Arthur Bostrom (born 6 January 1955) is an English actor, most famous for his role as Officer Crabtree in the long-running BBC tv sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!.

Biography

Bostrom was born in Rugby, Warwickshire and attended Lawrence Sheriff School, where he was a contemporary with Kevin Warwick. He graduated from St Chad's College, University of Durham. Besides his television career, he acted on the stage regularly, also being a trained life coach. He lived in Manchester for a long time.

Bostrom had a recurrent character in 'Allo 'Allo!, first appearing mid-way through the second series and remaining until the show's finale. Officer Crabtree was played as an idiotic English undercover officer, disguised constantly as a French gendarme during the Second World War. Much of the character's humour derived from his supposed inability to pronounce French words correctly in conversation, which, on an English-language television programme, was represented by ludicrous exaggeration and mispronunciation of ordinary English words. For example, "Good morning" would be pronounced as "Gid moaning", "I was just passing round the corner" would be "I was just pissing roond the corner", and famously, "The bombers were being chased by fighters when they dropped their bombs on the London docks" became "The bummers were being chased by farters when they drooped their bums on the London dicks'. Bostrom actually speaks fluent French.

In 2005, Bostrom guest-starred in Dead Man Walking, an audio drama based on the television series Sapphire and Steel. From December 2007 to January 2008, he continued his pantomime run when he appeared in a production as an ugly sister in Cinderella in Middlesbrough. On 8 January 2008, he appeared in an episode of Big Brother's Big Mouth on E4. He discussed events in the house after introducing the show in the familiar character of Officer Crabtree.

On 3 March 2010 he appeared as a vicar in the BBC One daytime soap opera Doctors.

Bostrom appeared (alongside fellow 'Allo 'Allo! alumnus Sam Kelly) in the BBC radio dramatisation of The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek in November 2008, playing the part of Wendler.