In a list drawn up by none other than the British Film Institute, Fawlty Towers was voted by industry professionals as the “Best British television series of all time”.
And rightly so in my opinion.
John Cleese and his then real wife Connie Booth, who played waitress Polly, wrote the original scripts. Only two series of six episodes each were ever made.
It was a phenomenal success – so why didn’t they write any more? It would have been a goldmine of viewing figures.
However, Cleese himself said at the time that he would never write another series for it would never be as good as the first two.
Of course, alongside millions of other people, I’ve always secretly wished he had written more. But honestly, I think he made the correct decision, for those two series of Fawlty Towers are about as close to comedy perfection as anyone has ever achieved.
Then imagine my shock, when some weeks back I read on the BBC one morning that John Cleese is about to write and star in a brand-new series of Fawlty Towers.
I fist-pumped the air as my heart soared – absolutely wonderful, I can’t wait!
But once I’d calmed down, reality set in and the more I thought about it, my heart sank.
“Leave it alone, John,” a voice in my head said.
Is John Cleese about to make millions of people smile with delight and breathe new life into the character of Basil? Or is he about to make a huge mistake?
By that I mean, Fawlty Towers simply cannot be written in the same fashion. Our world has changed beyond all recognition since the 1970s. Our world, unless you’ve been living on the moon, you’ll know is so politically correct, and woke nowadays. The things you can’t say for fear of offending someone grows by the day.
There is no way the new Fawlty Towers would be accepted by a major TV channel and put on air if it included any character remotely like the racist and homophobic Major.
I loved the Major by the way – wonderful casting, wonderful actor.
I think it’s a given that Cleese won’t have such characters as the Major, or his wife Sybil, who on more than one occasion hits her husband.
Of course, it could still work and still be good, but it was characters like Sybil and the Major that made Fawlty Towers what it was. Pure comic genius.
And, of course, there’s everyone’s favourite, hapless Spanish waiter Manuel. He can’t be in the news series as actor Andrew Sachs is sadly no longer with us. Please please please John, don’t recast Manuel with another actor.
As for wife Sybil, while actress Prunella Scales is still alive, she has dementia, so she won’t be taking part either.
From what I’ve gathered though, from news clips, the new series is going to be set now in our modern world. It will be interesting to see how old man Basil copes with it all. It will be even more interesting to see if it actually gets produced and makes it on to our screens.
On the subject of not being able to recreate perfection, we have also recently seen rewrites/remakes of other much-loved British classics. Have you seen them? Or should I say, been unlucky enough to have seen them?
They remade Porridge, a few years ago. I thought it was awful.
They remade Are You Being Served. It was not a patch on the original. How could it be?
And as for the remaking of Steptoe and Son. It was dire. Truly awful indeed. Embarrassing.
I also hear they were planning to remake Rising Damp. I’m sorry but can anyone imagine any actor other than Leonard Rossiter playing Rigsby? It should be illegal to even try.
I do think though that the reworking of Open All Hours was good. They didn’t replace loveable characters with new actors, but worked it more like a continuation where David Jason’s character Granville took over from Ronnie Barker’s Arkwright.
Then of course there was the new Dad’s Army movie that came out a few years ago.
“Don’t watch it,” my dad said. He’d just done so.
I did. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t brilliant.
Even with a cast including some of our most cherished actors, Michael Gambon, Bill Patterson, Tom Courtney and Bill Nighy, it simply did not live up to the original cast of Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier, Clive Dunn and John Lawrie. These men made the characters, they were the characters.
Can’t we just leave the classics alone? They stand the test of time and always will I feel. Just leave them be. You cannot recreate perfection.
Anyway, back to the new series of Fawlty Towers. Do you remember what is arguably the best episode, and the best scene? A group of German tourists are visiting the hotel. It was the 1970s, so the war was still fresh in the minds of many. Basil was having one of his crazy days, and kept saying to his staff: “Don’t mention the war!” But of course, he himself keeps doing so, and the Germans keep getting upset.
One of the Germans in frustration and anger eventually says to Basil: “Why do you keep mentioning the war?” Basil argues saying that they themselves had in fact mentioned it.
“We didn’t start it!” says the German.
Basil replies deadpan: “Yes you did – you invaded Poland.”
I’m laughing out loud now as I type this. Pure comic genius.
With the wonderful John Cleese writing this new series, I’m sure it will be good, maybe even very good. But even if it is very good, how can it ever live up to the original two series? I simply don’t see how it can.
Believe me, like never before, I really hope I’m proved wrong here.
To sum up, half of me says: “Bring it on John, I can’t wait to see it!”
The other half of me says: “Leave it alone John.”
Only time will tell.
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