Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue – until 13 September 2025
Reviewed by Phil Brown
4****
Fifty years on from the debut of the Fawlty Towers sitcom on TV, this brilliantly realised farce from the school of Monty Python humour about life in a seaside hotel, has lost none of its coruscating power to make you laugh.
The original show written by John Cleese and Connie Booth is famously based on the experience of the Python team staying in the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. Cleese called the proprietor “the rudest man I have come across in my life”. His underlying philosophy of hotel management seems to have been – if it weren’t for the customers and the staff, I could really run a decent place.
John Cleese (along with others), had already started the Video Arts management training business by this time and one can’t help thinking this perspective informed the writing of Fawlty Towers. For such a memorable and influential sitcom, one that has somehow become embedded in British culture, it’s astonishing that only 12 half hour episodes were ever made.
So what is it about Fawlty Towers – The Play that makes it stand up today?
Yes, it’s a completely different world now – many of us first watched it on a rented black and white television, at a time when a docile general public was routinely expected to know its place. But modern hospitality chains haven’t entirely squeezed out family run seaside hotels and they all rely on casual international staff. So the setting remains feasible. And, whilst the customer service ethos has made the relationship between business owner and a far less docile and ever more entitled public outwardly more politic, the ebb and flow of hope and despair in everyday situations as well as the trials and tribulations of interpersonal and marital friction, remain fundamentally timeless.
Fawlty Towers – The Play takes us back to the days of classic sitcoms before sensitivity readers were even a glint in a publisher’s eye. On the very sound basis of don’t try and fix it if it ain’t broke, we have a wonderfully faithful stage adaptation of three classic BBC episodes—The Hotel Inspectors, The Germans, and Communication Problems (the one with the deaf woman, the missing money and a win on the horses)—cleverly woven together by Cleese and director Caroline Jay Ranger into a high energy coherent whole with all the favourite characters and catchphrases present and correct. It’s 2 hours (with interval) of uproarious entertainment and nostalgia on steroids. If anything, Fawlty Towers – The Play actually breathes vital new life into the original TV show for those of us who had to make do with small screen monochrome sets.
It’s true that cliched devices are used to create the moments of misunderstanding and slapstick that are key to the show (circumlocution, language disconnect, failing memory, failing hearing aids etc). However, this doesn’t grate being well disguised by the quality and skill of the writing and performing.
Liz Ascroft’s set, just as we remember it, and costumes create a brilliant period backdrop for the expertly choreographed comic action which at times is fast paced and complex but negotiated expertly.
Casting by Anne Vosser is a particular strength of the show – on paper it seems busy with 17 members but this is across 3 main scenes (except possibly for the intentionally chaotic fire drill scene). Whilst each member plays their part distinctively, there are some stand out individual performances.
Danny Bayne plays Basil Fawlty ‘fawltlessly’ right down to the Nazi walk in The Germans scene. His passive aggressive is so good, and there are some priceless one liners delivered to perfection : “You seem very jolly Basil, sort of happy” “Oh, yes, happy – I remember that” or “just my way of getting through the day dear – the Samaritans were engaged”. Another killer line with Basil talking to himself is loaded with pathos “Zhoom! What was that? That was your life, mate! Oh, that was quick. Do I get another? Sorry, mate. That’s your lot.”
Mia Austen’s portrayal of ‘higher authority’ Sybil Fawlty (and her cackle) is equally enjoyable and both Paul Nicholas as the bewildered Major with the unreliable memory and Helen Lederer as the formidable but deaf Mrs Richardson are delightfully convincing as the old duffers of the piece. Greg Haiste’s verbose Mr Hutchinson was suitably infuriating whilst Strictly’s Joanne Clifton (Polly) impressed in a very straight acting role. For me though Hemi Yeroham’s “I remember nothing” Manuel is a comic masterclass that, at the risk of being heretical, outshines the original.
Fawlty Towers – The Play is wonderful, richly humorous entertainment – not only an evening of unabashed nostalgia, but a proper celebration of British comedy and culture. As Nica Burns of Nimax Theatres says in the programme – as an antidote to the seriousness of the world outside, we offer an evening of laughter…
Sounds good to me!