'Allo 'Allo, that sounds wicked.

Byline: Keith Newton 

As the pair from the Gestapo in [sup.3]Allo [sup.3]Allo, Herr Flick and Helga had ways of making you talk. Now they reckon they have ways of making you buy.

"We've made a record," says Kim Hartman. "Well, Herr Flick and Helga have. It's called Rock Around Ze Clock and I have a copy in my bag."

The fun record is aimed firmly at the quirky Christmas market and finds them creating their distinctive version of the old Bill Haley classic from the fifties.

"It's coming out very soon," says Kim, the star of this year's Middlesbrough Theatre pantomime, Sleeping Beauty, as the evil fairy, Carabosse.

She played Helga throughout the long and immensely successful run of the BBC's war spoof sit-com and made the record with Richard Gibson, who was Herr Flick in all but the last series.

"Throughout our whole, long careers, Flick and I have been working towards this moment," she says.

"Chris Moyles has been talking about it on his Radio 1 show and it's been played on Dermot O'Leary's Radio 2 show on Saturday.

"It's gathering a lot of impetus. A large record company has got behind it and it's just snowballed," declares Kim in between pantomime rehearsals.

She is already preparing for life as a rock and pop idol and has been scanning her contract to see if she can get her dressing room repainted and filled with fresh flowers daily, and her fridge filled with bottles of champagne.

("She can't. I wrote the contract and the small print," says eavesdropping theatre manager David Lindsey.)

She and Richard actually recorded Rock Around Ze Clock ten years ago but it has never before been released.

"We had such fun making it. We have always got on tremendously well and are very good friends. That's why our characters were so popular.

"We were in the studio for 36 hours non-stop making it. We were shackled ... manacled together. They said 'You vill get this thing right.' We did, then nothing until now.

"I always sing in pantomimes but that's about it. Helga shouts quite a lot on the record, which is what she does, but Herr Flick almost sounds like Meatloaf. Richard hit one note that really impressed me.

"I won't be singing it in Sleeping Beauty. Richard's not here, I haven't got the uniform, and it's not evil," she sighs, "but everybody has to buy it so we can get a number one. If they don't, I will set Herr Flick on them."

This is Kim's second Middlesbrough panto and, after her enormous success two years ago in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, the theatre is delighted to have her back.

She was very good then as the Wicked Queen, getting boos even before she had said a word, and plans to be very good again - and even badder.

"I want to be really evil and boy am I evil in this," she says, her eyes lighting up. "Does playing an evil character fit in with my new image as a rock superstar?

"That was Helga's decision. She is just so versatile, she decided to become a bad fairy for a while."

'Allo 'Allo, based on the highly successful drama series Secret Army, first hit our TV screens in December, 1982.

It was a comedy send up, set in war time France and centred around a French cafe owner who finds himself and his cafe at the very forefront of the resistance escape route.

It ran for a fantastic 86 episodes over nine series before finally bowing out in 1992 but even now its popularity reigns supreme.

"It's still around and seems to be having a big resurgence. It's shown in 137 countries," says Kim. "I've seen myself dubbed in Chinese and my agent saw me the other day speaking Catalan Spanish.

"It's very popular in France and very successful in the United States which surprises me because I would've thought it was too eccentric for them."

'Allo 'Allo is screened regularly on UK Gold but Kim will find her cult status threatened by her appearances in another show that started before it and is still going strong.

She is playing Mrs Rawlinson, the new science teacher in the long-running kids soap Grange Hill.

"Mrs Rawlinson is very eccentric and a bit scary, so I'm having fun doing it. It's great being in Grange Hill. I used to watch it with my children when they were young. It's been on for 25 years now and is a bit of an institution. "

She and husband John live near Stratford on Avon and son and daughter Tom and Miranda are now grown-up. "We always spend Christmas together - I always get back for Christmas Day."

Kim did lots of pantomimes in the early part of her career and started playing principal boy when Allo Allo took off.

"Now I'm going to have to start getting used to an exotic rock lifestyle. I'll have a stretch limo, 20 bodyguards, and I'll have to go jogging. This is a whole new vista."

* Sleeping Beauty starts at Middlesbrough Theatre on Thursday and runs until Sunday, January 8. Ring 01642 815181 for full details.