Beer (Blackadder) Beer (Blackadder) "Beer" is the fifth episode of the BBC sitcom "Blackadder II", the second series of "Blackadder", which was set in Elizabethan England from 1558 to 1603. In the episode, an embarrassing incident with a turnip, an ostrich feather and a fanatically Puritan aunt leads to a right royal to-do in the Blackadder household. The episode marks Hugh Laurie's first ever "Blackadder" appearance, and Miriam Margolyes's second. Laurie would go on to appear in every subsequent episode of the show. Blackadder is having breakfast with Lord Percy when he receives a letter informing him that his fanatically Puritan but
Blackadder Goes Forth noted that the television series has become a pervasive view of the war in the public's perception of World War I, with Max Hastings calling the common British view of the war "the "Blackadder" take on history." Military historian Richard Holmes commented in his book "The Western Front": "Blackadder's aphorisms have become fact...A well turned line of script can sometimes carry more weight than all the scholarly footnotes in the world." Stephen Badsey, analysing trends in television programmes about the war, remarked that "Blackadder Goes Forth" as a popular comedy series was subject to particular criticism from historians, remarking that