Torquay’s hapless hotelier Basil Fawlty is to make his West End debut, almost 50 years after his first appearance on television.
John Cleese has adapted and combined three Fawlty Towers episodes for a new two-hour play which will open at the Apollo theatre in London in May. It brings together the plots of The Hotel Inspector, The Germans and Communication Problems from the 1970s sitcom.
In a statement released on Friday, Cleese said: “We’ve been involved in the casting process for some time, being constantly reminded of what a wealth of acting talent we have in Britain – sorting the very, very, very good from the merely very, very good. Finally, we assembled a top-class group of comedy actors.”
The role of Basil will be played by Adam Jackson-Smith and his indomitable wife Sybil will be played by Anna-Jane Casey. Hemi Yeroham will star as the waiter Manuel and Victoria Fox has the role of the maid Polly.
Cleese, who originally played Basil opposite his co-writer (and then wife) Connie Booth as Polly, said that he had chosen three of his favourite episodes for the adaptation and added “one huge finale”.
TV comedy hits Drop the Dead Donkey and The Fast Show are also appearing on stage this year. It is not the first time Fawlty Towers has inspired a theatrical treatment. A long-running Edinburgh fringe hit, Faulty Towers: The Dining Experience, serves audiences a three-course meal and a story involving the sitcom’s characters.
The first of 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers was broadcast on BBC Two in September 1975. In 2000 the sitcom was voted the best British programme of all time in a British Film Institute poll.
In The Germans, the goose-stepping Fawlty fails to follow his own instruction “Don’t mention the war!” to a group of guests from Germany. The episode was temporarily removed from a BBC-owned streaming service in 2020 because it contains racial slurs. It was reinstated by UKTV with guidance and warnings highlighting “potentially offensive content and language”. The episode has a scene in which the Major uses racist language in relation to an anecdote about the West Indies cricket team. Cleese told the Age newspaper: “If you put nonsense words into the mouth of someone you want to make fun of, you’re not broadcasting their views, you’re making fun of them.”
The play begins previews on 4 May and has an official opening night on 15 May. It is directed by Caroline Jay Ranger whose credits include Only Fools and Horses: The Musical and Monty Python Live.
