Starring: Gorden Kaye, Carmen Silvera, Vicki Michelle, Richard Marner, Kim Hartman, Guy Siner, Kirsten Cooke, Richard Gibson, Rose Hill, Arthur Bostrom, John D. Collins, Nicholas Frankau
More info: IMDb
In WW2 France, Rene Artois runs a small café where Resistance fighters, Gestapo men, German Army officers and escaped Allied POWs interact daily, ignorant of one another's true identity or presence, exasperating Rene.
My rating: 6.5/10
Will I watch it again? No.
I'm a HUGE fan of a lot of the shows made by Croft & Lloyd and for at least a couple of decades I've been meaning to get around to this one. It's regarded as a classic. The show lasted for nine seasons so I had pretty high hopes for it. I'm down with some WWII comedy (HOGAN'S HEROES was a childhood favorite) but this show didn't click for me. I tried, too, and gave it a shot by watching the first season (7 episodes) but I barely laughed. I can see why this was so popular but the laughs weren't there for me and that's important. I suppose a lot of it is just too silly and everyone is essentially playing a caricature or a cartoon character. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a recipe for disaster because I sometimes like that but it wasn't working for me on this one. I think the first time I laughed was in the third episode when the chickens (who had eaten grain mixed with nitro glycerin) started exploding one by one behind a bush with feathers flying up into the air. Unfortunately each subsequent episode had about a one laugh limit for me despite some otherwise mildly amusing moments. I'm always looking for some great British TV comedy and it's unfortunate I didn't find that in this show. The only other Croft & Lloyd show that didn't do it for me (and I also gave it a season before quitting) was IT AIN'T HALF HOT MUM (1974) which I watched twenty years ago. I dug the premise and some of the characters but the laughs weren't there.
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