'Allo 'Allo

Well done Sarah on a masterly piece of directing.  You certainly made the most of some excellent talent. And well done FADS on your usual great set and costumes, lighting and sound etc. It certainly isn’t easy putting on a production with a cast of seventeen.

I was impressed by Graham Batchelor in a strong leading role as Rene. Despite having some problems with the French accent, which came and went, his timing was excellent, portraying a solid and reliable member of the community in spite of all his links to the resistance and his affairs with the waitresses. Carol Hatton as his adoring wife Edith was larger than life giving an excellent performance throughout and really controlling the stage during her cabaret. Herr Flick (John Lamude) and his submissive assistant Helga Geerhart (Karen Hurley) had a wonderful partnership with her provocative strip and his hilarious antics with the musical and sausage sequences, both adding greatly to the production. Mark Barnes as a convincingly gay Gruber - he had the timing, the innuendoes and the shocked facials etc needed for this great role. Add to that his wonderful walk and we were already on our way to a sure-fire success of a production.

‘I’ll say this only once’ was Michelle’s most famous line, (Kathryn Rowledge) encompassing sexual elegance and undercover secrecy. She tried to control the situation by turning up at inconvenient times. Her British contact, Officer Crabtree (John Woodman) of ‘Good Moaning’ fame, had to be seen and heard to be believed as he neither missed a trick nor lost the accent and wording or timing, giving an excellent rendition coping with the impossible word mispronunciations with excellent diction. The waitresses Yvette (Claire-Louise Wright) and Mimi (Rosie Ross) flirted and connived and played their parts in the plot with great panache.

LeClerc (John Croot) with the parrots and varying disguises, Capt Bertorelli (Harry Rippon), Col Von Strohm (Clive Grieg) with the wig-let, and Gen Von Schmelling (Dave Holden) all put their stamp on their roles to draw every bit of comedy from this farcical piece of theatre. Not to be forgotten there was Jared Bolton and John Maplesdon as the two British Airmen, and Stephen Clare and Charlie Van Nimwegen who were very realistic, the characters well drawn and very quick in complimenting each other in dialogue and comedy, all very well paced and timed. The entire team played up to the script and all of the comedy was so well drawn out and exploited, the ‘business’ in all the scenes was played up and was swiftly realised to the full extent of imagination and beyond. This is what makes or breaks a play like ‘Allo, ‘Allo!, and Fads came up with all the goods.

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