John Cleese has revealed he is working on a sequel stage production of Fawlty Towers following the success of the sitcom’s West End revival.
The 85-year-old comedy legend brought the BBC classic back to life last year with Fawlty Towers: The Play, which has been running to packed houses since its debut.
Now, Cleese has confirmed he is developing a follow-up, built around three further episodes from the show.
Speaking about the project, Cleese explained: “In the West End, we took favourites such as Mrs Richards, The Germans and The Food Inspectors and put those together to make the show.
Cleese confirmed the new stage production would not run concurrently with the existing play, but suggested fans could expect it to launch within the next 18 months.
He continued: “But it has been so successful that I said, 'Let's put together three other shows.' There is no reason we cannot do it again but we wouldn’t want to have it on at the same time so maybe in a year and a half’s time?”
The new play will draw on material from The Psychiatrist, where Basil Fawlty is caught in an awkward moment after accidentally groping a guest while reaching for a light switch. The Kipper and the Corpse, in which staff attempt to conceal a dead body and Basil the Rat, featuring Manuel’s wayward pet rodent.
The original production adapted Cleese’s 1970s scripts with minimal changes, despite ongoing debate over whether older comedies should carry content warnings.
Last year, Cleese criticised what he called “literal-minded people” for misunderstanding comedy.
“Whenever you're doing comedy you're up against the literal-minded, and the literal-minded don't understand irony,” he said. “That means if you take them seriously, you get rid of a lot of comedy.
“The literal-minded don't understand metaphor and don't understand irony and they don't understand comic exaggeration. The result is if you listen to them, people who are not understanding of what other human beings are saying and doing, they're not playing with a full deck.”
Adding: “Literal-minded people can only have one interpretation of what's being said and that's the literal-minded one. People who are not literal-minded can see that there are different interpretations depending on different context.”
Fawlty Towers, first broadcast in 1975, has long been hailed as one of Britain’s greatest sitcoms, with Cleese’s portrayal of the bumbling hotelier Basil Fawlty remaining a cultural touchstone.
