John Cleese drops huge update on Fawlty Towers reboot with daughter Camilla – and there’s a scandalous twist
JOHN Cleese has dropped a huge update on the upcoming Fawlty Towers reboot with his daughter Camilla.
The former Monty Python star gave a sneak peak to the highly-anticipated show, but there is a twist.
John, 84, was welcomed onto The One Show by Alex Jones and Jermaine Jenas to discuss the new Fawlty Towers West End show.
However, the BBC pair couldn’t help but ask him on the progress of the new TV show.
He previously revealed that he planned to set the classic sitcom revival with the death of Sybil Fawlty, the wife of his eccentric alter-ego Basil.
Basil will then move to the Caribbean to be with his illegitimate daughter who is running her own hotel, and John really put the emphasis on the ‘illegitimate part’.
He said: “She’s going to be my illegitimate daughter, because one pretty lady one day came to stay at Fawlty Towers when Sybil wasn’t there and she seduced Basil for a bet.”
The star also wants to bring a new dynamic to the show by taking it outside the UK and to a Caribbean setting.
“There’s no point in setting it in Torquay, we’ve done that,” Cleese noted.
“So we’re going to set it in the Caribbean. There’s going to be much more stuff shot outside the hotel, and you’ve got all the water sports and all that kind of thing, so we work in all that.”
He also praised his daughter Camilla as he revealed how much he relished working with his family like on the original series.
He admitted: “It’s rather nice – Fawlty Towers I wrote with my first wife. Then A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures, my elder daughter [Cynthia Cleese] was in both.
“And now I’m writing with my younger daughter, my younger daughter has got a wicked sense of humour.”
He added: “You think I’ve got a black sense of humour – you should get her on the show!”
But he did say that work has been ‘slow’ because of the process of creating new characters.
John commented: “It’s a slow start because when you create new characters you’ve got to live with them all through the series so you’ve got to get it right.”
He added: “So it takes a long time.”
This comes after it was revealed that the classic sitcom is to get a new reboot series, 44 years after it ended.
John Cleese, 83, will write it again and play Basil Fawlty, like he did with the original two series and he promised the script is “excellent”.
Keeping it in the family, his daughter Camilla, 39, will also write and star in the reboot.
The series will see a manic Basil Fawlty, grappling with the modern world as he returns to running a boutique hotel.
