Blackadder a vulgar friend in his first appearance and then a successful rival of Blackadder in a later episode of series 2 and 4. He also played a decidedly Flashheart-like Robin Hood in "Back & Forth". Lee Cornes also appeared in an episode of all three Curtis-Elton series. He appeared as a guard in the episode "Chains" of "Blackadder II"; as the poet Shelley in the episode "Ink and Incapability' of "Blackadder the Third"; and as firing squad soldier Private Fraser in the episode "Corporal Punishment" of "Blackadder Goes Forth". More established actors, some at the veteran stage of their careers,
Blackadder Goes Forth the series "consciously traded on every cliche and misremembered piece of history about the Western Front, and was influential enough to draw a surprising degree of angry criticism from professional historians as a result." The series has prompted debate among politicians in the UK. In 2014, it was the subject of a public dispute between Conservative politician Michael Gove, then serving as Secretary of State for Education, and Labour activist Tony Robinson, after Gove had written that it presented the war as "a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite. Even to this day