Allo! Allo!: The Great Un-Escape

Air Date

Friday January 9, 1987

Production Code

LLCI056K

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• Guest Cast

  • Martin Sadler British POW Wing Commander
  • Caroline Dennis French Girl
  • Nick Burnell (II) German POW Camp Commandant

• Stars

  • Guy Siner Lieutenant Hubert Gruber
  • Robin Parkinson Monsieur Ernest Leclerc (#2) (Seasons 7 - 9)
  • Gavin Richards Captain Alberto Bertorelli (#1) (Seasons 4 - 6)
  • Roger Kitter Captain Alberto Bertorelli (#2) (Season 7)
  • Carole Ashby Louise of the Communist Resistance (Seasons 5 - 9)
  • John D. Collins Flying Officer Fairfax (Seasons 1 - 7, recurring in Season 9)
  • Nicholas Frankau Flying Officer Carstairs (Seasons 1 - 7, recurring in Season 9)
  • Francesca Gonshaw Maria Recamier (Seasons 1 - 3)
  • Derek Royle Monsieur Ernest Leclerc (#1) (Season 6)
  • Jack Haig Monsieur Roger Leclerc (Seasons 1 - 5)
  • Gorden Kaye René Artois
  • Carmen Silvera Edith Melba Artois
More Episode Cast and Crew »

• Goof: This episode is set in 1941, but Madame Fanny sings "La Vie en Rose", a song Edith Piaf wrote in 1946. [edit]

• We learnt that RAF airmen Fairfax and Carstairs are from 402 Squadron. [edit]
• Madame Fanny tells Edith that Vincent Van Gogh (whom she liked to call "Bobby") was in love with her, and threatened to emasculate himself if she would not marry him. She says she later recieved
  an ear in the post. If you don't know already, Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) was a real-life Dutch post-Impressionist artist who suffered mental problems, leading to his suicide aged 37. Legend says he cut his own ear off during a seizure on Christmas Eve 1888, wrapping it in newspaper and giving it to a prostitute at the local brothel he frequented. The inference here is that Madame Fanny was that prostitute. [edit]
• Herr Von Smallhausen was educated at Oxford University, in England. [edit]

• (the gang pretend to be British)
  Fairfax: Hello!
  Carstairs: Hello.
  Rene: Bang on!
  Edith: Wizard prang!
  Yvette: Pip pip!
  Maria: Toodle-oo!
  Michelle: Chocks away!
  Von Strohm: Hello... old fruit!
  Hans: Hitler... has only got one...
  Von Klinkerhoffen: SILENCE! [edit]
• (delivering the good and bad "nose")
  Crabtree: "I have hashed up the shatting of the two tits.
  The Gestapo are hoovering round the graveyid, disgeezed
  as a nan, a boshop and a Roman Catholic Farter."
  Edith: "Where are the airmen?"
  Crabtree: "They have taken spades, they have crapped
  along the tunnel, and are dogging." [edit]
• (speaking of Hitler)
  Rene: There is nothing worse than a bad-tempered decorator. [edit]

• The title of this episode alludes to the 1963 film call "the Great Escape" (starring Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, etc.) in which several hundred British prisoners of war plan a mass escape. An absolute classic movie. [edit]