Elton has last laugh over Gove’s Great War gaff
Respect: Why ruin your day with a picture of Michael Gove when we can all enjoy a shot of Rowan Atkinson and Sir Tony Robinson as Blackadder and Baldrick in Blackadder Goes Forth?
It seems some prominent people are finding that the metaphorical chickens they had thought long laid to rest are now coming home to roost. The BBC inadvertently invited comparisons with a scene from V for Vendetta during the Million Mask March, after failing to cover a similar event in June, and now Michael Gove is facing embarrassment for things he said even further back in history.
For indeed and yea verily, it was January when Mr Gove in his role as Education Secretary tried to prove that his mission really was to set the UK back 90 years – by claiming that one of Britain’s most revered TV comedies, Blackadder Goes Forth, peddled left-wing “myths” about the First World War, “designed to belittle Britain and its leaders”.
He was quoted as follows: “Our understanding of the war has been overlaid by misunderstandings, and misrepresentations which reflect an, at best, ambiguous attitude to this country and, at worst, an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage.”
One of the show’s stars, Sir Tony Robinson, weighed in with a quick response in contradiction, but now one of the show’s writers has added his two-pennyworth – and sure enough, it seems he’s going to have the last laugh.
Now, immaculately timed to take place right before Remembrance Day for the best impact, Blackadder co-writer Ben Elton told the BBC his latest novel was inspired by Gove’s jingoistic rant. Yes – he’s going to profit from words that Gove clearly intended as a rebuke.
Entitled Time and Time Again, the book tells the story of a man who travels back in time to stop World War I.
“I had been toying with the idea of writing a novel about the causes of the First World War but I certainly got some lead in my pencil when myself, Richard and Rowan Atkinson were all being blamed for a lack of respect for WW1 because of Blackadder,” he said.
“I think what Michael Gove said is clearly idiocy. Blackadder is well researched, it’s a comedy, it’s a satire, it satirises history which is a long and honourable British tradition.
“Blackadder was deeply respectful to the good things about WW1, which are, of course, that it showed the magnificent strength of the human spirit, the ability to love, loyalty and love of country.”
He was speaking to the BBC’s Front Row radio programme – and you can listen to the full interview by visiting the show’s mini-site and clicking the appropriate link.
Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike
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Michael Gnomve, like other current Tories is so obsessed and brain-washed with Tory Dogma and Ideology that he cannot think clearly. Blackadder Goes Forth is one of the finest comedies ever written, funny AND thought-provoking. Gnomve claims it is disrespectful. The last scene when they go over the trench and into the killing fields, then it goes to slow motion, quiet, stuttering music and fades out to poppies is DEEPLY RESPECTFUL and POIGNANT. Is our Education supremo so thick that he cannot understand this, or so full of hate for anything or anyone non-Tory that he is blinded to the real truth? Yet again, the similarities between the Tories and the gross intolerance and belligerence of the Nazi party is striking.
The problem with Michael Gove’s education is that it is faulty. He thinks that Adolph Hitler was the one who shot Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand after he released Take Me Out!
The most poignant part of Blackadder Goes Forth, in the last episode, “This may well be the last great assault of the war” (or near offer) and Baldric utters the eternal, “Who would have thought we got through the 14 – 17 war?”. Every push was preceded by thoughts like this.