Allo Allo 2

Whenever you perform a play adapted from the Television the audience have an inbuilt ‘expectation’ as to what their favourite characters will look like, act like and their mannerisms. No more so than the ‘granddaddy’ of all TV Sit Coms – “Allo Allo”. The series is iconic and the appreciative and anticipatory audience in the Maltings on opening night were not short changed. There were vocal mimicking of the catchphrases and loud applause by the audience – sometimes anticipating the lines as the characters spoke them. Such phrases as “You Stupid Woman”; “Gud Mooning”; “Tis I, Leclerc”; and of course “I shall say zis only Once”.

As to the set – open to the audience throughout it was very functional with bar, tables and transformed into German HQ’s, Train Station and Madam Fanny’s bedroom through the use of well-placed props and ‘zonal lighting’ and were signified by the use of projected  cartoons of the scene along with the appropriate flag such as French or German. This could have caused a slowness of pace during scene changes however this was not apparent and the stage crew changed scene quietly and without delay whilst accompanied by appropriate Gallic music.

As to the Cast – the British consisted of two British airmen ‘Fairfax and Carstairs’ (Mark Fleeson and Jim Denholm) who worked well together with many comedic moments. Officer Crabtree played by Charles Duane had many outstanding lines using his ‘Franglais’ dialogue and caused many laugh out loud moments each delivered with dead pan expression.

‘Ze Germans’ consisted of Gen von Klinkerhoffen (Terry Jones) – very Germanic demeanour; Col von Strohm (Bobby Hanlon), Capt Geering (David James) and Lt. Gruber (Simon Landels) – these three generally appeared together as a trio but each had their unique characterisations (I loved David’s split second late dialogue throughout and Simons facial expressions almost breaking the fourth wall with his ‘knowing’ looks with the audience)

Private Helga (Diane Renner) was suitably responsive to the ‘charms’ of her Herr Flick (Stuart Faed) who was excellent as the unbending Gestapo officer – his mimicking ‘Hitler’ was priceless.

‘Le French’ – out to foil the Germans throughout whilst having to ‘live’ with them in occupied France were Rene Artois (Andrew Knight) – what can I say – the consummate ‘Rene’ with lines (and there were a lot of them) delivered superbly and facial expressions – never afraid to break the fourth wall and speak to the audience directly; Edith Artois (Sandra Storey) was the long suffering wife of Rene and was well cast. I say this (only once) with great sincerity, but meant as a tremendous compliment, but she had a truly cringeworthy singing voice in her role – it is difficult to sing truly badly (although I personally find it easy…) so kudos to Sandra.

Edith’s would be lover, Msr. Alphonse the undertaker (Fergus Rae) played the role with typical dour looks as befits an undertaker except perhaps when talking to Edith…
Rene’s two hardworking bar staff and part-time lovers Mimi Labonq and Yvette Carte-Blanche (Nici Lowson and Anna Emmins respectively) had some great one liners especially when delivered to Rene and had themselves a ‘cottage industry’ going when dealing with the Germans in their first floor apartment…

Madam Fanny La Fan (Kathryn Curry) spend most of her time in bed during her scenes appalled by the ‘flashing knobs’ of her bed post and delivered some classic libretto with ease.
Would be lover of Madam Fanny was Msr Lerclerc (Paul Summers) whose ‘disguises’ and liberal use of his ‘catchphrase’ and great facial expression and ‘delivery’ had the audience eating out of his hand.
Michelle Dubois of the French Resistance (Nicola Summers) beguiled with her “I shall disappear like a phantom into the night’

Making up the cast (as Rene referred to them) as ‘Peasants’ (the programme more politely calls them Ensemble) were Gill Berzins, Sierra Frank, C. Mather, Val Saunders, Olive Summers and Angela Winson.

Being first night there were the occasional ‘hiccup’ of props going askew and wigs pulling off microphones but the cast were so confident in their dialogue and confidence in their fellow performers they made a joke of it (in suitable Germanic or Gallic accent) to the audience which went down a storm.

I was delighted to cover for a colleague to see a play I had performed in myself only two months previously and enjoyed it tremendously.
Allo Allo ran for nine series in the 1980’s and the genuine affection for it is still as bright today as forty years since.

One special mention was the afore mentioned video screen. At the end instead of doing cast walk downs and bows the cast assembled altogether with back to audience whilst to the instantly memorable signature tune played a video similar to the TV episodes all those years ago – “You have been watching…” with each character playing a short scene in context to the play before the screen dissolved to the cast turning around en-mass to take their collective applause – a nice touch…

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