King’s Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
The world is full of Basil Fawltys these days. Half a century after John Cleese and Connie Booth’s savagely funny portrait of middle aged male neuroses was unleashed kicking and screaming onto prime time Sunday night TV, Basil walks among us once more, as pompous, repressed and set to spontaneously combust as he ever was.
Cleese’s hit stage version of his creation has already proven to be far more than the pension plan nostalgia fest it might initially look like, with the series of note perfect impressions from director Caroline Jay Ranger’s young cast capturing every madcap nuance of his creations as they reboot them with new life.
For those for whom what has been designated to be TV’s greatest sitcom may have passed them by, Basil and his wife Sybil run a sleepy hotel in Torquay, where maid Polly keeps things together as Basil, Sybil and Spanish waiter Manuel attempt to serve a series of increasingly unwelcome guests. These include some undercover hotel inspectors, Jemma Churchill’s deaf old dame Mrs Richards, and the impending arrival of a party of Germans.
If all this sounds as harmlessly old hat to the point of blandness, think again. What follows is a simmering period portrait of a 1970s middle class little Britain on the verge of psychological and societal breakdown in all its monstrous absurdist glory.
By knitting together three of the original programme’s twelve episodes, Cleese may be going for the sort of sustained narrative heft that never fully translated to the succession of big screen sitcom transfers that helped keep the then ailing British film industry alive. In the end, however, it doesn’t matter, and for long-term fans, just knowing the ‘Don’t mention the war’ catchphrase is about to be invoked is enough.
From the moment Dennis Wilson’s chintzy Palm Court theme tune strikes up from Liz Ascroft’s pitch perfect two-storey set, there is instant recognition at every turn. Mia Austen’s blousy Sybil is a vision in ruffles and plum who terrorises the gangling ball of confusion that is Danny Bayne’s Basil with the venom of a highly coiffed Stasi agent. It is Basil and Sybil’s relationship that is the heart of the show, and its real battleground. With Basil desperately under the thumb as he attempts to avoid Sybil’s wrath, he takes it out on Hemi Yeroham’s Manuel like some colonialist hangover who hasn’t quite come to terms yet with them ruddy foreigners.
In a 1970s landscape where the Second World War was still fresh in the collective memory, the hotel becomes a microcosm of an old order in repose, but facing constant disruption. The old Major - played on Tuesday by Neil Stewart stepping in for Paul Nicholas - finds sanctuary in the cricket scores, but the prospect of being invaded by Germans, of all creatures, is too much to bear. Similarly, the old lady double act of Fawlty Towers’ other long-term residents, Miss Gatsby and Miss Tibbs, may be endearingly sweet relics, but, as played by Emily Winter and Dawn Buckland, seem to get a senior-sized thrill out of the ensuing mayhem. Only Joanne Clifton’s refreshingly normal Polly is there to take the strain.
The increasing chaos of the comedy throughout has lost none of its manic edge. Both the machine-gun verbal exchanges and the complex physical routines are delivered with practiced slickness by a 17-strong ensemble who are willing to take things to the edge in the choreographed farce driven by Bayne.
By the end, while his world collapses around him, Basil is left fighting the fire he created as he careers concussed and ranting towards disaster, the lost empire he created in his own image about to explode in his face.
The Herald, January 15th 2026
ends
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