Blackadder II often hindered, by two less-than-intelligent sidekicks, his servant Baldrick (Tony Robinson), and Lord Percy Percy (Tim McInnerny), heir to the Duchy of Northumberland, with whom Blackadder has a grudging friendship. Throughout the series, Blackadder's chief rival is Lord Melchett (Stephen Fry), the Queen's pretentious and grovelling Lord Chamberlain. Melchett is himself in fear of upsetting the Queen, and thus attempts to outdo Blackadder by supporting the Queen in whatever current fad she is interested in. Comic relief in the Court is provided by the Queen's rather demented former nanny, Nursie (Patsy Byrne). Baldrick, who in the first series was the
Lions led by donkeys Donkeys" The musical "Oh, What a Lovely War!" (1963) and the comedy television series "Blackadder Goes Forth" (1989) are two well-known works of popular culture, depicting the war as a matter of incompetent donkeys sending noble (or sometimes ignoble, in the case of "Blackadder") lions to their doom. Such works are in the literary tradition of the war poets like Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Erich Maria Remarque's novel (and subsequent film) "All Quiet on the Western Front", which have been criticised by revisionists such as Brian Bond for having given rise to what he considered the myth and conventional