We were whisked back to wartime France last night, and arguably the best of the BBC’s comedic output from the 1980s. Over the past couple of years we’ve rediscovered the innuendo-packed and crazy tales of café owner René Artois, who, in bizarre story twists, gets involved in helping both the German forces and French Resistance in WWII.
Created by comedy legends David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, the TV series ran from 1982 to 1992 on BBC1 (with 85 episodes in all), and is fondly remembered by fans of a certain age. Renowned for its smutty one-liners and infamous catchphrases, even though we’re currently watching season 5, its appeal hasn’t dimmed yet. Whether we’ll feel the same after another five series remains to be seen, but it’s impressive how the few main recurring storylines are interwoven throughout all the episodes, creating new plot twists along the way.
If you’re a child of the 1960s and 1970s, then you must have seen the show, so I won’t detail the main plots, but with an assembled cast which have been taken to the hearts of TV viewers the world over (the series has even just been bought by Germany), the programme has become a cult watch, so we were excited when it was announced that the ‘Allo ‘Allo! stage show was coming to town. And by town, I don’t mean London; it literally was coming to town, right here in Chelmsford.
We missed it in Southend last year, and so revered are the tales of the bumbling café owner, that even a local am-dram version sold out, so we booked tickets as soon as they became available, and last night we took our seats in the front row of the balcony.
A long-running touring show now in its 25th year and written especially for the boards by Croft and Lloyd, the 2-hour story has been booked for 3 London runs, with cast changes throughout, and last night was no exception. The only original cast member in the current show is Vicki Michelle, playing Yvette Carte-Blanche, René’s amorous waitress, who just by the nature of her long-standing part, unintentionally upstaged most of the other cast members. Jeffrey Holland, best known as Spike from Hi-De-Hi! played the part of René, taken in the TV shows by Gorden Kaye.
The show itself is based on the 1992 version of the live tour, and, as you would expect, featured the infamous references to sausages, portraits of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies, British Airmen, and exploding cheeses. It was well-written and acted, and although we were constantly comparing the actors on stage to the well-loved characters from the TV show, the cast did a sterling job, speaking the roles with their best phony accents, trying hard to sound like their on-screen counterparts.
There was, in effect, only one set, but that didn’t matter; the scene changes were well managed, and not at all hidden. Actors in French peasant costumes moved the scenery, and then became part of the scene itself. No black costume trickery here. Though more smutty than the TV show – though only the end of the pier variety – its dirty innuendo went down well with last night’s packed house, with laughs in all the right places.
What did we think? Listen very carefully, we shall say this only once… It’s a sure sign of a cult or hit show when it’s still going strong a quarter of a century after its inception. Going on last night’s performance, ‘Allo ‘Allo! is certainly capable of wowing both TV and theatre audiences alike. The stage show is certainly not a forgery of its television relation, is enjoyable nostalgia, and there’s definitely no need for it for it to be packed inside a larder with a knockwurst sausage just yet.