Words by India Farnham
I am well aware that it is not ground-breaking arts journalism to report that, as a former waitress/bartender, Fawlty Towers is important to me on a spiritual level. Many of my ex-hospitality pals have said the same thing.
In fact, many of us have found ourselves returning to the show more now that we’ve escaped the chaos of the customer-service industry and have somehow secured more regular (read: grown-up) 9-5s.
Perhaps there’s something about Basil’s barely-contained boiling frustration that just hits differently when the most (passive) aggressive thing you can do at work is dropping the wishes off of your best wishes email sign-off. Sigh.
Now, if you too are missing that all-too-familiar torrent of impossible customers, absurd requests, and baffling interpersonal miscommunications, may I pronounce you well and truly in luck, because Fawlty Towers: The Play has these and more in bucketloads. Well, tray-loads, really.
That’s right, in this West End hit production, adapted for the stage by the almighty John Cleese (who was born only a stone’s throw away from here – in Weston-super-Mare, the poor lad), three beloved episodes (The Hotel Inspectors, Communication Problems and The Germans) are woven together and reimagined as one deeply hellish day in 1970s Torquay. And I can assure you now that absolutely no one stays calm.
Nostalgia abounds as our favourite hotel guests and suspected inspectors (try saying that after three bottles of 1965 Aloxe-Corton, corked or not) potter around this glorious multiple-story set designed by Liz Ascroft. The show’s in-situ shenanigans need little adjustment for the stage, with characters’ theatrical comings and goings taking on a distinctly farcical magic. Across the jam-packed barely two-hour runtime Mrs Richards (a snooty Jemma Churchill) makes a ploy for a sea view but loses some cash; The Major (a sprightly Paul Nicholas) struggles to acquire a cheese salad but partakes in polite conversation with a moose; Sybil (an uncanny Mia Austen) makes sure Basil has ‘everything under control’, and Manuel (an outstanding Hemi Yeroham) knows absolutely nothing about a horse. Oh, and everyone manages not to mention The War™. Well, it’s mentioned once. But I think we got away with it.
At the centre of it all, of course, is Basil, played with delightfully British gusto by Danny Bayne. Adam Jackson-Smith, who originated the role in the West End, was praised highly for his uncanny mimicry of John Cleese, and I reckon Bayne will be filling those boots and then some with his visibly high blood pressure, sing-song mannerisms and surprisingly high kicks.
(Yep, the funny walk is in the show.)
Despite director Caroline Jay Ranger speaking about approaching the material with ‘fresh eyes’, each individual scene of the play is taken verbatim from the show, and it’s all the better for it. At the performance I attended, the audience began to chuckle at the mere mention of the fire drill, with some members even mouthing the lines along with the actors. So it seems fresh eyes can still appreciate golden comedy. Now: please go and see it before one of us dies.
Fawlty Towers is showing at Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday 11 July.