George (Blackadder) kind and hopeful individual, and shortly before the big push at the end of the final episode George finally expresses some genuine fear and sadness that he may indeed die. In the 1989 sketch Shakespeare Sketch Laurie portrays a very George-like William Shakespeare. Lord Blackadder is his agent and manages to persuade him to condense his new play Hamlet. In the series, Lieutenant George is seen wearing the following ribbons: Tim McInnerny, who had starred in "The Black Adder" and "Blackadder II" as Lord Percy Percy, was afraid to be typecast in comedic roles and decided not to appear in
Blackadder Goes Forth in the same episode, Blackadder describes the Great War as: "a war which would be a damn sight simpler if we just stayed in England and shot fifty thousand of our men a week." Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, whose orders are alleged to have resulted in hundreds of thousands of British deaths at Passchendaele and the Somme, is continually referenced. Blackadder himself describes Haig's attempts at an advance as no more than "another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin". In "Goodbyeee", a scene parodies Haig's professional abilities by depicting the Field Marshal playing