Rebooting a masterpiece: Fawlty Towers set for TV sequel

“Basiiiil!” The shrill voice of Sybil Fawlty, long-suffering wife of obnoxious hotelier Basil Fawlty, is set to ring out once more after plans for a reboot of the iconic British comedy Fawlty Towers were announced.

But the plan is likely to ruffle feathers. Reboots are generally far riskier than the sure bet most television executives believe they are. And this project is riskier than most: Fawlty Towers is considered one of television’s untouchables: a precious masterpiece for which only 12 half-hour episodes exist.

Basil (John Cleese), Manuel (Andrew Sachs), Sybil (Prunella Scales) and Polly (Connie Booth) in Fawlty Towers.

In the project’s favour is the fact that it’s being steered by the show’s original co-creator and star John Cleese. The US studio Castle Rock is developing the series with Cleese and his daughter Camilla Cleese, who will write the new series and also star in it.

But the more pressing question is whether you can remake a masterpiece. Will & Grace? Well, it worked. Sort of. Dynasty? A complete train wreck. Lost in Space? Not so bad. Twin Peaks? The jury’s still out on that one. And Full House? Well, that speaks for itself. Once was bad enough.

The Cleeses are also working with Rob Reiner, the acclaimed director of This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally and Misery. So the good news is: Reiner knows how to handle quality goods. What we’re looking for is some sign that a reboot of Fawlty Towers will be more Spinal Tap than Misery.

The original Fawlty Towers aired for just one season of six episodes airing in 1975 and a second season of six airing in 1979.

The original series was written by Cleese and his then-wife Connie Booth. Cleese played Basil Fawlty and Booth played the hotel’s over-worked maid Polly. The series also starred Prunella Scales as Basil’s wife Sybil, and Andrew Sachs as the hotel’s put-upon Spanish waiter, Manuel.

Basil (John Cleese) and Sybil (Prunella Scales) in a scene from Fawlty Towers.Credit:BBC

According to US media reports, the reboot will pick up the story in the present day, following Basil and his daughter opening a boutique hotel.

John Cleese told the US trade publication Deadline the deal was struck over dinner. “By dessert, we had an overall concept so good that, a few days later, it won the approval of Rob and [his wife and producing partner] Michele Reiner,” Cleese said.

“Camilla and I look forward enormously to expanding it into a series.”

Reiner kept his comments brief but to the point: “John Cleese is a comedy legend. Just the idea of working with him makes me laugh.”

But can a reboot of Fawlty Towers work in an era of peak TV, where so many reboots have fallen by the wayside.

SyFy’s relaunch of Battlestar: Galactica was a political masterpiece. And Netflix’s Cobra Kai is a beautiful elevation of the original Karate Kid. But The Odd Couple, Queer as Folk, MacGyver, Charmed, 90210, Party of Five and the many, many Charlie’s Angels … the road to reboot heaven is littered with corpses.

And Fawlty Towers itself sets an unnaturally high bar, even with John Cleese and Rob Reiner attached to the project. The original series won almost universal acclaim. That is, it was a hit in every country in which it aired. Except Spain, mostly because its portrayal of Manuel was poorly received. A second launch for the series there, dubbed into Spanish, and with Manuel’s nationality changed to Italian, resulted in a hit.

Andrew Sachs as Manuel in Fawlty Towers.Credit:BBC

In an interview in 2009, Cleese was adamant that a reboot was out of the question. “It took so much energy to do that show,” he said. “I think everyone would be excited if we did [a new series]. The problem is, when you do something that is generally accepted as being very good, a horrible problem arises which is, how do you top it? The expectation of what you will do is so high.”

The planned reboot would also seem to contravene an agreement Cleese made with the show’s co-creator Booth that they would stop after just two series. “We both felt we’d done our best and we just knew that, if we did it, it wouldn’t be as good,” he said in 2009. “It would be good but not very good.”

Despite the near-sacrilege of it, this is not the first time an attempt at a Fawlty Towers remake has been made. In fact, Castle Rock’s planned remake would be the fourth American reboot of the series.

In 1979, a pilot for an American version titled Snavely was produced. That starred Harvey Korman in the role of the obnoxious hotelier, and Betty White in the role of his long-suffering wife. The title came from the hotel’s name, Snavely Manor. Only the pilot episode was produced and, unusually, the US network did air it, as one-off special, in the summer of 1978.

A second remake was attempted in 1983, titled Amanda’s, and starring Bea Arthur, one of America’s biggest sitcom stars. The US network ABC was again behind the project and 13 half-hour episodes were commissioned. But the concept did not survive the tweaks: Amanda was not Basil in a frock, but a widow named Amanda Cartwright, and she was given a son Marty (Fred McCarren), and daughter-in-law Arlene (Simone Griffeth) as foils. Unsurprisingly, it failed.

The last attempt by the Americans to reboot Fawlty Towers came in 1999, titled Payne. It starred John Larroquette as Royal Payne and JoBeth Williams as his wife Constance, Julie Benz in the role of the hotel maid, Breeze, and Rick Batalia as the Manuel-type, in this instance, a “bellhop” named Mo. Only nine episodes were produced before it joined the two preceding attempts in history’s dustbin.

No broadcaster is attached to the project yet; Castle Rock is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and international distribution of the proposed remake would likely be handled by the studio.

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