'It's a very special place'- stars of Fawlty Towers - The Play on bringing the show to Blackpool
Take a look at our exclusive chat with two of the stars bringing Fawlty Towers - The Play to Lancashire next month.
The legendary British sitcom Fawlty Towers comes to Blackpool in a brand‑new live production adapted by John Cleese, co‑creator of the iconic show this April.
Between Wednesday, April 1 and Saturday, April 4, Fawlty Towers - The Play is on at the Opera House, Winter Gardens, featuring Danny Bayne as the perpetually flustered Basil Fawlty, Paul Nicholas as the delightfully bumbling Major, and Joanne Clifton as the resourceful Polly.
Befor arriving in Blackpool, lead Danny and former Strictly Come Dancing star Joanne- who was knitting gloves for her cast mates when she first joined the call- sat down for a chat with our entertainment reporter.
Take a look at what the stars had to say about Fawlty Towers, Blackpool and why people from across the county should come see them in the Opera House next...
How are you feeling about bringing Fawlty Towers to Blackpool?
Danny: “Really, really excited about it. I mean you know Jo from Strictly Come Dancing, but I myself... I was also a Latin and Ballroom dancer when I was young so we've both spent an awful lot of time in Blackpool before so looking forward to returning.”
Joanne: “And I think the Opera House is right inside the Winter Gardens, isn't it? And we used to do championships there almost twice a year, didn't we Danny, from being like three years old in the ballroom, which is right next to the theatre. So it's very exciting.”
So as dancers, is coming back to Blackpool, sort of a homecoming?
Joanne: “I would say so definitely. I mean, my family as well, I come from a family of dancers, so we've got so much history there, right up to grandparents, great grandparents, they have always, like, competed at Blackpool. So yeah. I mean, everybody's always like ‘eugh ‘eck, we're going to Blackpool’ but I love it. I love it so much.”
Danny: “It's a very special place, especially if you're a dancer, isn't it Jo?”
Joanne: “Yeah, absolutely.”
Can you describe Fawlty Towers?
Danny: “It's hard to describe other than two hours of silliness, farcical nonsense. It's very funny, very, very, very funny and I think the reason everyone loves it so much is that there's so many relatable characters on stage. If you think about it, you know a version of pretty much everyone on that stage, which is why, when you're watching it, you connect with it so well, you know? Because the piece is so fast, it's real fast, you know, it is rapid. it's like machine gun fire script so once it starts, you grab on, you hold on for dear life, and you follow the roller coaster that is the silliness of Fawlty towers. You know, it's great.”
Joanne: “It's set in this hotel in Torquay, but it could be any hotel, like all the hotels in Blackpool, it could be any one of them, and it's just chaos. It's absolute chaos. I mean, Danny plays Basil, the main character and he just has problems all the time. He's angry at all the guests who are giving him problems, and he's having problems with his wife. I play Polly, who's trying to help him dissolve those problems.
“It was a TV show in, well, it started in 1975 and there was only ever 12 episodes made because it was just, like, perfect.They were like ‘oh, let's leave it at 12 because it's just perfect’ and I think audiences, I mean, we're selling out theatres up and down the UK like massive theatres- and I know the Opera House is massive as well- and I think the reason is we've got the audience who knows the TV show, but we've also got new audiences who come and go ‘oh, what's this?’ And as Danny says, they can reLate to a situation. They've probably been to a BnB in Blackpool and gone ‘oh yeah, I've met that person right there in that BnB’, like they can relate to a situation or the person and so everybody loves it, whether you know about Fawlty Towers or whether you don't.
Danny: “I've had so many personal messages on things like Instagram of people saying that they came to see it, and it reminded them of -even if they hadn't seen Fawlty Towers the TV show- it reminded them of someone they met at a BnB in South End, or in a BnB in Eastbourne or something because there are, believe it or not, I don't know how they exist, but they do, there are clearly people out there that run hotels that behave like Basil. I don't know how you managed to keep a business open for more than five minutes.”
You mentioned already that you both play Basil and Polly so do you relate to those characters?
Danny: “I think every bloke, in some form or another, has at least 5% of Basil Fawlty in them. He's incredibly pent up and explosive and the epitome of that, like 1970s henpecked man. And also he's a hotelier that hates guests. I mean, like, how can you run a hotel when you hate people, you know, and so, but that, in turn, makes for hilarious meetings between him and everybody that he meets, because the moment anyone wants anything from him, he's annoyed. You know, it's just marvelous.”
Joanee: “ I don't know how much I relate to Polly. I mean, she obviously doesn't speak with a Grimsby accent, so I've got to put on a posh accent. It's been a challenge for me, because I normally did musicals after Strictly and this is like one of my first plays that I've done but also I normally play quirky ish characters. You know, I've been Princess Fiona, Janet in Rocky Horror, Morticia, like quirky ones, and now suddenly I'm the straight character in this. Everybody else is hilarious and funny, I don't have many funny lives, but my character is important because she kind of holds everything together and, as I said, tries to resolve situations, tries to save Basil. I don't know if I'm like that in real life. Am I like that in real life Danny? Would I help you if you were in trouble?”
Danny: “I'll start with this. First of all, Polly is like the ultimate necessity in this show. Like, without Polly, I think everyone would go ‘what is going on, this is insane’, but in real life, Joanne Clifton is one a dream of a human being, but two tells the worst jokes, like the worst old man, dad joke, and I love her dearly for it. It's my favourite. I really, really enjoy it. Just before the show, she'll tell me something dreadful while she's standing there doing her knitting.”
Why is this a show both of you wanted to do?
Joanne: “It came out of the blue for me. I just got an audition through for it and as I said, I've not done plays, so I was like ‘oh, wow, this is a play. Okay, fine, let's go for it’. But at the same time, it was my dad's favorite show when I was growing up, I remember it always being on the telly. He would watch it all the time. He loved John Cleese's comedy. He absolutely idolized him. So I went to the audition. I didn't think I'd got it after the first one, and then I nearly didn't go back because I was like ‘I haven't got it’ but then my agent said ‘Go on, go to the audition’. So I went to the audition, and I got it, and I rang my dad, and he almost fainted. He almost fainted. He was so happy that I was in Fawlty. He could not believe it. So, yeah, challenge for me for being in a play but I'm loving it, and it's a dream of my dad's.”
Danny: “Yeah, same here growing up, it was always on the telly. Funnily enough, my last job was Only Fools and Horses and that was another one that was always on the telly. So it was, on my dad's side, Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, maybe the Pink Panther, and then mother’s would have been Keeping Up Appearances. All that stuff was always on the telly so I think I had more of a relationship with Fawlty Towers then I even realized I had in the first place. You know what I mean? Because once you start reading the material, you can suddenly see him doing it, and you're like ‘all right, I know where this needs to be;. Do you know what I mean? So, yeah, it was really, really special and obviously, if John Cleese and CJ, the director, come to you and they're like ‘we would like you to do Basil Fawlty’, you're not gonna be like, ‘let me think about that.’ Do I want to do one of the greatest written comedy characters ever? Yes, please, yes, I would like to do that, yes!”
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Joanne: “And I would, say not to big you up. Danny, but it's cast perfectly, like he is Basil Fawlty, And Mia Austin as well, who plays Sybil. I mean, the show starts with her laugh, after the music, and you can feel the audience go ‘oh, we're in’ because she's exactly the same, and the two of them together have got such a good relationship. It's such an amazing thing to watch.”
Danny: “Oh, bless you, that's really kind of you darling. And also, the entire show has been cast really well, but it's also been cast with really, really nice people, like, we've got great people, and especially when you're touring, that's so important. Because when you're living in each other's pockets all the time, it's great to have good people that you can rely on, friendly and loving, you know, and that creates a good environment on stage. I think that's what you can really see from an audience perspective, that we are really working as a team.
Joanne: “I wouldn't be making gloves for any old cast!”
If we return to Blackpool, have either of you been on stages there doing shows and musicals before?
Joanne: “Yeah, we've both done loads of shows and musicals and toured around, haven't we?”
Joanne: “I haven't toured for, oh crikey, about 11 years, but the last time I was in Blackpool… I think we went to Blackpool with Saturday Night Fever. I'm not sure if we came to Blackpool with Hairspray, but we definitely went to Blackpool with Grease. So yeah, I've toured there quite a lot throughout my early to late 20s/
Joanne: “I spent my whole Christmas at the Opera House. It was two or three years ago with Shrek the Musical. So we did the whole Christmas run at the Opera House in Blackpool. And, yeah, I've done a few other shows. I think Rocky Horror we did there, but I can't remember.”
And what are the audiences like?
Joanne: “Brilliant! They're northern, of course they're brilliant.”
Danny: “That is very true. In all honesty, the northern audiences are looser, quicker. They don't require the warming up that the southern audiences require a little bit more. It might not be true, but in the southern audiences, we always say they're like, ‘right, make me laugh then’. Up north, they're like ‘right, I'm ready for it.’
Outside of the theatre, do you have any good memories of things you've got up to in Blackpool, things you might want to do this time around?
Joanne: “Well, obviously, go to the Tower Ballroom, have a little dance on that floor. Then there's the Pleasure Beach in’t there; there's the bingo, literally, the old traditional bingo, where you slide the little plastic things across, I want do that; Coral Island-”
Danny: “Do they still have the horror walk through thing?”
If you mean the Blackpool Tower Dungeon, they do yeah.
Danny: “Okay, so that is what I remember from when I was younger, and also this is… technically nothing to do with Blackpool, I suppose, but I remember my father took me to the cinema. It's the first time I ever went to the cinema with just my dad and I went to see Harry Potter. And that happened to be when I was in Blackpool. It's just a lovely memory of Harry Potter and Blackpool for some reason.”
Joanne: “And we used to drive to it, and in the car, we used to be like ‘20p for the first one who sees the tower’. Then there was a dinosaur ride. I don't think the dinosaur ride in the tower there is anymore- the Dawn of Time,we all used to have our first kisses there, didn't we? Well, I did on the dinosaur ride,
Danny: ”I had mine at the Irish open in Ireland nut never mind. And I used to like going up to the top of the tower and standing on that disgustingly terrifying glass floor.”
Final question- why should people in Lancashire come to Blackpool to see you in Fawlty Towers?
Danny: “In all honesty, you know our show, it's two hours- especially nowadays with with the world as it is at the moment, it's all a little bit terrifying- it's a couple of hours of escapism, fun, silliness, farcical, you know, it's everything that you want right now. It's a couple of hours of just escapism. Let me just go, forget my problems, forget my issues, and just have a really, really nice time for a couple of hours, you know, and switch off. And I think that's what we are able to bring and that's what made me so happy about- I mean, look, there's nothing better than making people laugh. It's the nicest feeling in the world. And getting to go around the country and making people laugh it’s chef’s kiss. Love it.
Joanne: “Yeah and I think, one of the important things, like we both said before, is whether you know the TV show or you don't, you're going to enjoy it for whatever reason. Whether you relate to the characters, you relate to the situations you've been in, places like that. We even get kids- we love it when the kids are coming in, they'll know nothing about the TV show, but they watch, they watch the waiter Manuel, who's very popular with the kids when he gets beaten up by you, and they find it hilarious so yeah, everybody will enjoy it from if you're a kid, right up to if you’re 95 years old.”