Corporal Punishment (Blackadder)
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| “Plan B: Corporal Punishment” | |||||||
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| Blackadder Goes Forth episode | |||||||
 Defence Lawyer George |
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| Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 2 |
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| Written by | Ben Elton Richard Curtis |
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| Directed by | R. Boden | ||||||
| Guest stars | Stephen Frost, Lee Cornes, Paul-Mark Elliott, Jeremy Gittins Jeremy Hardy | ||||||
| Original airdate | 05/10/1989 | ||||||
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| List of Blackadder episodes | |||||||
"Corporal Punishment"' is the second episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, the fourth season of the BBC sitcom Blackadder.
[edit] Summary
Orders for Operation Insanity arrive and Blackadder breaches regulations by eating the messenger. Can the "Flanders Pigeon Murderer" avoid the firing squad?
[edit] Plot
Captain Blackadder receives numerous calls via the telephone system, presumably orders to advance. Mocking the apparently bad line, he manages to avoid going over the top. After receiving a telegram from HQ which he dismisses being for a man called Catpain Blackudder, he shoots a carrier pigeon, justifying his actions to a protesting Lieutenant George by saying, "Come on, George. With fifty-thousand men getting killed a week, who's going to miss a pigeon?" Upon inspection of the pigeon's message however, it turns out that shooting carrier pigeons is now punishable by court-martial, and Blackadder decides to eat the evidence, telling Baldrick and George that if anyone asks any questions, he should tell them that Blackadder didn't eat the pigeon.
When General Melchett arrives to ask why the group hasn't advanced, Blackadder nearly gets away with it by blaming the communication breakdown. Unfortunately Baldrick tells Melchett that "Blackadder definitely did not shoot this delicious plump-breasted pigeon" when he asks Baldrick an unrelated question, and Melchett is furious - it was his pet (Speckled Jim). After trying to kill Blackadder himself, Captain Darling restrains him. Smugly, he informs Blackadder that, if found guilty at court-martial, he will be shot by a firing squad.
Blackadder, whilst in his cell, talks to a prison guard, saying that he is bound to get off because he has sent for lawyer Bob Massingbird, who, Blackadder claims, managed to get a man off another case, despite him being seen by thirteen people stabbing a victim and then exclaiming he was "glad he had killed the bastard" to the police. However, thanks to Private Baldrick getting Massingbird's letter mixed up with a letter asking George for a sponge bag, the message falls into the wrong hands, and George turns up as Blackadder's defence. Blackadder irritably tells him that mindless optimism will not contribute to the case, disappointing George who had been intending to "play the mindless optimism card" strongly.
On the day of the court-martial, Blackadder fancies his chances upon seeing that Darling is the prosecuting counsel. His optimism soon evaporates when the judge arrives and turns out to be Melchett, who summarily fines George £50 for wasting the court's time by turning up and refers to Blackadder as "the Flanders Pigeon Murderer" rather than by name or as "the defendant". George puts paid to any remaining hopes with his poor choice of witnesses (Darling, who ends up providing more evidence against Blackadder, and Baldrick, who after being instructed by Blackadder to 'deny everything', denies literally everything that George asks, including "Are you Private Baldrick?"), and Melchett finds Blackadder guilty, sentencing him to death.
Blackadder asks Baldrick to send him an escape kit, but Baldrick turns up with some useless items (notably a toy duck, miniature trumpet, pencil and a Robin Hood outfit). Shortly afterwards, Blackadder meets his firing squad, a cheery bunch of men who seem to take pride in murdering people for the law. Another mix-up results in Baldrick delivering a telegram for George's mother to Blackadder, but this provides Blackadder with a way out, when he discovers that George's uncle Rupert has just been made Minister of War, and can get Blackadder acquitted. When Baldrick eventually remembers to tell George this, they decide to celebrate by drinking some Scotch - and of course they get so drunk that they pass out before remembering to send a telegram.
In the end, Rupert sends a telegram anyway, knowing that Blackadder is a close friend of his nephew's. Out of revenge for apparently ignoring his orders, Blackadder signs Baldrick and George up for 'Operation Certain-Death', a mission into No-Man's Land, after receiving a call from Captain Darling on the "now repaired" trench communications system. Blackadder hangs up the line, leans in close to his now frightened subordinates and tells them: "God is very quick these days!"
[edit] Trivia
A close review of the DVD edition reveals that all verbal references to "Massingbird" were in fact re-dubbed (Atkinson's mouth movements do not match the audio). It is not clear whether this is a coincidence, or whether a different name was originally scripted, and then later replaced.
In his autobiography Moab is My Washpot, Stephen Fry recalls an instant when a man shouted "The Flanders pigeon-murderer!" at him on the street. Fry had no idea what this meant (he had forgotten about this episode) and feared he was going to be attacked.
The names of Blackadder's firing squad are a reference by writer Ben Elton to the classic sitcom Dad's Army.
The basic story of the episode is similar to Stanley Kubrick's film Paths of Glory.
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