John Cleese has confirmed that he will remove the racial slurs from the upcoming West End stage adaptation of his sitcom Fawlty Towers.
Confirmation of the new incarnation of the beloved comedy came in February, when Cleese revealed he had written a two-hour play based on three episodes from the series – ‘The Hotel Inspector’, ‘The Germans’ and ‘Communication Problems’.
The production will debut at London’s Apollo Theatre on May 15, nearly five decades after the first episode was filmed at the BBC Television Centre in December 1974. Tickets can be found here.
And now, Cleese has said that the slurs from the original version of ‘The Germans’, which he co-wrote with Connie Booth, will be taken out of the new adaptation.
In one scene of the original, the army veteran Major Gowen uses the N-word when referring to a Caribbean cricketer, and another racial slur to describe an Asian cricketer.
At the press conference launching the stage show, Cleese said: “Those scenes where the Major used a couple of words you can’t use now, racial slurs they would come under, we took them out.”
“There’s always a problem with comedy that you deal with the literal-minded,” he continued. “Whenever you’re doing comedy you’re up against the literal-minded and the literal-minded don’t understand irony. And that means if you take them seriously, you get rid of a lot of comedy.
“Because literal-minded people don’t understand metaphor, irony or comic exaggeration. People who are not literal-minded can see there’s various different interpretations, depending on different contexts.”
Director Caroline Jay Ranger, from Only Fools And Horses The Musical and Monty Python Live, will helm the upcoming stage adaptation., which will follow Basil, played by Adam Jackson-Smith, as he attempts to ingratiate himself with guests he suspects are posing as hotel inspectors.
“What a thrill to be bringing Fawlty Towers to the West End for the first time,” 84-year-old Cleese said.
“We’ve been involved in the casting process for some time, being constantly reminded of what a wealth of acting talent we have in Britain – sorting the very, very, very good from the merely very, very good.
“Finally, we assembled a top-class group of comedy actors who will bring the show to the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.
“I’ve adapted three of my favourite episodes for the stage and written one huge finale, which will bring together the endings of all three episodes.”
The original TV sitcom, written by Cleese and Connie Booth, ran on BBC Two for two series in 1975 and 1979.
Cleese recently stated that he is “surprisingly poor”, blaming his $20million divorce for him having to continue to work into his eighties.
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