He was a hipster decades before it was cool to be a hipster.
As a dedicated Fawlty Towers fan to the point of mania, I have a copy of the scripts, and the writer of the article has the name wrong – it’s supposed to be “Hutchison” without the “n”.
This is the sort of useless nitpick that Basil might engage in, just to be annoying. 
I think this touches on a UK/US difference. The sitcoms that stuck in the British consciousness since Hancock’s Half Hour in the 50s have almost all been about endless frustrated (fantasy) ambition, whereas I have the impression that frustration doesn’t play so well in the US. For us, it’s precisely the fact that they’re stuck with each other that creates the comedy (FWIW, I thought they key to the Basil/Sybil relationship was that he’d become the teenage son she never had).
I remember watching an interview with Prunella Scales, where she recounted first meeting with Cleese. She asked him “I just have one question. Why are these people married?” She said he clutched his face and groaned “I knew somebody was going to ask me that.” Then, they discussed reasons for Sybil to desire marriage with Basil, and decided she had been a cocktail waitress, Basil was a customer, and she wanted to be part of his posh lifestyle.
I do worry about the motivation. For years he has joked about the need to work because of the cost of his third divorce. When asked about his ex-wives he jokes “The wrong one died.” He divorced Connie Booth before he had much money. The divorce to Camilla’s mother cost him a bit but apparently he was on good terms with her up until her death. His third wife cleaned him out and kept him from retiring.
I also can’t help but think the other motivation is to boost his daughter’s career. He is very close with her and they have been touring together. She is a working stand up who gets gigs on her own but she is hardly a household name.
Having the motivation to make a good product be third makes me very leery. Cleese has always been the cranky one but age hasn’t helped.
All portents advise : shite
Ive never heard of Camilla Cleese until now, i cynically wonder if she is finally cashing in her nepotism voucher.
Cleese seems to be losing the plot, he seems to have caught expatitis, a syndrome where a brit whos lived in LA for 30 years whinges about British culture changing. ( I imagine he goes home and sees the old fish and chip shop is now a thai takeaway. He nostalgically pines for a saveloy; meanwhile the actual residents think, thank fuck that crappy chippy went. I love me a good pad thai)
Fact is there a couple of things that should be cut fro reruns of FT. Offensive stuff is a loan the audience gives in return for a hilarious and/or profound punchline. “Ooh, a half senile old man born in the 19th century is racist” is not enough return
for the N and W word. Cleese cant see this and sticks to “The Major is racist and we laugh at him”
Totally agree that the essence of Fawlty is frustration.
The genius of the perfomance is that we laugh at his foolishness and flaws but also flinch in
Sympathy for his pain and embarasment as his vices remind us of our own worst behaviours. Ive never thrashed my car for breaking down, but the thought - just give in and leap into the red-mist abyss - has crossed my mind.
And, isnt Basil only funny in middle age? - in a situation where he has some power and responsibility? Enough to screwup and then dig himself deeper into the hole. 83 year old Basil is just an old man shouting at clouds.
(Btw, my memory is that Manuel was not incompetent when Polly was managing him, it was fear of Basil that made him fail. Am i right)
So erm yes. Perhaps Cleese has another sitcom in him. But not Fawlty Towers 2. That parrot is dead, john.
I think if someone speaks Spanish to him, he does very well. A guest visits and speaks Spanish and Manuel does just fine.
Oh, come on, those “bad” words were in one throwaway line in one episode. It’s not like it was a major theme of the show. I think getting worked up about is an overreaction. Admittedly the Major also “doesn’t much care for Germans” but that’s because his senility has him still stuck in wartime mentality, same reason he can’t remember what he’s saying or doing from one moment to the other. Comedy does frequently push the bounds of political correctness – e.g.- George Carlin, Chris Rock, and many others. There were lots of racial slurs in All in the Family.
No, Manuel was not just a character with poor English, he was also comically dim-witted, which provided a lot of the show’s humour. A few examples that come to mind:
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Being convinced to buy a “Siberian hamster” that was clearly a common rat;
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Telling Sybil, who suspected that Basil was infatuated with a female guest, that Basil had fallen off a ladder that he was using “to look into room to see girl” and not understanding why Sybil reacts as she does (“she go crazy!”);
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Offending and completely mismanaging the O’Reilly workers making modifications to the hotel;
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Failing to understand that when Basil desperately begs him to confirm that he won some money on a horse race, that the previous stricture to “not tell anyone about the horse” doesn’t apply, and instead Manuel goes “I know nothing. I forget everything!”.
And many others.
I fear that I share your pessimism. But I’m hopeful that a miracle may happen! At best, it will take several episodes for the general spirit of the thing to sink in, if indeed it does have something to offer. But it’s definitely a long shot. I feel kinda bad for Cleese, refusing to do a third season for Fawlty Towers for fear that they couldn’t maintain the same standards with all the original cast and momentum, and now this. Dammit, the opportunity to have more Fawlty Towers slipped away more than 40 years ago.
I wonder what name the show will have? Fawlty Resort? Fawlty Marina? Actually I hope it is something like Basil’s Beach House so as to not hurt the legacy of the Fawlty Towers name.
Perhaps Basil’s Beach Bungalow, for the alliteration?
There are two options: he can set it in a Jetsonian future and be his own great-grandson, or subdivide Fawlty Towers into condos with the bullshit that would entail.
Can’t he do both, rushing back and forth in hopes of keeping either audience from noticing?
At any rate, I can’t see Cleese doing much rushing. Or the high Nazi goose step thing.
In the new show, aside from Basil, all the main characters from the old show will be confined to rest in a dark bedroom…
Was a time I woulda said FT was as good as TV comedy got. I tried to rewatch it a few years ago, and it didn’t come close to living up to my memories.
I’ve repeatedly experienced the same thing with The Honeymooners, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and countless sitcoms from my youth such as Odd Couple, Dick Van Dyke, WKRP, etc ad infinitum. I am not at the point where I don’t attempt to rewatch my fave shows, for fear my recollection will be marred. We’ve discussed it in the past, but ISTM that it is exceptionally rare for comedy to hold up over time and repeated viewings over years/decades.
I doubt I’ll be watching. I suspect my reaction will be, “Boy, he looks old! Didn’t he used to be funny?”
Saw the other day a trailer for a new Indiana Jones movie. Hard to imagine anyone thinking the series was improving in quality through the most recent films, and that a new film will do anything other than tarnish the impression of the original couple of films. Instead of a couple of great adventure movies, they will be, “the high points in an overlong mediocre franchise.” But some people will undoubtedly make a lot of money…
lol, I tried to warn you.
That you did!
Funny, someone else upthread said the same thing about Fawlty Towers not ageing well. What can I say except that I don’t agree, but to each his own. I still watch it quite frequently even though I’ve seen each episode so many times that I have the scripts memorized.
At a different level, I kinda feel the same way about The Honeymooners – still love it! One thing that stands out today is the low-budget production values, including the same small cast of supporting actors appearing again and again in different roles, but I think the low-budget black-and-white ambiance just adds to the charm. Jackie Gleason was a comedy genius. As for the other shows you mention not holding up well, I’m inclined to think that many of them were just plain overrated.
I can’t watch the '60s–'80s retro block on daytime TV any more because it’s filled with such sitcoms. I find myself asking “Did people really think these were funny?”