'Allo 'Allo

When you put on at least four shows a year there must come a time when you wonder what to do next.  Centre Stage Company appears to have no such worries, or if they do, it doesn’t show.   From musicals, to pantos, serious drama and side splitting comedy, they always come up with the goods and their Spring offering this year was no exception.

‘Allo ‘Allo was a great vehicle for this group who are fortunate enough to have some very talented performers.  Steve Powter was excellent as café owner and reluctant resistance worker Rene, his French accent never faltering and his lines, delivered with excellent straight faced humour, had the audience in fits of laughter and rightly so.

A good performance also from Candice Danleigh as Rene’s tone deaf wife Edith, insisting on entertaining the customers with her singing.  Waitresses Yvette and Mimi, the objects of Rene’s wandering eye were well played by Jane Baillie and Lorraine Mason.  Emma Letcher did a good job as resistance worker Michelle.

Well done also to Reece Hannigan for his portrayal of the effeminate Gruber, Rene’s constant admirer and to Cian Harriss who did a great impersonation of Crabtree, the British Spy posing as a French policemen. The not so good pronunciation was spot on.  

All the principals were well cast and the various accents sounded great. Under the direction of Bernard Sipple everyone did a terrific job.

The civilian costumes were of the period and the military ones looked authentic to me although I must admit to not knowing the finer points of war-time German and Italian uniforms!  There were a couple of rather comical wigs, apart from that worn by Herr Flick.  Helga and Edith did look as though they were wearing fancy dress wigs rather than costume wigs, but perhaps it was meant to look that way.  After all this was a comedy.

The scenery for the most part worked well with the bar to stage left as called for in the script. However, a lot of the action is centered around the bar and for that reason I would like to have seen it angled more towards the audience.  The flats used to denote scene changes was an innovative idea but tended to look a bit clumsy.  Having said that, the back stage crew did an excellent job of moving them on and off with minimum interruption to the pace of the show.

This was a very good fast moving comedy and it made for a good evening’s entertainment.

Once again, thank you for inviting me.

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