TV Drama - Black Adder Goes Fourth

Black Adder Goes Fourth was created by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton. It was Directed by Ricard Boden in 1989 and was the most successful series of the franchise. Rowan Atkinson stars as the protagonist Edmund Black Adder who finds himself as a Captain in the First World War and is desperately coming up with ways of getting out of the trenches. This, alongside his partner Private Baldrick created a very comical and witty series. 

I chose to research into Black Adder because I wanted to see how they addressed the situation of the war. In particular, the props and the storylines that they follow so that I could gain an understanding of the war from the soldiers point of view as well as gaining some ideas for the stories that my protagonist Jimmy could tell Rylee in my script. I found that by watching this series, I was able to develop my characters further, in particular Jimmy, and understand how the soldiers may have felt whilst being in the war. 

Of course Black Adder is a comedy drama and therefore can't be relied on to give a completely realistic representation of the WW1 soldiers, however I have been able to gain an understanding on things like what soldiers may have had struggles with during their time in the trenches. For example, their rations with food. Baldrick was always coming up with wild concoctions such as rat cooked in an odd fashion which of course came along with a side of sarcastic comments from Black Adder, making the scene very funny. The underline of what the scene is saying is how the soldiers hadn't necessarily got much of a choice when it came to eating. Sometimes all they would have to eat would be something as disgusting as a Baldrick meal. This has helped me a lot when devising a character profile for Jimmy because I can understand what he may of gone through during the war and how he may tell his stories. 

The final episode in Black Adder Goes Fourth has be dubbed as the most powerful of the series due to its moving ending when the Black Adder cast finally have to "go up and over" in the Battle of the Somme. When the film turns to picture and fades slowly to a field of poppies it created an incredibly moving moment for audiences across the UK, signifying an important message "Lest We Forget". As much as Black Adder is a comedy, I felt that this was a truly touching moment and a lovely mark of respect for those in the war. I hope to take from this the sensitivity that the program had when dealing with the stories toward the war and make sure that I too create a moment that signifies something important. It will clearly be of a different significance as I am writing about a war veteran but I hope to give the effect of a change in character due to what they have learned.