Blackadder Goes Forth, Episode 5&6

Based on the outrageous, funny, poignant but highly popular TV series, the South Canterbury Drama League presents Blackadder Goes Forth, fittingly 100 years to the month from Armistice Day.

Blackadder Goes Forth is the perfect opportunity for an end of year social event for everyone.  The dinner and show will be on the stage at The Playspace, Timaru’s newest performance space, giving the audience a taste of the limelight as they are entertained while enjoying a delicious 2-course meal. (Vegetarian & Diabetic options available on request).

The setting is 1917 on the Western Front of the First World War, with another ‘big push’ planned.  For Captain Edmund Blackadder and his fellow dugout companions Baldrick and George, the major concern is to avoid being sent over the top to certain death.  Can they continue to escape from Melchett’s disastrous battle plans?

The play is a stage adaptation of Richard Curtis and Ben Elton’s award-winning series.  It chronicles Blackadder’s attempts to escape the trenches through various schemes, most of which fail due to bad fortune, misunderstandings and the general incompetence of his comrades.

We start in General Hospital with General Melchett, angry that his plans always seem to fall into enemy hands, asks Captain Blackadder to “winkle out” the spy he suspects is housed in the hospital. Blackadder immediately suspects the patient with the thick German accent and a burning curiosity about troop movements but decides to embark on an extremely thorough, and more importantly – long, investigation as a way of staying out of the trenches.

Then it’s Goodbyee. After years of futile trench warfare, General Melchett gives the order for the “big push”: a suicidal charge across the battlefield towards hundreds of German machine guns. Desperate to avoid participating, Captain Blackadder hatches a plan to convince his superiors that he has gone insane and therefore cannot go into combat.

The production features the idealistic Upper-Class Edwardian twit Lieutenant George; the profoundly stupid but dogged Private S. Baldrick, the eccentric and clearly mad General Melchett, the woman of many faces Nurse Mary, plus other memorable characters.