John Cleese on his new West End adaptation and the sitcom’s success
Certified comedic genius John Cleese boasts an unwavering flair for farce, which was first gifted to audiences back in the Sixties when he made his television debut in The Frost Report.
And now, the 84-year-old veteran actor and screenwriter has recreated the magic of his acclaimed BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers – which he cowrote and starred in with first wife Connie Booth – for the West End stage, five decades after its inception on the small screen.
Speaking to Yours during the launch of Fawlty Towers The Play at London’s Apollo Theatre, John discussed bringing the Seventies show to a new generation, saying, “It just seems very natural. I enjoyed working with the cast enormously because it’s a cooperative process.
“If you involve a lot of people in the process, everybody becomes creative, and they feel much more that they’re a part of it. Why use the intelligence of one man when you can have the intelligence of the whole group?”
The iconic Fawlty Towers ran for two six-episode series in 1975 and 1979 respectively. It follows the inimitable hotel owner Basil Fawlty (Cleese) as he attempts to keep the titular establishment up and running amid dealing with farcical situations and a slew of challenging, eccentric and demanding guests. Those helping and hindering him in equal measure are wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs) and calm and collected chambermaid Polly Sherman (Booth).
When it came to casting for the West End iteration – which is running until late September – John revealed that he had some guidance from his youngest daughter Camilla, 40, who he shares with second wife Barbara Trentham.
While the father and daughter duo fuelled a frenzy last year with news that they’re co-writing and starring in a Fawlty Towers reboot, their relationship was once infamously fractured at the height of Camilla’s struggles with substance abuse in 2006.
“I felt for sure Dad would crack and get in touch. But he had been told that tough love was the only thing that would save my life,” Camilla previously said.
Their estrangement came to an end a year later, with the actress recalling how she reached out to her dad and asked for his help in getting sober. “I cried my heart out. The most painful thing in my life was Dad not talking to me. That was what made me realise, eventually, that I needed to sober up.”
After curbing her addictions, Camilla followed in John’s footsteps to pursue a career in comedy as a writer, performer and producer – and now, it seems, she’s added casting director to her CV.
