BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers is making a fresh return to the stage in a sequel show, John Cleese has confirmed.
The comedy legend, 85, revisited his role as bumbling hotel owner Basil Fawlty on the West End last year, drawing in fans of the original show, which ran from 1975 to 1979.
Fawlty Towers: The Play was a two-hour-long stage show penned by Cleese based on three of the original episodes: The Hotel Inspector, The Germans and Communication Problems, remaining faithful to the original tone of the show.
He passed the baton over to Danny Bayne to portray the lead role, however.
Now, three more episodes will be revived in a sequel – The Psychiatrist, The Kipper and The Corpse, which involve storylines like hiding a dead body and trying to wrangle an escaped rodent.
In a statement, Cleese said: ‘In the West End, we took favourites such as Mrs Richards, The Germans and The Food Inspectors and put those together to make the show.
‘But it has been so successful that I said, “Let’s put together three other shows.” There is no reason we cannot do it again but we wouldn’t want to have it on at the same time so maybe in a year and a half’s time?”
The current play is running at Apollo Theatre until September 13 before embarking on a UK and Ireland tour until July 2026.
It has received rave reviews since launching last year, no doubt securing its spot for a sequel next year.
Given the somewhat dated humour of the show, not everything translated over to the stage reboot.
Last year, Cleese told Metro that he had decided to take out the use of the N-word from his adaptation of The Germans.
He explained: ‘There was a scene where Major used a couple of words you can’t use now, racial slurs it would come under, so we took that out.’
‘There’s always a problem with comedy that you deal with the literal-minded.
‘The literal-minded don’t understand irony. That means if you take them seriously, you get rid of a lot of comedy, because literal-minded people don’t understand metaphor, and they don’t understand irony, and they don’t understand comic exaggeration… they’re not playing with a full deck.’
Whether Cleese will have to face similar decisions in the upcoming sequel remains to be seen.
In a recent interview with The Telegraph, the actor portraying the Major on stage, Paul Nicholas, agreed with the decision.
‘People are sensitive to those things and quite rightly, you can’t go around calling people… the N-word,’ he said.
Tickets for Fawlty Towers: The Play in the West End and on tour are available to purchase now.
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