Published Date: 16 July 2009

The moment David Ellis, as rueful René, stepped onto the set, the audience were immersed in a Gallic atmosphere of garlic, gauloises and goings on.

The consternations of la vie francaise sous German occupation stalked the scenario. Everyone was likely to be shot for one thing or another. Escaped RAF types peered from hiding places, a stolen masterpiece (the fallen Madonna with boobies, packaged as a sausage) got served up to Axis officers, and Resistance fighters infiltrated with cryptic messages.

Beneath the surface boiled the intrigues and sexy goings on between René (an admirable lookalike of TV star Gordon Kaye) and his bar girls. Slim and dark Kathryn Lincoln as waitress Yvette, was ever ready to be tipped over and trifled with, while Jackie Deverell played equally disposable cookie, blonde Mimi, rising from downstairs to upstairs risqué taking, with even ever-readier René, of course. Both were atmospherically adroit in their parts.

Gay fun was always imminent from Lieutenant Gruber - a suave and exemplary performance from Matthew Woodhams. Something more sinister and S&M, came from Carl Wood, endlessly entertaining as slick Herr Flick - a Gestapo agent of artistic ambivalence, agonising the audience with a scratchy solo on the violin. This prompted his awed subordinate, Helga – played by Jenni Spice - stiff and Teutonic to the buttoned-up tummy, to strip to her black brassiere and suitably-swastickered panties. All these ladies were put in their places by René's powerful partner, Edith. She was played with single-minded determination by masterful Miriam Gossage, resentful, determined on revenge and riposte to René's peccadilloes. She reclaimed the bar with a song that was territorial as well as tuneful, in couture that made the girls look cheap as chicks, topped by a regal plume à la CCTV.

Despite a counter that swirled at a touch and yielded secret as well as bar services, a degree of stability came from the aforementioned enemy alliance. This was personified by Andy Wharton, as German Colonel Von Strohm, and Captain Bertorelli - Alan Bartlett. The latter was an Italian officer of the Berlusconi variety, bemedalled and prone to burst into belle canto at the drop of his befeathered Alpine hat. Glacially and, of course, racially, superior to everyone, Von Strohm wrestled with a complex about his greying and fleeing hair. He tried to fix all this with a rejuvenating wig but since he left the price tag on it only revealed that as a master of disguise he still had some way to go.

In any case the plot meant he was completely upstaged by the arrival of preposterously Prussian, General Von Schmelling. This was Alan Hoad, as ever, stirring the scene with his amiable enthusiasm for moving things awkwardly on.

Liam Holden was ideally angular and awkward as oddball officer Crabtree, the gendarme stalking through a maze of mispronunciations. Russsel McKerarcher, David Bull, Vince Bailey and Linda MacDonald added the wartime flavour of behind-the-line Brits, Frogs and Jerries.

This breezy show was received throughout with appreciative applause and hilarity. Suspense was always only an entrance away, thanks to Résistance messenger and leader Michelle, played by Fiona "Lizzen very carefully, I shall say ziss only once" Bartlett, who stole on-and-off set in demi-monde drapes.

Surreal suspension of disbelief was called for when John Killmister, as Leclerc, appeared as a purveyor of parakeets, a trade you see everywhere in the traditional French countryside. Don't you? But he was ahead of his time with a mobile phone of the caged oiseau variety which put them in touch with London if they spoke up its derrière. I wonder if this could be a way of getting something good out of British governments these days. Little else seems to work.

The set was blithely bistro and the direction by Kate and John Tappy revealed their in-depth insight into the fun-making mode.

Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once - "Palme d'or."