Tuesday, April 7

Tag: Liz Ascroft

Fawlty Towers – Bradford Alhambra
Yorkshire & Humber

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 w...
Fawlty Towers The Play – Liverpool Empire
North West

Fawlty Towers The Play – Liverpool Empire

John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers the Play is sure to be a great night out for anyone wanting to have a good laugh. I was delighted to see John Cleese’s name on the programme, wondering whether he had any part in the plays production. His is the first name you see on the programme, down as adapted for the stage by. What a difficult task that must have been, trying to keep fans of the show happy with the expected gags, but also making sure it works on stage. Which it sure did. Danny Bayne playing the iconic Basil got the audience laughing as soon as he entered the stage and had his mannerisms and look down to a t. Matched brilliantly by Mia Austen as Sybil. Their energy bouncing lines off each other really set up the play as a whole. It was like you could almost imagine the consequences of Bas...