Fawlty Towers to Return?

[KGeo777]

There is satire to explore in the hotel business these days-going by recent news stories (out of Dublin and New York etc)

I can just picture Basil Fawlty being asked to house migrant arrivals.

But it probably would end up more depressing than funny.

The impression I get with this focus on bringing back elderly stars is to stripmine the last ounce of nostalgia curiosity from audiences and also because they feel they can control and micromanage it--like they do with CGI characters. Shape it to the message they want to convey from the boardroom where they can watch everything being filmed and edited.

Streaming seems to have turned into a kind of desert highway with kebab stands every half mile and much of the time you don't pay attention. Having an 80-year-old Cleese operating one might cause one to slow down from boredom or pity or both.

 

[Ursa major]

I would like to add to that list the latest series of Bad Education. I keep watching hoping it will get better, but no...

Some people never learn....

 

[Vince W]

Some people never learn....

I still can’t find the groan button.

 

[The Big Peat]

Given Cleese's record of doing absolutely anything that'll help pay off his many divorce settlements, I'm really not surprised this is happening.

 

[Vince W]

I’m not surprised Cleese has agreed to this, but I’m sure he has no intention of making anything of quality.

 

[Steve Harrison]

To paraphrase Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister (& Prime Minister), it's a very courageous decision to bring Fawlty Towers back.

 

[Swank]

Cleese is alive, still funny in some fashion and not going to remain that way forever. If he makes a funny product - we should all be glad for it. If it stinks, then it is just like 80% of all television.

A bad revival doesn't tarnish the original. Leave that kind of thinking to gay marriage protestors.

 

[Dave]

A bad revival doesn't tarnish the original.

I can't agree with that, at least not within the context of entertainment, or art, which is what we are discussing here. Comparisons are naturally and always going to be made with the original. However, I don't see this as a "revival". It appears that it will be something completely different entirely, which only shares the same name (if the eventual product even does that.) I can clearly see why they have done this. The headline "Camila Cleese to make an AirBnB Comedy" wouldn't be News. The headlines "John Clease to Revive Fawlty Towers" or "Fawlty Towers Returns", instead makes the front pages of national newspapers, and we have discussed it here for three pages already. Mainly, that's the surprise after Cleese had refused for the last 50 years, but as @Vince W pointed out, not actually that surprising.

 

[paranoid marvin]

In some ways, it will be interesting to see what brand of comedy he brings to the table with this series, and how well it is (or isn't) received by the public and the press. It's almost 50 years since Cleese and Connie Booth wrote this sitcom; much has changed in the intervening years.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I can't agree with that, at least not within the context of entertainment, or art, which is what we are discussing here. Comparisons are naturally and always going to be made with the original. However, I don't see this as a "revival". It appears that it will be something completely different entirely, which only shares the same name (if the eventual product even does that.) I can clearly see why they have done this. The headline "Camila Cleese to make an AirBnB Comedy" wouldn't be News. The headlines "John Clease to Revive Fawlty Towers" or "Fawlty Towers Returns", instead makes the front pages of national newspapers, and we have discussed it here for three pages already. Mainly, that's the surprise after Cleese had refused for the last 50 years, but as @Vince W pointed out, not actually that surprising.

This is true. Cleese is (and will probably always be) newsworthy, and any story with him writing a sitcom that features a hotel is bound to draw attention.

If he can make a ton of cash and help gain recognition for his daughter on tv screens around the world, then fair enough, how many of us wouldn't? The only real surprise is that it's taken this long.

 

[Dave]

It's almost 50 years since Cleese and Connie Booth wrote this sitcom; much has changed in the intervening years.

Much may have changed, except for standards in the hospitality sector.

My recent overnight stay at a xxxxxxx xxx didn't live up, either to the adverts on TV, or the emails I received telling me how they were looking forward to welcoming me. On this rare occassion, we did give them the always requested "feedback," but I somehow doubt that I'd ever stay again. It was very cheap but if staff don't want to work on a Bank Holiday, they'd be better just to close for the day.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I think that today there's a distinct difference between guest houses and hotels. Where your mainline hotels seem to (usually) be impersonal, guest houses succeed or fail on the personality of their owners. The last hotel I stayed in didn't even have a person on reception, it was all automated. The last guest house had owners who where generally interested in their guests, and happy to chat at breakfast time.

I think it also depends on what you want from a stay. Sometimes people just want a room and a bed and to be left to their own devices. You don't usually get the chance to do that with guesthouses, where interactions with your host are usually expected.

I think that Fawlty Towers comes from a era when hotels were usually family run, and much more personable, like guest houses are today.

 

[HareBrain]

I read this morning it's being set in a boutique hotel on a small Caribbean island.

 

[BAYLOR]

John Cleese has said very publically that he has been cancelled for his forthright views, and that Fawlty Towers could never get made today. He is also currently producing a documentary about how he has been cancelled, and how Fawlty Towers could never be made today... at the same time as he is appearing in a documentary expressing his own views, and is now actually remaking Fawlty Towers! ....No, I don't comprehend any of it either but maybe this is in the new comedy series! This is, however, the reason why I'm skeptical about his current writing ability.


I'm certain that what we really need is a new subscription based streaming service!
It is already impossibly expensive to watch everything, but there are some really good programmes on some very obscure channels (channels you would never subscribe to, to only to watch a single series.)

If this new "Fawlty Towers" was shown on BBC TV, ITV or C4 then I'm sure it would be successful. On Castle Rock, who knows how it will do?

Also, if it were on the BBC, ITV or C4, then, however bad it actually was, it couldn't possibly be worse than Mrs Brown's Boys, Citizen Khan or Everyone Else Burns that are on currently!

It's been over 40 years since the original series. Will there even be enough of an audience for this new series ?

 

[Dave]

It's been over 40 years since the original series. Will there even be enough of an audience for this new series ?

It appeared that you were asking me this question. If so, I've idea. Clearly, from this thread some here will watch it. I will watch if it is free to view, at least one episode anyway. I don't really think I understand this question. Are you are saying only those who watched the original series will watch this? I don't accept that. Was Battlestar Galactica only watched by people who watched the original? Also, plenty of comparisons were made of that series with the original series - pages and pages of threads here making those comparions - that didn't stop many from liking it better.

 

[BAYLOR]

It appeared that you were asking me this question. If so, I've idea. Clearly, from this thread some here will watch it. I will watch if it is free to view, at least one episode anyway. I don't really think I understand this question. Are you are saying only those who watched the original series will watch this? I don't accept that. Was Battlestar Galactica only watched by people who watched the original? Also, plenty of comparisons were made of that series with the original series - pages and pages of threads here making those comparions - that didn't stop many from liking it better.

Fair enough

 

[Venusian Broon]

I can't see this being a successful project. Faulty Towers place in UK TV history as a forever great is going to make any follow up almost impossible to stand next to it in comparison. And, unless Cleese is in a renaissance of his creativity at this time of his life, I'm going to suggest that it will most likely be a disappointment.

Given his long term utterances on Britain, one wonders if he can really judge what will work now, given that its looks like it his target market. (Although perhaps he will be more US-centric, given where he is living?). One suspects that it will find a home with all the current Majors of the UK.

Also I do wonder if the circumstances of era have magnified FT to even giddy heights, that are now impossible to replicate. Me and my friends in the early eighties wore out VHS tapes of Faulty Towers (on rotation with Black Adder and The Young Ones). But, even in the early eighties, British TV was tiny (and full of crap). Four channels that had just worked out how to start broadcasting in the morning, and still played the national anthem at midnight when they closed the airwaves. Faulty Towers was a leviathan in a small pond. Now we are in a vast ocean of content - admittedly most of it is crud and crap, but there are a great many great series and programmes available on a huge number of services. It would take a work of genius to stand out now.

 

[Vince W]

A US based Fawlty Towers is doomed. I've had minimal experience travelling near Americans, but the ones I've come in contact with expect a high level of service and general politeness. Basil Fawlty's antics would never be tolerated in the US and US audiences would look at it like "WTF? Why is this guy in business?" rather than find any humour in it.

 

[Dave]

I'm guessing that you've never watched Gordon Ramsey's US Kitchen Nightmares then. I say exactly the same thing about those restaurants. Maybe it is all staged for the cameras, but the service is terrible and yet customers still turn up to them.

 

[Venusian Broon]

A US based Fawlty Towers is doomed. I've had minimal experience travelling near Americans, but the ones I've come in contact with expect a high level of service and general politeness. Basil Fawlty's antics would never be tolerated in the US and US audiences would look at it like "WTF? Why is this guy in business?" rather than find any humour in it.

I meant a more US-based sitcom approach, rather than the original very British one!

I'm guessing that you've never watched Gordon Ramsey's US Kitchen Nightmares then. I say exactly the same thing about those restaurants. Maybe it is all staged for the cameras, but the service is terrible and yet customers still turn up to them.

I suspect that the meme of a US Karen screaming about service and 'customer is always right' is something quite universal - at least amongst the anglosphere. I have come across it here too.

When you see a lot of the customers get bad food and terrible service in that program they do come across as quite normal to me, a brit. i.e. complain quietly (if at all) and most likely mutter bad things when they are away from the restaurant and probably vow never to cross its door again. Never a good move to make a scene in a restaurant, I feel. You never know how they might tamper with your food if you wind them up the wrong way.