That phrase, and others, were the hallmarks of the iconic British comedy 'Allo 'Allo!, spoken when resistance agent (and cafe owner) René Artois was being briefed on his latest, ridiculous, mission.

The actor who gave voice, wry smile and crooked eye to René, Gorden Kaye, has died, aged 75.

Though he was a much-loved comic actor and starred in a slew of British comedies, Kaye was best known for the improbably lothario René, who was somehow the object of attraction for every woman (and the occasional German officer) who passed his cafe in the fictional French town of Nouvion.

Kaye was born in Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of a truck driver.

He got his start working at a local hospital radio station, and later radio drama in Manchester. As a young actor he worked on television dramas such as Champion House and Coronation Street.

In the latter, he played Bernard, the nephew of one of the street's iconic characters, Elsie Tanner.

Small roles in the comedies It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Are You Being Served? and Come Back Mrs Noah followed but one role would come to define Kaye's career - that of French cafe owner and unwitting resistance hero René Artois.

In 1982 the pilot script for the series was sent to Kaye by writer David Croft, who had used him previously in Are You Being Served.

Kaye appeared in 84 television episodes of 'Allo 'Allo! produced between 1982 and 1992, his character an unwilling pivot between the British-backed resistance, who wanted to use his cafe to hide escaping British airmen, and the Nazi occupiers, who often dined there.

Always dreaming of running away to a peaceful life in the country, René was also caught between his devoted (but ageing wife) Edith, her bedridden mother (who loathed him) and his waitresses, Yvette and Maria (later Mimi) who found him irresistible.

René also had to fend off the affections of one of the Nazi officers, the artistically-minded Hubert Gruber, who was besotted with him, and also keep hidden in his cellar the stolen painting of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies by (the fictitious) Van Klomp, which was safely concealed within a knockwurst.

That painting was the planned retirement fund of Kaye's René, along with his waitress Yvette, and the German officers Colonel von Strohm (Richard Marner), Lt Hubert Gruber (Guy Siner), Captain Geering (Sam Kelly), Private Helga Geerhart (Kim Hartman) and the sinister Gestapo chief Herr Otto Flick (Richard Gibson).

The series is remembered as one of the most iconic British comedies, generally ranked alongside other masterpieces such as Dad's Army, Are You Being Served?, Only Fools and Horses and Absolutely Fabulous.

In addition to its memorable one-liners, it was replete with double entendres and frenzied sequences in which the main characters were either hiding from the Nazis, hiding , or desperately trying to raise London on the radio hidden under the bed of René's mother-in-law using the codename "Nighthawk".

Kaye later reprised the role of René in the stage adaptation of 'Allo 'Allo!, and starred in more than 1200 performances, and in 2007 in a one-off reunion television special.

Kaye, who confirmed his homosexuality in his 1989 book René & Me: A Sort of Autobiography, also appeared on stage in Brisbane for a production of 'Allo 'Allo!, with two other original castmembers: Sue Hodge, who played Mimi LeBonc, and Guy Siner, who had played Gruber.