Blackadder Goes Forth is the fourth and last series by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton focusing on a character named Blackadder. In the first series, set in the 15th century, Atkinson plays Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh, known as “the Black Adder.” Next comes Black-Adder II, in which he is Lord Edmund Blackadder in the court of Elizabeth I (Shakespeare’s era). In Blackadder the Third, he is Edmund Blackadder, butler to an idiot prince (played by Hugh Laurie). And in this series, he is Captain Edmund Blackadder. Most of the cast members play roles in most of the series. Each series was popular, but when plans for Blackadder Goes Forth were announced, many people expressed concern that the Great War was too tragic to be turned into comedy. They need not have worried: the series was almost immediately acclaimed as the best of the Blackadder series, and one of the best British comedies of all time. The British Film Institute ranks it as the 16th best British TV production, and only two of those ranked higher were sitcoms (two others were comedic sketch shows, the type with distinct skits). Why were the concerns misplaced?
The United Kingdom has traditionally been a more class-conscious society than the United States (though that does mean that Americans are less affected by class issues). Consider the ways the TV series both observes and ridicules the class differences in British society. Consider also the ways class matters in the show, and the ways it does not.
Comedy can be divided into high comedy and low comedy. High comedy is comedy primarily rooted in the mind, including satire and wit expressed through verbal repartee. Low comedy is anything to do with the body: pratfalls, bodily functions (gustatory, excretory, reproductive), and bodily substances (solid, liquid, or gaseous). Note that these terms are descriptive, not evaluative: high comedy is not better than low comedy. Nor are they mutually exclusive. Comedy is often most effective when it combines the two. Shakespeare did that, and so did Monty Python. Whether you find the “Fish-Slapping Dance” or the “All-England Summarize Proust Competition” funnier is a matter of your own taste (and the latter has a couple of moments of low comedy in it), and probably your mood at the moment, but almost everyone finds them funnier in combination. Does Blackadder Goes Forth depend more on high comedy or low comedy? When does the juxtaposition of high and low comedy work best in the show?
The final episode is hard to describe. Even the studio audience does not quite seem to understand what is happening, and keeps laughing at lines that are not all that funny for a minute or two after the tone has shifted. This episode teaches an important lesson: comedy and tragedy are different perspectives on reality, not different realities. Consider the relationship between comedy and tragedy in this episode.