List of 'Allo 'Allo! characters
René Francois Artois (Gorden Kaye) – The local café proprietor who, whilst trying to remain impartial, has been dragged into the war by both sides.
Edith Melba Artois (née La Fan) (Carmen Silvera) – René's wife, and the café's resident cabaret performer.
However, her singing is so bad and tuneless (as René is once heard to comment: "my wife, who cannot carry a tune in a bucket...") that the cafe's customers stick cheese in their ears to block out the noise.
Whilst René views her with disdain, she is also the subject of much romantic wooing by the local undertaker Monsieur Alfonse and the Italian Captain Alberto Bertorelli.
When Edith recreates their honeymoon dinner for their wedding anniversary Rene tells her "I don't deserve you" with apparent sincerity.
She is partial to a glass of gin, and occasionally fills in for her daughter as part of the café cabaret, although her singing is just as bad (if not worse).
Her attitude towards M. Alfonse varies from one episode to the next, she often says that he would make a better husband for Edith than Rene, but she will also hurl pottery at him from her bedroom window because she does not like undertakers.
She is also responsible for 'entertaining' the German officers, upstairs at the café with wet celery and a flying helmet; and sometimes with an egg whisk (exactly how these accessories are used remains unclear).
When she speaks she has the tendency to spit when she rolls her "r"s. She disguises herself as a Red Cross parcel after sneaking into the British POW camp's mail room in the episode 'Camp Dance', but unfortunately gets sent back to Switzerland after failing to put enough stamps on.
It is heavily hinted that the waitresses supplement their income by prostitution with the Germans, and Yvette frequently entices Colonel von Strohm with the promise of using "the flying helmet and the wet celery".
Monsieur Roger Leclerc (Jack Haig) (series 1 to 5) – The Resistance's elderly forger, 'master' of disguises (all of them unconvincing), and café piano player.
Funds for the Resistance, borrowed from him, are forged by Leclerc on their return – unfortunately leading Alfonse to feel generous and spend the money on a party at the café.
Hiding his baldness with a comb over, overweight, bumbling and greedy, the Colonel often promises René a cut of the profits but is quick to take them away.
He is astonished to discover that his friends René and Edith are actually the mysterious "Nighthawk", but is happy in his new life, having become a naturalised British subject.
Inviting Helga to the Gestapo dance, he explains their song, which is sung to the tune of "Hokey-Cokey": "You put your left boot in!
He once delivered an out-of-date ransom note from the Resistance, saying "It vas tied around a brick and thrown at my head – I have only just regained consciousness!".
He studied at Oxford University some time before the war, making him (in Flick's view) a useful source of information about English culture.
Unfortunately, his French is weak and he is invariably unable to use the correct vowel sounds, which means that sometimes he is quite incomprehensible, most famously in his usual greeting "Good moaning!"
After Crabtree is introduced in the series, Yvette frequently announces him as "That idiot British officer who thinks he can speak French".
When Flick and von Smallhausen (in disguise as "vinkle" salesmen) comment on his strange accent, he tells them he's from "Nipples" (Naples).
There is additional "explanation" in S6E6 when Agent Grace, who appears to be Crabtree's girlfriend, explains that when they were both training, "they trooned us to talk pish", i.e. posh.
Captain Alberto Bertorelli (Gavin Richards, series 4 to 6; Roger Kitter, series 7) – An Italian officer who is seconded to Colonel von Strohm as liaison between the German and Italian forces in the prelude to the proposed invasion of Great Britain, and as a replacement for Captain Geering.
Ken Morley would later play a similar German general in the sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf, where he (and his pet crocodile) encounter Ace Rimmer.
Denise Laroque (Moira Foot) (series 5) – Original leader of the Communist resistance and childhood sweetheart of René.
Corporal Caponi (John Banks) (series 5–6) – Captain Bertorelli's second-in-command of the Italian troops stationed in Nouvion.
Dr LeConte (David Rowlands) (series 8–9) The local doctor in Nouvion, with asthma and in a worse state than anyone else in the town.
By series eight, Dr Le Conte does pregnancy tests for both the newly widowed Madame Lennard and Yvette; but the frogs he used for the pregnancy test jumped into each other's jars, meaning Yvette was not pregnant with René's child (as she had believed), meaning that Madame Lennard was pregnant out of wedlock.
It is a valuable portrait, the location and authenticity of which is a key concern to the other characters as the original changes hands frequently and there are various forgeries.
On one occasion, Herr Flick manages to get hold of three copies and comments "I have three Fallen Madonnas with six big boobies!"
Shawn Moore, the production designer of 'Allo 'Allo, put his copy of this painting up for auction in 2007,[2] where it fetched more than £4,000, which was donated to a children's charity.
