Fawlty Towers – Bradford Alhambra

Sometimes when a beloved sitcom gets tired and introduces daft storylines like Happy Days did it’s said to have ‘jumped the shark’. That’s something you can never say about Fawlty Towers which ran for just two perfectly formed series in the seventies.

Monty Python legend John Cleese and Connie Booth’s masterpiece has regularly won the greatest ever British sitcom title, so the increasingly deranged antics of the world’s worst hotelier, Basil Fawlty, was always going to get a stage adaptation.

Cleese has adapted his greatest solo work that was based on a torrid time the Python team had when they booked a stay with a very strange and rude hotelier. In many ways in our febrile political world the always rude Basil’s xenophobia, snobbery and misogyny seem to be back in vogue.

Cleese who played Basil on the box has seamlessly weaves his three favourite episodes – The Hotel Inspectors, Communication Problems and The Germans – that essentially becomes a classic old school British farce full of constant misdirection, much to delight of the show’s fans who have turned up in numbers tonight.

As a performer the gangly Cleese was easily the most gifted physical comic of his generation so the challenge for the live show was finding someone who could recreate Basil’s awkwardness and manage the pratfalls in a really fast moving show. Danny Bayne has all of Cleese’s tortured physicality and manic energy as he hurtles around Liz Ascroft’s set that faithfully recreates the rundown South Coast hotel.

Bayne gets behind Basil’s bewildered pomposity to the confused and scared little boy, complete with his regular irrational rage filled screeches. His recreation of Basil’s classic goose stepping in front of horrified German tourists is spot on as he tells everyone ‘don’t mention the war’, winning some big laughs in a wonderfully choreographed scene beautifully executed by the ensemble.

The female staff try to keep the hotel running despite the idiotic owner, and Mia Austen as Basil’s wife Sybil nails the character’s iconic big laugh, but is suitably world weary, as she spars with a man she feels ‘manacled’ to.  Hemi Yeroham plays hapless Spanish waiter Manuel with the just right amount of pathos, and his delivery of the classic line ‘I know nothing’ also earns gales of laughter.

Caroline Jay Ranger’s direction is pin sharp as farce is always a tricky medium to get right. This is a big cast with plenty of experience and Jemma Richards shines as the deaf snob Mrs Richards. Another comedy veteran Paul Nicholas has great fun as the doddery Major, and Greg Haiste relishes winding Basil up as the equally pompous Mr Hutchison.

It could easily have been a mistake to recreate TV perfection onstage, but thanks to a fantastic cast it delivers exactly what the Fawlty Towers faithful paid their money to see.

Fawlty Towers – The Play is at Bradford Alhambra until Saturday 28 March. To book 01274 432000 or www.bradford-theatres.co.uk

Reviewer: Paul Clarke

Reviewed: 24th March 2026

North West End UK Rating: