John Cleese's sarcastic 'apology' for his plans

Most things seem to annoy John Cleese these days – including the fact that his planned revival of Fawlty Towers has not been greeted with wild celebration in the streets.

Many commentators have expressed fears that his planned return to Basil Fawlty might ruin the reputation of the original 12 episodes.

Cleese is planning a new series now set in a high-end Caribbean hotel with his real-life daughter Camilla playing Basil’s offspring.

In a sarcasm-laden tweet this morning, the comic grumbled: ‘I  must apologise. I had no idea that the idea of writing a new sitcom with my daughter would cause so much anger and distress.

‘I truly meant no harm.  Naively I  thought it might be fun But I feel terrible about having released this tide of negative emotion. Please forgive me.’

One person who might have genuine grievance with Cleese is his Fawlty Towers co-creator – and former wife – Connie Booth who said she had no idea about the reboot.

The former actress– who played Polly in the show – claims she found out about the news  by reading it ‘in the papers’.

‘I’d have appreciated learning about the project from John rather than reading about it in the papers,’ the 82-year-old told The Times.

‘Because a previous American reboot of Fawlty Towers had failed some years ago, I was surprised that another was being planned. I was even more surprised to read that John intends to write and to perform in it together with his daughter Camilla.’

Published: 20 Feb 2023