John Cleese responds to prediction Fawlty Towers revival will be about ‘wokery’

John Cleese has responded to predictions that the Fawlty Towers revival will be an “anti-woke nightmare”.

This week, it was announced that the classic sitcom was being revived by Cleese and his daughter Camilla, for a new series in collaboration with Spinal Tap filmmaker Rob Reiner.

The news prompted mixed reactions, with many arguing that Fawlty Towers’ short episode run contributed to its legacy, and reviving it could ruin the show.

Appearing on GB News on Thursday (9 February), Cleese, 83, spoke about his plans for the new series, which will see Basil Fawlty now living in the Caribbean.

Asked whether he would return to the BBC for the revival, Cleese said: “No, because you wouldn’t get the freedom.”

He claimed that he’d worked at the BBC during the “best time” at the channel, when it was run by “people with real personality”.

Asked about a story from The Guardian that claimed the show would be an “anti-woke nightmare”, he sarcastically responded: “They obviously know better than I do what’s going to be in it. Maybe they should write an episode for me that they would find acceptable. Might not be very funny, but I’m sure it would really please some of their readers.”

However, he later added: “The idea that it’s all going to be about wokery hadn’t particularly occurred to me… I don’t see that that would be relevant to a small bijou hotel that’s run in the Caribbean.

“They are assuming, with no evidence at all, that they know what they show’s going to be like and condemning it for that.”

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Discussing the new location for the series, Cleese explained: “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.”

Speaking to The Independent in 2018, Cleese seemingly dismissed the idea of a Fawlty Towers revival, explaining: “You wanted Fawlty Towers to be as good as possible, and it’s done and you’re proud of it, and then you suddenly realise that the bar has now got too high.

“If I ever tried to do a Fawlty Towers-type sitcom again, everyone would say, ‘Well, it’s got its moments, but it’s not as good as Fawlty Towers’, so there’s not much point in doing that. You have to do different things.”