Allo Allo

A welcome blast of Blitz spirit blew into the Watlington Village Hall in October,
with Watlington Players’ production of ‘Allo ‘Allo celebrating the re-emergence
of live theatre after episodic periods of lockdown ‘war’ since March 2020.
Based, of course, on the long-running TV series of the same name, the two-act
comedy by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft brings beyond the screen the
colourful characters who orbit, frequent and work at a café in Nouvion,
occupied France. The action seeing the bumbling French locals regularly
outsmarting the locally assigned Axis soldiers and SS officers, portrayed as
quite bumbling themselves.
Directed by Jenny Ives with assistant director Kevin Rooney, Watlington
Players’ ‘Allo ‘Allo cheerfully observed the well-loved catchphrases and broadly
drawn characters through an 18-strong cast that first came together in January
2020.
Café Rene was charmingly recreated to provide the domain for the double-
cross and triple-cross activity underway surrounding the well-trodden plotlines
of the TV show: a stolen painting, the extramarital affairs of café proprietor
Rene Artois, the French Resistance’s attempts to take Hitler out of the wartime
picture as well as return British airmen to the UK, and so on.
Costuming generally was on target, and so were the farcical foreign accents
that were part and parcel of the original series – a vehicle to ensure the
audience understood that the characters did not all share the same national
origin, without having to rely on subtitles for at least four different languages.
With such a show, the big question is: does the stage version make the TV
series’ fans get the same warm, fuzzy feeling and spark the same laughs they
enjoyed when ‘Allo ‘Allo came into their homes?
Laughs of recognition percolated amongst the Watlington audience especially
when the character Crabtree, deftly played by Lee Johnson, uttered his familiar
“Good moaning” catchphrase or mangled some other line with his calculated
blend of Franglais. Also igniting quick laughs were the two British airmen (Tim

Casey and Helen Fradley) also ignited quick laughs when they made super-
quick entrances and exits with their ‘jolly good’ English personas.
Edith Artois (Beccy Pooley) had our sympathy from the very beginning, for
being either ignored or maligned by the stoic Rene (Steve Brooks), one of those
chaps whose seemingly overwhelming appeal to the ladies is a mystery to the
rest of us.
A number of enjoyable performances – including from the café barmaids, the
German and Italian army and SS representatives, the French resistance
members, and the ‘pleasant peasants’ -- brought ‘Allo ‘Allo’s comedic spirit to
centre stage.
Sadly, on closing night, line and sound problems were evident. (Certainly, stage
telephones are the bane of many a techie’s and actor’s existence.) The frantic,
split-second timing so necessary in farce was too often absent, with the pacing
unsteady.
However, the show clearly generated much audience warmth, offering a
respite from the continuing unknown with comforting, jocular familiarity after
a rough 20 months.
Congratulations to Watlington Players for keeping the show together over 20 months.

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