Fawlty Towers The Play (Apollo Theatre, London)
Verdict: Fawltless antique
Rating: 5
Shamelessly recycled, fifty-year-old comic material it may be. But as shamelessly recycled 50-year-old comic material goes, John Cleese and Connie Booth’s stage replica of their classic TV comedy, Fawlty Towers, is still very good fun.
It’s such a high-quality copy of the 1975 original that if you look closely, you might even find it says ‘Made In China’ on the bottom. Fawlty Towers purists will be relieved to learn there is nothing new to see here.
Instead, this is a tightly wrought highlights package, distilling the fire drill fiasco, the wall-mounted moose debacle, and the fateful fiver secretly bet on the horse Dragonfly.
Into the carefully choreographed chaos step deaf old battleaxe Mrs Richards (a peerlessly contemptuous Rachel Izen), undercover hotel inspectors and many others, including… the Germans.
Being live adds frisson, but this is a risk-free re-run unthreatened by ‘new material’. Caroline Jay Ranger’s production offers her company all the creative freedom that Kim Jong Un grants the people of North Korea.
It's shamelessly recycled, but John Cleese and Connie Booth’s stage replica of their classic TV comedy, Fawlty Towers, is still very good fun
It’s such a high-quality copy of the 1975 original that if you look closely, you might even find it says ‘Made In China ’ on the bottom
And Liz Ashcroft’s staging distils the chintzy Torquay hotel into an open plan design faux pas — from lobby with flock wallpaper and dining room with lacy tablecloths, to upstairs bedroom sans sea view.
Adam Jackson-Smith is a faultless avatar of Basil, down to the long moustache muffling his sotto voce sarcasm. He leaps adroitly to attention at Sybil’s shrieking threats to his manhood (‘you’ll have to sew them back on first…’), but he’s also supple enough to do the swivelling, head-bandaged goose step for the bewildered Germans.
Anna-Jane Casey’s Sybil is likewise a Prunella Scales carbon copy, while Hemi Yeroham has the exact rubber-ball bounce of Andrew Sachs’s waiter from Barcelona, Manuel. Victoria Fox has the swimming head movements and mid-Atlantic accent of Connie Booth’s Polly, and Paul Nichols is as blissfully oblivious as Ballard Berkeley’s mystified Major.
It’s as if time has stood still for this fine reproduction of a vintage mid-century antique. I suggest you book an en suite.
It’s as if time has stood still for this fine reproduction of a vintage mid-century antique. I suggest you book an en suite
The cast acknowledged guests at Wednesday evening's press night performance of the play
Anna-Jane Casey gave a curtsy while receiving a round of applause following the production
The cast soaked up the applause after putting on a flawless performance at the Apollo Theatre
(L to R) Anna-Jane Casey, Adam Jackson Smith, Hemi Yeroham, Victoria Fox, John Cleese and Paul Nicholas
What the critics are saying about Fawlty Towers The Play
Daily Mail
Rating: 5
Patrick Marmion: 'Shamelessly recycled, fifty-year-old comic material it may be. But as shamelessly recycled 50-year-old comic material goes, John Cleese and Connie Booth’s stage replica of their classic TV comedy, Fawlty Towers, is still very good fun'
Guardian
Rating: 5
Brian Logan: 'If the performances in this revamp of the Torquay hotel sitcom aren’t impersonations per se, they’re near as dammit. But they’re very good ones, and audiences who already love the material (most of them, let’s face it) will not be disappointed.'
The Telegraph
Rating: 5
Dominic Cavendish: 'John Cleese has welded together three vintage episodes to form one fairly seamless, indisputably funny evening – with an elegiac edge.'
The Times
Rating: 5
Clive Davis: 'Even though Cleese’s adaptation can’t quite recreate the original chemistry without the man himself and Prunella Scales behind the reception desk, I’m pleased to report that this genial condensing of three episodes delivers a hugely entertaining blast of unadorned nostalgia.'
Evening Standard
Rating: 5
Nick Curtis: 'The lines, the laughs, even the accents and intonations of the greatest British sitcom ever are present and correct in this efficient and energetic stage adaptation, but it’s an oddly soulless affair.'
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Withnail & I (Birmingham Rep)
Verdict: Not nailed
Rating: 5
For some of us — myself in particular — Withnail & I is the holy of holies. The greatest film of all time. The Desert Island Flick I’d save from the waves. I’ve always loved the sweetly sad story of two young actors at the butt end of the swinging Sixties, heading for the Lake District in the hope of respite from poverty, pills and booze. Like British pork in the sinister TV ads of the period, it’s got the lot.
Some of the dialogue has passed into folklore (‘we’ve gone on holiday by mistake!’). It has sensational characters ranging from the two self-dramatising leads of Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann, to Richard Griffiths’ rhapsodic Uncle Monty, and the Cumbrian poacher who keeps live eels down his trousers.
Then there’s the gorgeously melancholy soundtrack, opening with a jazz version of Whiter Shade Of Pale — matching the rain saturated beauty of the Lake District.
To mess with such perfection might seem folly. But given that the film’s writer and director, Bruce Robinson, wrote this new adaptation in Birmingham and that comedy director Sean Foley is at the helm, there was hope.
And if we miss the famous tractor of farmer Parkin (leg bound in polythene), we do get a nice little fencing match in the Cumbrian cottage.
For some of us — myself in particular — Withnail & I is the holy of holies. The greatest film of all time. The Desert Island Flick I’d save from the waves
We must salute Robert Sheehan for taking on Richard E. Grant’s Withnail — still the best ever drunk acting on screen (performed by a lifelong teetotaller)
We must also salute Robert Sheehan for taking on Richard E. Grant’s Withnail — still the best ever drunk acting on screen (performed by a lifelong teetotaller).
But Sheehan does like to showboat, and isn’t ill or angst-ridden enough to win our affection.
Adonis Siddique, however, does win hearts with a gentle reincarnation of ‘I’ or ‘Marwood’ — his drug-induced panic and wistful commentary more than just a comic turn.
Malcolm Sinclair ensures flamboyant uncle Monty remains a rueful, Edwardian throwback, and there are nice touches from Adam Young as nasally philosopher and drug dealer Danny.
But live music giving cover versions of The Kinks Sunny Afternoon and Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit In The Sky sounds more like a pub band.
Nor can creaky sets or animated projections touch the film’s visual cornucopia.
It made me laugh a bit, and smile a lot. But it didn’t enter — or break — my heart. For that I must return to the film.
Withnail & I runs until May 25. Fawlty Towers is booking until September 28.
Eighties heart-throb Paul Nicholas looks unrecognisable as the Major and Adam Jackson-Smith is seen as Basil as first pictures of Fawlty Towers reboot are revealed
His curly blonde locks and chiselled jawline won him heartthrob status in the 80s during his time on Just Good Friends.
But now more than 40 years later Paul Nicholas is playing a very different role as the bumbling old Major in John Cleese’s stage adaptation of his BBC hit show Fawlty Towers.
The 79-year-old said: ‘Well, I’m at that stage in my life where Peter Pan is no longer an option.
‘I’m at the age where these kinds of roles come up – I played Colonel Pickering recently and that’s not dissimilar.’
His comments come as John Cleese revealed it took twenty minutes for him and his then-wife, Connie Booth, to come up with the concept for Fawlty Towers.
Paul Nicholas was a heartthrob in the early 80s wit his chiseled jaw and curly blonde hair but he's now playing bumbling old Major in John Cleese ’s stage adaptation of Fawlty Towers
John Cleese with the cast of the West End show. Right to Left: Anna-Jane Casey, John Cleese, Hemi Yeroham, Adam Jackson-Smith and Victoria Fox
John Cleese with the original cast of Fawlty Towers, the hit BBC sitcom
John Cleese was all smiles as he arrived at the sneak peak of the West End show dressed in a pair of blue jeans with dark brown and grey trainers, a plain black t-shirt, and a light beige jacket
Adam Jackson-Smith (left) plays Basil Fawlty in the new theatrical adaptation and stars opposite Paul Nicholas
READ MORE: John Cleese says Britons should not be frightened to say 'some cultures are superior to others' and that it is 'wrong' for some Muslims to want sharia law enforced in UK
Reflecting on how the show came about, the 84-year-old said: ‘I had lunch with Jimmy Gilmore, the BBC director and producer, and said I didn’t want to do any more Monty Pythons.
‘I said: “I’d like to do something with my wife because we laugh at the same things and she’s a wonderful actress and great at dialogue.”
‘He told me to go away and talk to her and said he would commission.
‘Connie and I had a chat that lasted about twenty minutes and we agreed we were going to set it in this hotel that we’d stayed in when the Pythons had gone down to Torquay to shoot for the Monty Python show. Connie was in the hotel quite a lot which people forget.'
The 12-episode sitcom is based on a real-life hotel owner, Donald Sinclair, who ran the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay and the couple became fascinated with his incredibly rude behaviour.
Cleese continued: ‘So I rang Jimmy Gilmore up and I said: “We’d like to set it in a hotel,” to which he said, “Fine”.
Cleese posing with a poster for his new play which he has adapted for the stage
Adam and Victoria onstage taking on the roles of chambermaid Polly Sherman and hotel manger Basil Fawlty which were based on real people at a hotel in Torquay
The cast performing the new play based on this hit BBC sitcom. The performance and Q&A is the first real sneak peak of the hotly anticipated show
John Cleese joins the cast for a Q&A following the sneak peak performance. During the live session, Cleese said: 'It's much better than it was on television.'
Cleese and Jackson-Smith posing outside the Apollo Theatre in central London. It’s been 50 years since the first show was recorded at the BBC studios in December 1974
‘And that was how the BBC used to work in those days – Now it would go through three committees none of whom really would have any idea what they were talking about.’
Cleese was married to Booth, 83, from 1968 to 1978 after they both met on the comedy circuit while studying drama in New York.
The couple co-wrote and starred opposite each other in both series of Fawlty Towers with Booth playing the chambermaid Polly Sherman – although they divorced before the second series was finished and aired.
It’s been 50 years since the first show was first recorded at the BBC studios in December 1974.
Cleese declared today: 'The stage show is better than it was on television.'
It is reported Booth, who lives in North London with her second husband the renowned American theatre critic John Lahr, would sneak into the West End revival.
Lahr told the Mail: 'She'll be going to see it – probably not on opening night but she'll be there.'
A source added: 'She is looking forward to seeing it but she likes to keep a low profile these days and stay very much out of the limelight.'
The new cast of the hit show are the spitting image of the original actors. The play was written by Cleese and his wife Connie Booth although the pair had divorced before the second series had aired
