An Exceptionally Important Piece of Analysis About Blackadder Goes Forth

For a sitcom, Blackadder Goes Forth has inspired a great deal of scholarly debate over the years. In particular, the series’ portrayal of Field Marshal Haig as a callous murderer has become massively controversial. Is this simply devastatingly effective and truthful satire, or a fundamental misrepresentation of history which everyone has taken as fact?

It’s certainly an interesting question. So in true Dirty Feed spirit, let’s ignore all of that and investigate the show’s set design in painstaking and pointless detail instead.

One specific set, in fact. Because in my recent rewatch of the show, a few things struck me about Melchett’s office, back at British HQ. I am now going to share my findings with you, because you are special and you deserve it.

So let’s take a trip through each episode – in order of recording date, rather than broadcast.

Plan A: Captain Cook

RX: 20th August 1989 • TX: 28th September 1989

Our very first look at General Melchett’s office at HQ, in a lovely French chateau. Let’s examine it carefully.

On the left wall is the big fireplace and circular portrait above it; this is key to getting our bearings for future episodes. At the far end of the room is the other great distinguishing feature: a huge tapestry hanging against the wall. Next to that is a huge French window. Then, to the right, we have Captain Darling’s desk, with all his maps behind him. A nice, straightforward, impressive-looking set. (Things won’t stay straightforward for long.)

At the end of the episode, we also get Darling and Melchett’s intimate dinner:

This is very clearly exactly the same set, with Darling’s desk moved out, and a huge dining table moved in. I shall leave it for you to decide whether this is supposed to be the same room in HQ, or whether they were hoping it would look like a different room with the lights down. (Personally, I suspect the latter – surely the chateau is big enough for Melchett to have a separate dining room?)

Plan F: Goodbyeee

RX: 27th August 1989 • TX: 2nd November 1989

Onto the second episode recorded, which – bizarrely – was the seminal Goodbyeee, the final episode broadcast, where our gang go over the top. The fact this was actually the second episode recorded brings up all kinds of interesting QUESTIONS, which I will no doubt bore you all with at a later date.

In the meantime, our focus is Melchett’s office. And there’s only one major scene set there in this episode, with the unfortunate Captain Kevin Darling being sent to the front line:

Rather peculiarly, Darling’s desk has entirely changed position: from the right side of the room in the previous episode, to being just under the tapestry. Maybe Kevin got bored and started rearranging the furniture.

Or maybe there’s a more practical explanation. I’ll return to this later on.

Plan C: Major Star

RX: 3rd September 1989 • TX: 12th October 1989

It’s back to usual with Melchett’s office in the third episode recorded, with the desk returning to its original position, and everything looking much as it did in Captain Cook:

Well, nearly back to usual anyway. I can’t help but notice that the mantlepiece around the fireplace looks rather different than it did in the first episode recorded:

On first glance, I thought they had replaced the mantlepiece entirely for this recording session. But I’ve come to the conclusion – with the help of two Twitter polls – that either the lighting makes it look different, or the mantlepiece was painted or varnished between recording sessions.

Regardless, we have rather bigger fish to fry with the next episode…

Plan B: Corporal Punishment

RX: 10th September 1989 • TX: 5th October 1989

Ah-ha, now we get to the interesting bit. Melchett’s office doesn’t appear in this episode at all. But hey, that courtroom set for Blackadder’s trial looks awfully familiar…

The huge circular portrait on the wall, the fireplace, and the tapestry behind George give the game away: this is the same set as Melchett’s office. The cheeky little scoundrels. Sure, they’ve added a load of furniture, and a witness stand, but the set is essentially the same.

Indeed, it’s so similar that more than one person has told me that they assumed the trial was actually set in General Melchett’s office, rather than a separate courtroom. I think this can be easily disproved, however. Take a look at the wall with the tapestry:

If the room was supposed to be the same, the window next to the tapestry would be present. It isn’t; it’s been deliberately removed. This is a different room.

There is also one other major change made to the set. And it’s not one I think has been talked about before. Compared to Captain Cook and Major Star, the set has been entirely rotated by 90 degrees, removing the wall that was originally behind Darling’s desk in that first episode, and adding a wall behind Melchett:

The way to get to grips with the new orientation of the room is to examine the circular portrait and fireplace. In Captain Cook and Major Star, they were on the left of the set. In Corporal Punishment, they are now on the far end of the set, facing the audience, where the tapestry used to be. The new wall behind Melchett has never been seen up until now; and it features a brand new tapestry, entirely different from the one we’ve already seen on the opposite wall.

It’s worth pondering why they changed the orientation of the room for this episode. Was it a deliberate attempt to disguise the room as being different from General Melchett’s office? Or did the wider dimensions of the set in this orientation simply work better when you have this number of people in the room?

Plan D: Private Plane

RX: 17th September 1989 • TX: 19th October 1989

Here is where things get really confusing. Brace yourself.

First of all, we have General Melchett’s office. Darling’s desk has moved back to the position we saw in Goodbyeee – up against the tapestry:

But then we have Flashheart’s training room, and… hang on, that set looks awfully familiar…

Indeed, it’s the Melchett’s office set again… and now we can see it’s in the same orientation that we saw the set in during Corporal Punishment. And yet the left wall proves that this definitely isn’t supposed to be the same room as the courtroom – instead of the additional tapestry, we have a lovely pink wall instead:

So the question is: is the flying lesson actually taking place in Melchett’s office, or is this supposed to be a different room? Again, more than one person has told me that they assumed all of this was just the same room. After all, Melchett does say in the previous scene set in his office to “report back here 09:00 hours for your basic training”. Does he mean British HQ generally, or his office in particular?

My argument, however, is that this is meant to be yet another different room. As evidence, I postulate the following: the left wall is never seen again in the entire series with that fetching pink background it’s seen with in this scene. If all this was supposed to be the same room, you’d think you’d see it elsewhere in the series. Even more suspiciously, the shots in the previous scene in General Melchett’s office seem to go out of their way to avoid showing this wall, and frame the shot to just show the doorway on the left instead:

Having said all that, there is one very weird thing about all this: Captain Darling’s desk. If the production was supposed to be making this room appear different to Melchett’s office, why did they not only keep Darling sitting at a desk, but keep Darling sitting at a desk in exactly the same position?

Maybe Flashheart just warps the nature of reality whenever he enters the room.

Plan E: General Hospital

RX: 24th September 1989 • TX: 26th October 1989

For the final recording session of the series, we get Darling’s desk up against the tapestry again, as in Goodbyeee and Private Plane. By now, it’s fairly obvious why the desk keeps changing position: depending on the orientation of the set and which walls they use, Darling’s desk needs to move position so we don’t just see the audience sitting behind him.

But hang on, what’s this?

We’ve never seen the left wall looking like that in General Melchett’s office up until now. But we have seen it somewhere before…

It looks different to the wall we saw in the flying school; hence final proof that the flying school was supposed to be a different room altogether. It does, however, look extremely similar to the courtroom set, its unique tapestry and all. And we’ve already proved the courtroom set was definitely supposed to be a different room, because of the missing window.

Ergo, my argument is that the same basic set, in various configurations, is being used for four different rooms: Melchett’s office, Melchett’s dining room, a courtroom, and the flying school. And if you think I’m over-analysing this, then you are, of course, completely correct. But TV shows don’t spend money changing things around without there being a good reason; the various different forms this set takes has to be deliberate. Otherwise, they’d just bung the same set in each week. If the production thought it was worth doing, then it’s worth pondering what those changes actually mean.

I’ve been doing exactly that over on Twitter over the last few days, and what I find fascinating is that everyone seems to have a different interpretation of what exactly is going on with this set. In particular, one person was convinced that the courtroom was a completely different set entirely; another person thought it was so clearly the General’s office, that it’s actually meant to be the General’s office within the reality of the show. The same confusions arise with each different incarnation of the set across the six episodes.

So for all the silliness above, let’s seriously look at what all this means. Because once you start looking closely at all this, that circular portrait clearly gives the game away: that the same basic set is being used each time. You can faff around with walls and orientation all you like, but it’s not much of a disguise.

But it doesn’t matter. Because within the reality of the show, whether we’re moving around to different rooms in HQ or not doesn’t actually change anything. When it comes to the storytelling, there are two main things we care about: are we back at HQ, or are we in the trenches? Which world are we inhabiting? The actual room doesn’t matter: the location does. Hence the production can get a little squiffy on the details, if it saves them some money: the story is still being told properly.

Still, kicking around the details can be fun, can’t it?

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