Bonsoir, bonsoir

[Guy Profumo]

Listen very carefully.

I shall say this only once:

Gorden Kaye has died.

RIP.

[jwdd27]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

I though he had passed away a few years ago, perhaps because he was never the same after his storm crash.

RIP anyway. 'Allo 'Allo seems incredibly outdated and broad now, but I used to watch and enjoy it every week, and he was the one who held it all together in what I'm sure was quite a tough role to perfect. I think he took it quite seriously.

He was from Huddersfield, although he appears lower down on the town's roll of honour, below the Harold Wilson, James Mason, Patrick Stewart and Cameron Jerome A list.

[longeared]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

It's easy to forget now that he was one of the biggest names on telly in the late 1980s. Then the momentum got taken out of his career by the crash and 'Allo 'Allo declining to the extent that they chucked the final series out on a Monday night.

Incidentally looking up 'Allo 'Allo on Wikipedia suggests there are still some very dedicated fans of the show out there, given the quantity of material that someone has added.

[Guy Profumo]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

jwdd27 wrote: I though he had passed away a few years ago, perhaps because he was never the same after his storm crash.

RIP anyway. 'Allo 'Allo seems incredibly outdated and broad now, but I used to watch and enjoy it every week, and he was the one who held it all together in what I'm sure was quite a tough role to perfect. I think he took it quite seriously.

He was from Huddersfield, although he appears lower down on the town's roll of honour, below the Harold Wilson, James Mason, Patrick Stewart and Cameron Jerome A list.

Went on, as many of these things did, for too long.

Mercilessly took the piss out of Secret Army, and then descended to crude farce

Highlights included the resistance woman talking to the airmen in "English", and "that idiot who thinks he can speak French"

[Jah Womble]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

RIP.

I'd've gone with 'Gorden of Remembrance'.

[Various Artist]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

I always loved 'Allo 'Allo when I was growing up, and when seeing repeats nowadays you realise quite how good Gorden Kaye was in it – it's no mean feat to play this character who is (let's face it) a cowardly serial philanderer, who'll go along with the machinations of any and all sides in the conflict as long as they leave him alone again afterwards to keep planning his elopement with a waitress or two, and make you root for him all the way. All the exasperation and put-uponness he could convey with a weary eyebrow-raise and small shake of the head was brilliant.

As too was the writers' decision to have him open each episode with a monologue to camera, both catching the viewer up with the tortuous schemes-within-schemes-within-schemes presently going on and undermining the absurdity of the escapades ("You may be wondering why I am dressed like a...") René was caught up in. Admittedly after a few seasons there was only room for the barest shred of original plot per episode once everyone's regular routines and catchphrases had been crowbarred in, and the loss of several key actors meant the latter days were definitely not the same, but overall it remains great silly fun.

[Ray de Galles]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

Rest in piss.

[Snake Plissken]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

For something that was such broad farce, the characters and acting were always top quality. I especially loved the relationship between Helga and Herr Flick, as well as the great Sam Kelly as Geering, a man so lazy he can't even be bothered to pronounce all the syllables in "Heil Hitler". In the middle of the mayhem, a put-upon cafe owner who also happens to be irresistably attractive to every young woman that he meets. And youngish tank driving German colonels.

My friend commented that the use of outlandishly bad accents to designate in which language the character is speaking was a work of absurdist genius right up there with Python. Especially when the whole thing is subverted via the arrival of Crabtree.

Of course it ran out of steam, but for a brief while it was brilliant.

RIP, Rene Artois.

[Crusoe]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

RIP, of course.

But... Allo Allo was terrible.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

No, no, the first few series were great.

Never understood, though, why the Germans and French understood each other.

[Ray de Galles]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

Stumpy Pepys wrote: No, no, the first few series were great.

Agreed, the presence of Francesca Gonshaw is always a sign that you're watching an episode from the show's peak.

[Various Artist]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

Heh, yes the accents was a stroke of genius. It used to boggle me, growing up, when for example Michelle of the Resistance would switch to an English accent (i.e. presumably nearer Kirsten Cooke's natural voice) to speak to the British airmen, when I was only used to hearing her 'French' voice.

The show's Wikipedia page straightens out some of the more baffling linguistic logistics with this paragraph:

"In spite of the difficulties in communicating with the British characters, the French, Germans, and Italians all understand each other perfectly, the implication apparently being that they all understand French (and Bertorelli understands German spoken when no French are present) which they use when talking to one another, but in which their own accents remain evident."

I love the notion that the apparently thick-as-two-short-planks Captain Bertorelli is in fact fluently trilingual, at the very least. He was already in it when I started watching, so one of the joys of catching repeats of earlier series in more recent years has been the terrific Sam Kelly's performances as Captain Geering... um, not to mention the startlingly attractive Francesca Gonshaw.

[Ray de Galles]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

I'd forgotten that Bertorelli effectively replaced Geering. That was another bit of shark-jumping. This was compounded by the switch of actors playing Bertorelli that brought Roger Kitter in to the role late in the show's life.

[hobbes]

Bonsoir, bonsoir

Crusoe speaks for me.