches. Not much room for a comedy writer to get his teeth into, is there?

Well, watch this and you'd be surprised how much one can squeeze out of that setting. The main angle is the absurdity of it all, which our hero, Edmund Blackadder, is fully aware of. Alas, he's the only one and so his cynicisms and sarcasms remain undetected by the other characters. The highlights of the series are thus Blackadder's one-liners (well, often a bit longer than one line).

If you have grown up watching TV comedy US style only then you may find the conclusion of the series rather disturbing.