Good Staff Are Hard to Find

Good Staff Are Hard to Find
Production Details
Written by	Jeremy Lloyd & David Croft
Director	David Croft
Transmission Details
Airdate	21 November 1987
Continuity
Previous	Camp Dance
Next	The Flying Nun

As many as nine girls of various ages are waiting outside the café to be interviewed for the post as a new waitress, while René makes himself look his very best. Then he, Edith and Yvette sit down to look at them. Monsieur LeClerc shows them in and René likes those who are young and have good looking bodies - whereas Edith and Yvette (thinking of René's fondness of young girls) disapprove of them and take a bigger liking to the plain looking ones.

General Von Klinkerhoffen pays a visit to colonel Von Strohm's office. He tells him of the imminent invasion of England and that the chateau will be the centre of operations, so the area around it is very important. When the general asks about captain Geering, the colonel tells him he volunteered for the Russian front. The general then informs him he is to have a new assistant. As the Italians will join in the invasion, the colonel is to cooperate with the Italian captain Alberto Bertorelli, who is shown into the room. He turns out to be a very happy, emotional and passionate man, whom the Germans take an instant dislike to.

The interviews at the café continue and LeClerc keeps announcing the girls, until he announces "Michelle of the resistance". She first tells them that a new radio has arrived for them (with a new wavelength, which the Germans do not know) and will be delivered by a man disguised as a mountaineer. Secondly, she brusquely informs them that their new waitress is to be one of the resistance girls - from Paris. She blows a whistle and a small, fierce looking girl, dressed just as her, enters the room. Her name turns out to be Mimi Labonq and as Michelle explains to her that René is very important to them, she is to guard him with her life. He finds it ridiculous to have a "body guard", but she then shows them what she can do, by striking René to the floor, shouting. Edith hires her on the spot.

That same night herr Flick and Helga arrive at the café to have a private dinner in the backroom. The airmen, who are hiding in there, have to leave the room and go out through the window. As the Germans sit down, René asks Mimi for a bottle of wine and she says, in an angry tone, that she has already prepared a bottle for the Gestapo. As René opens the window to let in some air, he finds Crabtree outside, who show him where the airmen are - hiding in a dustbin. As Mimi enters the room with the wine, she tells herr Flick he will never have a better bottle in his life. She and René leave the room.

While herr Flick informs Helga that he has decided to marry her, Mimi explains to René what she meant by herr Flick never having a better bottle - namely, that she has poisoned the wine. Desperate, René hurries in and at the last second, he manages to grab the wine glasses, pour out the wine and throw the bottle out the window, explaining that "it was not a good year". At the same moment, Gruber enters the café and when René comes out of the backroom and explains to Mimi that she must not kill the customers, he also tells her that Gruber is the one who fancies him. It then turns out she also fancies him.

Gruber asks René for some dark red lipstick - in order to finish the forging of the paintings. After René has agreed to this, colonel Von Strohm enters the café, introducing to René his new Italian assistant, who knows nothing of the airmen, the paintings or the cuckoo clock - or even about the colonel's visits upstairs with Yvette. As the cheerful Bertorelli enters, he embraces Yvette, thinking she is René's wife and almost embraces Edith, thinking she is his mother-in-law. As he spots Gruber, he thinks he looks very handsome - like a film star. However, when the colonel tells Bertorelli his name, he remembers hearing about him and decides not to embrace him, but only shakes hands with him.

Edith brings Fanny some food and she complains that nobody comes up to her room anymore, because there is no radio under her bed at the moment. Edith tells her to pass the time by reading, but she does not want to, since her hands are shaking from reading the book she has with her, which turns out to be Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Yvette asks the colonel to come upstairs, to look at some paintings "of a flying helmet and some wet celery". When they have left, LeClerc enters the café, disguised as a mountaineer. He informs René that new radio is in his backpack, already connected to the batteries and the pickaxe in his hand is the aerial. This makes the radio "go off" from time to time, when music and different sounds come out of the backpack. As he can not go to neither Fanny's room ("she is doing private things") nor Yvette's room ("she is doing officer things"), René places him at Bertorelli's table. Finally, the disguising of the sounds coming from the radio becomes too difficult, and they manage to get him into the kitchen.

Herr Flick promptly informs Helga of what their wedding will be like, but she is not very keen on the idea of marrying him. Meanwhile, the colonel comes down, bearing a few traces of his adventures with Yvette (some lipstick on his cheek and some wet celery behind his ear). The captain then tries to make him arrange so the girls will "show him some paintings" too, but he will not hear of it. However, Mimi offers to do so, telling him "you will not see better paintings for as long as you live". They go upstairs, after which Michelle comes in, dressed in a German uniform. She informs René, that London will be calling on the new radio in ten minutes and also asks how the new girl is. He tells her of how she tried to kill herr Flick and then asks Yvette where she is. When she tells him that Mimi is upstairs with Bertorelli and that he will never se better paintings in his life, René realises what she is up to and is about to rush upstairs to stop the whole thing. However, this is not necessary, since Bertorelli, panicking, that same moment comes charging down the stairs and faints.

Trivia

First appearances of Mimi Labonq (Sue Hodge) and Captain Alberto Bertorelli (Gavin Richards).