Fawlty Towers West End review – a new Cleese of life for the classic

Like many children of the baby boomer generation, I grew up on repeats of Fawlty Towers. Although aspects of its humour have undoubtedly dated, it still stands as a high water mark of the British sitcom, and follows in the wake of several others – from Dad’s Army to Only Fools and Horses – by making its way to the stage.

As with those other examples, the experience of watching it live is akin to attending a retro theme party. There’s an undeniable glow of nostalgia to John Cleese’s adaptation, which sees three classic episodes (“The Hotel Inspector”, “The Germans” and “Communication Problems”) stitched together to form a mostly cohesive whole.

It’s also true that, of all sitcoms, Fawlty Towers lends itself particularly well to the stage seeing as it is fundamentally a farce. As the hapless Basil (Adam Jackson-Smith) leaps around like a neurotic cat on hot bricks, darting in and out of various doors while failing to keep a grip on anything around him, his comedic connection to Ben Travers and Ray Cooney seems clear.

The cast do an excellent job of mimicking their onscreen counterparts. Jackson-Smith captures the sense that Basil is constantly teetering on the brink of total meltdown, while Anna-Jane Casey’s Sybil gets many of the biggest laughs simply by saying “yes I know” down the phone or laughing with Prunella Scales’ trademark nasality. Hemi Yeroham has the requisite timing for Manuel, a character with a one-word catchphrase (“que?”), while Victoria Fox is the very spit of co-creator Connie Booth, right down to the mid-Atlantic accent. And it’s lovely to see Paul Nicholas back in the West End as the bumbling Major, whose more extreme racist language has thankfully been excised.

But for all its wistful charm it’s hard to escape the feeling that this is also a cynical product. Cleese has at least been honest about his financial motivations for bringing the play, which first appeared in Australia in 2016, to the West End. However, the feeling that he’s squeezing every last penny from his greatest hit while he can (there is also talk of a TV revival) is reflected in a production that is largely devoid of new ideas, or even new jokes.

Director Caroline Jay Ranger duly provides a slick, note-perfect rendering of the original. There’s some excellent physical comedy, particularly when Basil gets duffed up behind the reception desk by Steven Meo’s irate Mr Hutchinson (“I’m not a violent man, Mr Fawlty”). But it inevitably struggles to feel like anything more than a kind of waxwork impression, echoed by Liz Ascroft’s two-tier set which faithfully recreates the iconic original.

But, though this is clearly not a wise choice if you’re in the market for cutting edge comedy, it will certainly satisfy those who just want a chance to relive some fond memories, as Basil asks the hard-of-hearing Mrs Richards (Rachel Izen) if she was expecting to see herds of wildebeest in Torquay, and attempts to not mention the you-know-what to some German guests. It may be comfort food, but at least it’s served warm.