The sitcom inspired by a rude Torquay hotel owner gets the stage treatment.
In the early 1970s, Monty Python’s John Cleese stayed at a hotel in Torquay and encountered an owner so spectacularly rude he couldn’t stop thinking about him. Donald Sinclair ran the Gleneagles Hotel with open contempt for his guests. That fascination turned into Basil Fawlty.
The show first aired on BBC Two on 19 September 1975, and this tour marks the 50th anniversary. Three favourite episodes have been adapted into a two-hour stage play, which arrives at Aberdeen’s Music Hall for a week-long run from January 20 to 24.
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Twelve episodes and done
Only 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers were ever made. Co-written with Connie Booth, the series ran for two short seasons before its creators quit while they were ahead. That restraint paid off. The show won two BAFTAs and was voted the best British programme of all time in a 2000 British Film Institute poll.
The stage version draws on ‘The Hotel Inspector’ and ‘The Germans’ from series one, plus ‘Communication Problems’ from series two, threaded together with a new finale.
Basil at his worst
The plot follows Basil’s frantic attempts to impress a suspected hotel inspector while navigating a party of German guests, a deaf and relentlessly complaining Mrs Richards, and the small matter of hiding a gambling win from his watchful wife Sybil. Polly tries to hold things together. Manuel, the trainee waiter from Barcelona, does his best. It’s not quite enough.
Danny Bayne takes on the role of Basil, with Mia Austen as Sybil and Hemi Yeroham reprising his West End role as Manuel. Joanne Clifton, best known for winning Strictly Come Dancing in 2016, plays Polly. Paul Nicholas returns as The Major.
The production has already sold out two West End seasons. After half a century, Basil Fawlty is still getting under people’s skin.
Fawlty Towers - The Play runs at Aberdeen Music Hall from Tuesday, January 20 to Saturday, January 24. Tickets and times here.
