John Cleese’s daughter Camilla has admitted the upcoming Fawlty Towers reboot will do its best to remain “nervous”, despite people being “a little sensitive these days”.
The comedian, 39, revealed her father, 83, who played grumpy hotelier Basil Fawlty on the sitcom, wouldn’t do any physical comedy other than that The new series will honor the tone of the original, which ran on BBC Two between 1975 and 1979.
While most of the plot details are kept under wraps, the story will explore Basil’s relationship with his daughter, whom he only recently discovered is the father.
Camilla told The Sun: “He’s not going to do as many crazy physical, comedic things as he did before, but you never know what you’ll see with him.
“There will be jokes that will be a bit edgy but we’re not looking to get anyone, we don’t like people. That’s not the basis. People are a bit sensitive these days, to say the least.
“If anything, we poke fun at the characters on the show and their idiosyncrasies.”
She went on to admit the reboot “may take three months or three years” to write and produce.
John revealed it recently will not let the BBC show a remake of Fawlty Towers as he feels the organization has become too “awake”.
The actor said: “I don’t do it with the BBC because I don’t get the freedom.”
He added: “I was terribly lucky because I worked for the BBC in the late ’60s, ’70s, early ’80s and that was the best of times because the BBC was run by people with real personality… But I think it has become far too dominated by people who are afraid of offending people.’
He told GB News’ Dan Wootton: “I want to deal with issues that upset people, but I want to find sensible people with a sense of humor who will listen to each other and exchange the arguments instead of just making speeches.”
The Monty Python star has yet to say which channel the remake will be shown on.
Details are classified, but it’s safe to assume it avoids very “unwoke” scenarios of the original show, which ran from 1975-1979.
In one episode, The Germans, Basil left a German guest in tears, repeatedly mentioning the war.
In another, the character Major Gowen, played by Ballard Berkeley, uses the N-word repeatedly about the West Indies cricket team. It was temporarily withdrawn from streaming service UKTV.
Cleese said at the time: “We didn’t support [the Major’s] Views, we made fun of them.’
