83-year-old British comedian John Cleese has announced that the surprise revival of “Fawlty Towers” won’t be returning to its original home on the BBC.
Cleese says the project, which is in the works at Rob Reiner’s Castle Rock Entertainment, will find a new home as he writes scripts with his daughter Camilla Cleese.
Asked if he wanted to work with the BBC, he said: “No, because you wouldn’t get the freedom” referring to him getting sufficient editorial control.
Speaking with the right-leaning British news channel GB News, he revealed the new series will transport Basil Fawlty from the original hotel’s location in Torquay to a ‘small bijou hotel’ on a Caribbean island and provide a suitable backdrop for a modern take on the high-strung hotel manager:
“If you put it in the Caribbean, it becomes very multi-racial. People in the hotel business come from everywhere, so you can bring lots of different people together. The characteristic of Fawlty Towers was the pressure cooker atmosphere created in the hotel.”
Asked about a headline from The Guardian which has already dubbed the program “an anti-woke nightmare”. Cleese responded: “They obviously know better than I do what’s going to be in… The idea that it’s all going to be about wokery hadn’t particularly occurred to me.”
Cleese also revealed he is joining the presenting line-up of GB News in the near future.
Source: Metro
