In bringing one of Britain’s most famous and beloved sit-coms Fawlty Towers to the stage, its co-creator John Cleese had to tread very carefully. Like the Crown Jewels or recordings of the Beatles, those 12 hallowed episodes, originally airing in the 1970s, are so precious to the nation that you feel one false move – a new character or a few new gags perhaps – and the great British public would revolt.
But rest assured, Cleese has given us an almost exact recreation of the Fawlty Towers we know and love. ‘Almost’ because while the play primarily focuses on a weave of the episodes ‘The Hotel Inspector’, ‘Communication Problems’ and ‘The Germans’, it also incorporates fan-favourite jokes and nods to other episodes, all culminating in a new, ingenious finale written by Cleese himself, to tie the three stories together.
Of the cast, Adam Elliot as the tense, agitated Basil and Mia Austen as the sardonic Sybil are lookalikes, soundalikes and move-a-likes of the original Cleese/Prunella Scales hotel-managing couple. Her cackling laugh and his furtive glances are reassuringly present.
But perhaps it is the ‘minor’ characters in the form of Paul Nicholas’ gently senile Major, ‘Germans, eh Fawlty?’, and Hemi Yeroham’s permanently clueless Manuel ‘I speek Eengleesh, I learrrn eet frrrom a boook’, that delight the most, their famous lines delivered with relish.
The hotel interior is faithfully reproduced from the TV series and we are able to view the office, reception area, dining room and even an upstairs bedroom simultaneously, thanks to the clever staging and set – the perfect vehicle to observe these wonderful oddballs at large.
I’d be fascinated to know what the smattering of teens and children in the audience made of it all, but for all the 50+ and 60-somethings in a packed-out New Theatre Oxford, this was a nostalgic warm hug of a show. As the converted, we were gladly preached to all over again.
Edward Bliss
Fawlty Towers – The Play runs at New Theatre Oxford until Saturday July 18. Book here: https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/fawlty-towers-the-play/new-theatre-oxford/
