General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett (born 1870) Nationality British Occupation British Army General First appearance "Captain Cook" Last appearance "Goodbyeee..." Episode count 6 Episodes Played by Stephen Fry

General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, VC, KCB, DSO (born 1870) is a loud-mouthed, childish, unintelligent, incompetent British Army General serving in the First World War. According to his shoulder insignia he was a General

He commands Captain Blackadder's unit. His aide is Captain Darling. He was played by Stephen Fry.

Personality Edit

The General is constantly trying to lift the morale of the men, completely ignorant of the fact that they are too afraid of their impending deaths to have their spirits lifted by a Charlie Chaplin film or a drag act. He has no concept of soldiers' fear, and cannot understand why Blackadder and Captain Darling are reluctant to fight (and presumably die), much like Lieutenant George. He also attempted to have Captain Blackadder shot for eating his (Melchett's) pet carrier pigeon (called Speckled Jim), tried to marry Lieutenant George (who was in character as drag queen Gorgeous Georgina), and shot Captain Kevin Darling in the foot to provide a believable alibi for undercover hospital work. Despite Blackadder having shot his pigeon, he appears to prefer Blackadder to Darling, at one point asking him to be his best man at his wedding.

The storyline about how long General Melchett has been with his pigeon is unlikely, since pigeons don't live nearly as long as humans. He raised the pigeon when he was a child, yet he was already an adult while George was young. This would mean that the pigeon exceeded his lifetime by 20 years, at least. It's more likely a new pigeon was passed off as Speckled Jim, to spare Melchett's feelings, when the previous Jim had died.

It appears the General is a family friend of Lieutenant George's and both make frequent references to traditional upper-class life in the UK. This mostly involves heavy overuse of public school slang and metaphors as well as references to stereotypical upper class values. There seems to be a hint that Melchett attended Winchester College as he makes a few references to them facing Harrow in various sports. Melchett then went to Cambridge University (as did George himself) with one of George's relatives. General Melchett had also known George when the latter was young; Melchett was at the lad's sixth birthday, where he set his dog on, ran over and shot George's rabbit Flossy... Although it has not been revealed why, though it is hinted he simply wanted to bake rabbit pie for George's birthday instead of cake.

A potted biography published in the Radio Times has Melchett educated at Oundle School and Cambridge: "Educated, to use the word in its loosest sense, at Oundle where he was part of the Great Fag Beating Contest of 1880, he went on to break wind for his college at Cambridge".

General Melchett is a very unpleasant man and is shown to have little or no compassion. An example of this is when he sends his aide Captain Darling to the front lines just before the big push. He is also very vain, as shown when he assumes the only reason Darling doesn't want to go to the front is because he'll miss him. General Melchett is very proud of his moustache, as he keeps it in a moustache net at night. He treats Captain Darling very badly, as he shoots him in the foot just for an alibi and is ultimately responsible for his death by sending him to the front. However, this may be because he prefers Blackadder to Darling, and also because Darling is often framed by Blackadder into looking stupid. He is shown to be rather stupid as he mistakes Lieutenant George for a woman and Driver Parkhurst for a man. He also has a strange verbal tic of shouting "BBAAAHHH!", which may be inherited from his Tudor ancestor, who once slept with a sheep.

His grandson is Lord Melchett.

Medals Edit

General Melchett displays 12 medals on his tunic - in order (with associated post nominal in parentheses)

Victoria Cross (VC)

Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB)

Distinguished Service Order (DSO)

South Africa Medal 1868-1880 (Zulu War)

Afghanistan Medal 1877-1880

Ashantee Medal 1872-1875 [out of sequence]

Egypt Medal 1880-1890

Khedive's Star [out of sequence]

India General Service Medal 1854-1895

Queen's South Africa Medal 1899-1902,

King's South Africa Medal 1901-1902

India General Service Medal 1908-1913