Fawlty Towers - The Play Tickets and Hotel

The Show
Adapted for the stage by John Cleese himself, Fawlty Towers - The Play has come to the West End!
Almost 50 years after the famous sitcom first aired, we return to the world's worst-run but best-loved hotel, carefully recreated at the Apollo Theatre. The plots of three classic episodes are combined into a single hilarious farce starring Adam Jackson-Smith as the frustrated, manic hotelier Basil Fawlty; Anna-Jayne Casey as his domineering wife Sybill; Victoria Fox as long-suffering waitress Polly; and Hemi Yeroham as poor, hapless, mistreated waiter Manuel, the frequent target of Basil's hysterical outbursts. Watch and roar with laughter as Basil is pushed to the very brink of insanity by demanding customers, a pompous hotel inspector (or possible spoon salesman), and an unfortunate party of Germans to whom he must not, under any circumstances, mention the war.

History of Fawlty Towers - The Play
Fawlty Towers, the much-loved sitcom created by John Cleese and Connie Booth, first hit screens in 1975 and was an instant hit with the public. Since then, the series has become part of the British national psyche, frequently quoted and looked back on with reverence (it was voted Greatest British Sitcom in a Radio Times poll in 2019). Cleese's stage adaptation was first performed at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in Sydney and was met with similar delight; now Fawlty Towers has come home to the UK, where its West End debut at the Apollo Theatre has been met with critical acclaim and a rapturous response from audiences.

Awards and what the critics say
Described as 'indisputably funny' (Telegraph) and 'a hugely entertaining blast of unadorned nostalgia' (The Times), Fawlty Towers - The Play has been well-received by critics in the UK and Australia since its very first run in Sydney, where Time Out magazine praised it as a 'well executed situational comedy that still makes you laugh.'

Why Book Tickets with Hotel Direct?
With our wide selection of hotels (all of them much better run than Basil's) rail and coach tickets, you can save on package bookings and travel in comfort knowing everything is taken care of in one place.

Interesting Facts About Fawlty Towers - The Play
Despite being instantly beloved by audiences, Cleese's 1975 TV show was initially met with a lukewarm response from critics, possibly because the more traditional sitcom format was seen as a departure from the surreal, avant-garde humour of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Basil Fawlty is based on Donald Sinclair, a real-life hotel owner whom Cleese encountered while staying in Torquay to film for Monty Python. Sinclair, it was said, was extremely rude to Cleese and his fellow Pythons, harshly criticising their table manners and even throwing Eric Idle's briefcase out of a window after somehow becoming convinced it contained a bomb.