'Allo 'Allo

The Eighties hit TV sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo presents amateur societies with many challenges to bring to the stage in the 2020’s but Quince Players rise admirably to meet that challenge in a production delayed by Covid. Sixteen scenes covering six locations, ten male roles and just five female ones whose characters the audience are very familiar with, and a script littered full of racial and gender stereotypes with lots of saucy adult innuendo. It required the cast to throw themselves into the farcical mayhem with full unrestrained commitment and precise comic timing in the delivery of lines and reaction to them. The director successfully got her cast of thirteen to play it full on for laughs. The casting of a male actor in drag as Helga Geerhart was an inspired idea to add to the comedy without turning it into pantomime.

The use of the auditorium to set some of the smaller scenes helped maintain the pace and offered variation in the settings and the costumes were excellent throughout reflecting the original TV series . The Cockatoo in a cage was a critical and wonderfully effective prop creating some of the best business of the production. 

This is a show in which the cast must have as much fun playing the parts as the audience have watching it. It’s hard to replicate the wonderful ensemble performances of the original TV show but Quince Players made a good attempt at recreating them on stage.This was an enjoyable entertainment making the most of a rather old-fashioned Lloyd and Croft script and building to a farcical conclusion

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