John Cleese has adapted three episodes of Fawlty Towers into a play, which will premiere in the West End in May.
Fawlty Towers is often, quite rightly, cited as one of the best sitcoms ever made. Starring John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs and Connie Booth, it was written by Cleese and Booth who, according to the DVD commentaries, took six weeks to plot and write each episode.
The show was based on a real hotel the Monty Python team stayed at, with Basil Fawlty based on its proprietor Donald Sinclair, after whom Cleese later named his character in Rat Race.
According to the British Comedy Guide, Cleese has adapted three episodes for the stage as a play which will premiere at the Apollo Theatre in the West End in June. Caroline Jay Ranger will direct.
The episodes are The Hotel Inspector and The Germans from Series 1 and Communication Problems...
Fawlty Towers is often, quite rightly, cited as one of the best sitcoms ever made. Starring John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs and Connie Booth, it was written by Cleese and Booth who, according to the DVD commentaries, took six weeks to plot and write each episode.
The show was based on a real hotel the Monty Python team stayed at, with Basil Fawlty based on its proprietor Donald Sinclair, after whom Cleese later named his character in Rat Race.
According to the British Comedy Guide, Cleese has adapted three episodes for the stage as a play which will premiere at the Apollo Theatre in the West End in June. Caroline Jay Ranger will direct.
The episodes are The Hotel Inspector and The Germans from Series 1 and Communication Problems...
- 2/5/2024
- by Jake Godfrey
- Film Stories
In six decades in showbiz, he has been murdered by Screaming Lord Sutch, played the lead in Hair, had hit singles and a hit sitcom – and surprised Serge Gainsbourg
When he was starting out as a young man in bands in the early 60s, Paul Nicholas could only have dreamed that he would still be working more than 60 years on. He is now nearing the end of a seven-month theatre tour. It must be tiring by this stage, I suggest. But no, he says. “It’s really the one thing that I enjoy doing more than anything. Performing on stage is kind of a release for me.” He smiles. “It sounds a bit heavy, doesn’t it?”
Nicholas is about to release the audio version of the memoir he wrote during lockdown, which covers his career from failed rock singer to successful pop star, from being the first actor to...
When he was starting out as a young man in bands in the early 60s, Paul Nicholas could only have dreamed that he would still be working more than 60 years on. He is now nearing the end of a seven-month theatre tour. It must be tiring by this stage, I suggest. But no, he says. “It’s really the one thing that I enjoy doing more than anything. Performing on stage is kind of a release for me.” He smiles. “It sounds a bit heavy, doesn’t it?”
Nicholas is about to release the audio version of the memoir he wrote during lockdown, which covers his career from failed rock singer to successful pop star, from being the first actor to...
- 6/19/2023
- by Emine Saner
- The Guardian - Film News
The Who's "Tommy" is one of the most groundbreaking concept albums in rock and roll history, and is considered by many to be one of the best albums ever written. After its debut in 1969, "Tommy" has been adapted in a variety of different mediums, including a ballet, an opera, a restructured work for the London Symphony Orchestra, a Broadway musical, and most notably, the cinematic rock and roll masterpiece by Ken Russell. Four years before directing "Tommy," Russell put out the controversial religious horror erotica, "The Devils," which /Film's Chris Evangelista rightfully described as "a punk rock freakshow disguised as a period piece." Considering the story of "Tommy," Russell was the perfect director for the job.
The story follows a young man named Tommy (Roger Daltrey) who after witnessing his mother's lover murder his father, disassociates from reality. He's surrounded by sadistic neighbors and relatives and is in desperate need of escapism,...
The story follows a young man named Tommy (Roger Daltrey) who after witnessing his mother's lover murder his father, disassociates from reality. He's surrounded by sadistic neighbors and relatives and is in desperate need of escapism,...
- 5/24/2023
- by BJ Colangelo
- Slash Film
'EastEnders' character Ben Mitchell is heading for trouble with new villain Gavin Sullivan. Actor Harry Reid has revealed his alter ego will fall under his former stepdad Gavin's evil spell now he is involved in the tense situation involving his former carer and his mother Kathy (Gillian Taylforth). Gavin (Paul Nicholas) has kidnapped Ben's biological dad Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) in a bid to extort cash from the Mitchell family but Ben may find himself siding with his stepfather. Harry said: ''We have to remember he was Ben's stepdad and father figure for years. He grew up with him and there will be...
- 10/14/2015
- Virgin Media - TV
Joan Collins in 'The Bitch': Sex tale based on younger sister Jackie Collins' novel. Author Jackie Collins dead at 77: Surprisingly few film and TV adaptations of her bestselling novels Jackie Collins, best known for a series of bestsellers about the dysfunctional sex lives of the rich and famous and for being the younger sister of film and TV star Joan Collins, died of breast cancer on Sept. 19, '15, in Los Angeles. The London-born (Oct. 4, 1937) Collins was 77. Collins' tawdry, female-centered novels – much like those of Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz – were/are immensely popular. According to her website, they have sold more than 500 million copies in 40 countries. And if the increasingly tabloidy BBC is to be believed (nowadays, Wikipedia has become a key source, apparently), every single one of them – 32 in all – appeared on the New York Times' bestseller list. (Collins' own site claims that a mere 30 were included.) Sex...
- 9/22/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'EastEnders' will see ''an EastEnders villain like no other'' in Kathy Beale's third husband Gavin. The TV show's executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins has hinted at what may unfold when the BBC soap legend - played by Gillian Taylforth - returns in the coming months, along with her husband, played by Paul Nicholas. Dominic said: ''If everything works out, and I hope it will, Gavin is going to be an 'EastEnders' villain like no other. He's going to be modern, complex, and have a little a foot in the past and a foot in the present.'' While no return date has been given for...
- 6/27/2015
- Virgin Media - TV
Armstrong and Miller comic lambasts 'inverse snobbery' while Ricky Gervais teaches guitar – and who's the hottest comedian?
This week's comedy news
We begin with the Telegraph's tale of Alexander Armstrong and the apparent victimisation of "posh" comics. "Why should your background be held against you?," asks the descendant of William the Conqueror, alumnus of a Durham public school and director of a production company called Toff Media. "It is so short-sighted … This tribal aversion to anyone with a posh voice is very boring." Armstrong – best known as one half of the sketch double-act Armstrong and Miller – even lodges the improbable complaint that his privileged upbringing has been detrimental to his career in British entertainment. In the piece, he blames inverse snobbery for the BBC initially spurning Armstrong and Miller after their big break on the Edinburgh fringe in the mid-1990s. And, he adds, "I'm not anticipating an offer to...
This week's comedy news
We begin with the Telegraph's tale of Alexander Armstrong and the apparent victimisation of "posh" comics. "Why should your background be held against you?," asks the descendant of William the Conqueror, alumnus of a Durham public school and director of a production company called Toff Media. "It is so short-sighted … This tribal aversion to anyone with a posh voice is very boring." Armstrong – best known as one half of the sketch double-act Armstrong and Miller – even lodges the improbable complaint that his privileged upbringing has been detrimental to his career in British entertainment. In the piece, he blames inverse snobbery for the BBC initially spurning Armstrong and Miller after their big break on the Edinburgh fringe in the mid-1990s. And, he adds, "I'm not anticipating an offer to...
- 5/14/2013
- by Brian Logan
- The Guardian - Film News
Wagner as Hitler, Ringo Starr as the pope, and an anatomical anomaly that suggests an unfortunate mishearing – this film just gets worse and worse
Lisztomania (1975)
Director: Ken Russell
Entertainment grade: Fail
History grade: Fail
Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a Hungarian composer. He became famous across Europe as a pianist.
Fame
Franz Liszt (Roger Daltrey) is at a party. "Liszt, my dear fellow!" says a fellow composer. "Oh, piss off, Brahms," Liszt sneers, and adds to his companion Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas): "He's a right wanker." This is the high point of both intellectualism and wit in the film's dialogue. Afterwards, Liszt plays the piano to a throng of screaming teenagers. In the 1840s, long before Elvis, Beatlemania or Justin Bieber, Heinrich Heine coined the term "Lisztomania" to describe the hysteria of Liszt's fans. Women shrieked, swooned, took cuttings of his hair, collected the dregs from his coffee cups, and...
Lisztomania (1975)
Director: Ken Russell
Entertainment grade: Fail
History grade: Fail
Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a Hungarian composer. He became famous across Europe as a pianist.
Fame
Franz Liszt (Roger Daltrey) is at a party. "Liszt, my dear fellow!" says a fellow composer. "Oh, piss off, Brahms," Liszt sneers, and adds to his companion Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas): "He's a right wanker." This is the high point of both intellectualism and wit in the film's dialogue. Afterwards, Liszt plays the piano to a throng of screaming teenagers. In the 1840s, long before Elvis, Beatlemania or Justin Bieber, Heinrich Heine coined the term "Lisztomania" to describe the hysteria of Liszt's fans. Women shrieked, swooned, took cuttings of his hair, collected the dregs from his coffee cups, and...
- 2/6/2013
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
This being the week of the Oscars, Hollywood's annual celebration of film and film-watching, Pinkos turns the spotlight on the best clips on the communal magic of moviegoing
We all have our own little ritual, our own private ceremony, when we go the cinema. Some always head for that regular aisle seat on the left, others give musty toes a clandestine airing, yet more still will succumb to the lure of the corn that pops.
Only then can we slip easily into the cosy, velvety chairs (well, in some cases …) and let the magic of the light on screen entrance us. This week, Oscars week, all eyes are turned to the people watching in the auditorium. So, in celebration of our turn in the limelight, and with due genuflection to Chacun son Cinéma, that great portmanteau movie celebrating cinemagoing, I present my five top clips showing filmgoing rites in different lights.
We all have our own little ritual, our own private ceremony, when we go the cinema. Some always head for that regular aisle seat on the left, others give musty toes a clandestine airing, yet more still will succumb to the lure of the corn that pops.
Only then can we slip easily into the cosy, velvety chairs (well, in some cases …) and let the magic of the light on screen entrance us. This week, Oscars week, all eyes are turned to the people watching in the auditorium. So, in celebration of our turn in the limelight, and with due genuflection to Chacun son Cinéma, that great portmanteau movie celebrating cinemagoing, I present my five top clips showing filmgoing rites in different lights.
- 3/3/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
The BBC has recommissioned daytime drama series Missing for a second run. The show, which stars Pauline Quirke as the head of a Missing Persons Unit, will return for an extended 10-part season in 2010. Mark Wingett, Felix Scott and Poojah Shah are coming back for the second series and they will be joined by new guest stars including Roy Hudd, Paul Nicholas, Brooke Kinsella, Gary Lucy and Sylvia (more)...
- 10/7/2009
- by By Dan French
- Digital Spy
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