Allo 'Allo!

This series has been on for years and I have many episodes on DVD. It is extremely funny as it mocks accents and people from different countries. As it is in the English language, but with different accents used to indicate the nationalities of people, the humor cannot be transferred to other countries so I am surprised whether the series would be successful outside the UK. It's certainly generally unknown in France though it may have at one time or other been aired on one of the cable channels and many or the plays on words/accents etc would be untranslateable into French. That said, I work for a Dutch company and many of my colleagues in Holland love the series which appears on their TV. But the Dutch tend to speak much better English than the French and from what I can gather, their humour is more akin to that of the UK, all of which could explain their being attracted to this series, plus the fact that they don't like the Germans too much.

On a negative side, one may reproach the series as being too repetitive with the punch lines etc etc. I think that this is true to a certain extent but as the script is so lively, this is somewhat compensated. On the subject of the humour itself, I wonder really if anyone outside the UK could laugh at the "painting of the falled Madonna with the big boobies". There are all sorts of funny repeated detail which are hallmarks of the series ( Leclerc, "tis I, Carmen Silvera trying to sing, the policeman massacring the English language with French pronunciation etc etc ) but you have to be a real fan to appreciate. It's as typically English as Monty Python. I have yet to see a comedy serial on French television about the German occupation and would be even more surprised if there was one on German TV. The closest I have seen would be the French film "La Grande Vadrouille" starring BOurvil and Louis de Funès.

The serial is set in what I had thought to be the mythical village of Nouvion. In fact, Nouvion does exist, in the Pas-de-Calais department in Northern France, just north of Abbeville and east of St Valery sur Somme. Whether the authors of the series were aware of this, I have absolutely no idea!