Captain Blackadder

Captain Edmund Blackadder is the main fictional character in the fourth and final series of the popular BBC sitcom Blackadder, Blackadder Goes Forth. He was played by Rowan Atkinson.
Having spent the last three years in the trenches of the First World War, Captain Blackadder is an accomplished career soldier who holds the overly-enthusiastic and idealistic volunteers he commands in withering contempt. He also harbours little respect for his superiors, whose failure to grasp the concept of modern industrial warfare has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths for very little territorial gain; he once described the war as "a gargantuan effort by Field Marshal Haig to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin". Naturally, Blackadder spends most of his time trying to get out of the trenches before the insane General Melchett gives him the order to "climb out of the trenches and walk very slowly towards the enemy". Blackadder's attempts to escape are opposed by Melchett, who does not realise the futility of the war, and Melchett's assistant Captain Darling, who does. Darling and Blackadder have a natural animosity towards one another, since Darling is aware that Blackadder is attempting to avoid his duty, while Blackadder hates Darling for his comfortable position in a French chateau 35 miles behind the front. Darling would gladly see Blackadder killed by German machine guns, although the two bury the hatchet without saying a word when Darling is posted to the front line in the final episode (for the first time in the series they courteously greet each other as "Captain").
Captain Blackadder claims to have joined the army in 1888, when "if you saw someone in a skirt, you shot him and nicked his country". He joined the 19th/45th East African Rifles, when Britain was fighting colonial wars during the Scramble for Africa, a time when "the prerequisite for any battle was that the enemy should under no circumstances carry guns". He described the military as having been "little more than a travel agency for men with unusually high sex drives". He was hailed as the 'Hero of Mboto Gorge' in 1892, where he had faced "ten thousand Watutsi warriors armed to the teeth with kiwi fruit and dry guava halves". He even saved the life of Douglas Haig (later Field Marshal Douglas Haig) when he was nearly killed by a pygmy woman with a sharpened mango. At some point before the First World War, Captain Blackadder transferred to the Suffolk Regiment), the local regiment of Cambridge. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Blackadder was quite shocked when 4,500,000 heavily armed Germans "hoved into view".
Blackadder shares his trench with Private S. Baldrick, and Lieutenant George. Although well-intentioned, both fail to understand their predicament and demonstrate a high level of incompetence, hindering Blackadder's escape attempts and augmenting his sense of frustration.
Continuing the trend of the previous series, he is more intelligent and passive than previous Blackadders. He appears to have a good knowledge of history as he often refers to past events and people (although usually to insult others). His social status is unknown (his mocking of George for his aristocratic background suggests he may be upper-middle class).
He is the only Blackadder seen to have enjoyed romantic success (although all apparently managed to father children): Prince Edmund was found repulsive by women and forced into an arranged marriage with a child; Lord Blackadder was jilted by his fiancée, Kate (Bob) and ended up consorting with prostitutes, and Mr. E. Blackadder was tricked by Amy Hardwood but found genuinely attractive only by Mrs. Miggins, whom he despised and who eventually eloped with his cousin MacAdder. Captain Blackadder conducted an affair with Nurse Mary Fletcher-Brown (although he later justified this as counterespionage). Though his interest in her was not genuine, she later admitted attraction to him.
His tunic displays him having earned 4 medals, in order from left to right they are: The Queen's South Africa Medal, The King's South Africa Medal, The 1914 Star and the French Croix de Guerre which Lt. George St. Barleigh, MC also has.
Attempts to avoid battle
Captain Blackadder's various attempts to avoid going over the top, by episode, include:
*"Captain Cook": Posing as Italian chefs while claiming Pope Gregory the Ninth invited the original cook away, with Baldrick as cook (thereby nearly poisoning Melchett and Darling).
*"Corporal Punishment": Feigning communication problems by imitating static on the telephone and shouting out orders in German, disregarding a telegram ordering him to advance on the grounds that it was wrongly addressing one "Catpain Blackudder" and shooting General Melchett's favourite carrier pigeon with its orders to attack, and then eating the evidence (i.e., the bird). This series of evasions got Blackadder court-martialled with the furious General Melchett himself acting as the trial's presiding judge, finding Blackadder guilty of killing the pigeon (as well as disobeying orders, as a side-note), and sentencing him to death by firing squad. Blackadder is saved when the Minister of War, Lieutenant George's uncle, pardons him, without any particular help from the incompetent George.
* "Major Star": Organising a music-hall performance under Melchett's suggestion, with Lieutenant George as the drag act "Gorgeous Georgina" (this plan was aborted when General Melchett fell madly in love with 'Georgina' and Blackadder was forced to fake "her" death, even after he got a genuine female for the act, Melchett then thought it was a horrible drag act).
* Private Plane: Joining the Royal Flying Corps under Lord Flashheart (not knowing that green pilots had an even worse survival rate). He later accepted capture by Baron von Richthofen so as to escape through the 'humiliating' punishment of spending the rest of the war "teaching home economics in a German convent outside Heidelberg."
* General Hospital: Working on a counterespionage assignment in a British field hospital under "Operation Winkle"
*Goodbyeee: feigning insanity by sticking two pencils up his nose, putting underpants on his head and saying, "Wibble." When this fails, he tries to get Field Marshal Haig, who owes him a favour, to get him out of the trenches, but Haig suggests the previous method and hangs up.
The end
In the final scene of the series, Blackadder shows the first (and, so far, only) sign of bravery (or resignation) from any Blackadder in the series. Finally deciding that continuing to avoid battle would be just as futile as taking part, he accepts his fate and leads an equally frightened Captain Darling, Lieutenant George and Private Baldrick over the top of the trench and out into no man's land for the 'Big Push'. His final recorded words, uttered while standing in the trench with Darling, George and Baldrick (along with the infantry company he commanded), were "Good luck, everyone." after which he blew a whistle. Blackadder is believed to have been killed in action after going over the top, though his actual fate is uncertain.
In a 2005 BBC documentary series showcasing some of Britain's favourite sitcoms, The Blackadder edition of the series, presented by John Sergeant, revealed that the original ending of this series had Baldrick, George and Darling unambiguously killed. While Blackadder himself only feigned death and survived.
In the documentary "Blackadder Rides Again", the unedited version of the ending is shown where Blackadder lies down and plays dead, getting up only after the gun-fire stops with the rest of the advancing troops dead.
At the dinner party at the beginning of Blackadder Back and Forth (1999), a portrait of Captain Blackadder is positioned on the wall behind the present Blackadder.
Captain Blackadder also has a cameo in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, fighting at the Battle of Mons.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu