PBS celebrates the 30th anniversary of Fawlty Towers, one of the world’s best-loved comedies, with an exclusive retrospective TV special that features behind-the-scenes interviews and humorous recollections by cast and crew. In addition, a companion blog will be launched today to bring Fawlty Towers’ global fan base together for an online reunion and digital celebratory toast!
NOVEMBER 15, 2005 --- To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Fawlty Towers, PBS stations across the country will check back in to the loony English hotel for an exclusive, definitive retrospective on what many consider to be one of the world’s funniest and most enduring situation comedies of all time.
Fawlty Towers Revisited, which will premiere in early December, is an 80-minute scrapbook filled with behind-the-scenes recollections and making-of insights from the Fawlty Towers cast and crew, and it includes more than 40 minutes of choice clips from the show’s 12 episodes.
In addition, a companion Fawtly Towers Revisited blog --- www.fawltytowersrevisited.com --- will be launched today to celebrate the anniversary and to bring together Fawlty Towers’ far-flung and fanatical fans together for a global online reunion. The blog will feature daily postings about the show, its cast and crew, trivia and interesting tales about how Fawlty Towers and its unforgettable characters continue to entertain and inspire audiences.
The Fawlty Towers Revisited blog also will feature an interactive map that fans can use to find out when the PBS station nearest them will broadcast the show. And there will even be tips and recipes fans can use to host a Fawlty Towers Revisited watching party. The blog, which is powered by BlogHarbor, will have daily postings through mid-December.
Hosted by Andrew Sachs, who played “Manuel,” the devoted, but bumbling waiter from Barcelona, and John Howard Davies, producer and director of Fawlty Towers’ first season, Fawlty Towers Revisited features recent interviews with co-creators, writers, lead cast members and former husband and wife, John Cleese and Connie Booth. Cleese played “Basil Fawlty”, the inn’s boorish, ill-tempered, class-conscious proprietor, and Booth portrayed “Polly Sherman,” the chambermaid and tireless middle woman who worked diligently to lessen the fallout from Basil’s numerous missteps and Manuel’s blunders.
Fawlty Towers Revisited also includes interviews with Prunella Scales, who played “Sybil Fawlty,” Basil’s formidable, determined and thick-skinned wife; Bob Spiers, director of the show’s second season; and Terry Jones, one of Cleese’s Monty Python cohorts who shares the story about the English Riviera hotel that provided the inspiration for Fawlty Towers.
And fans will enjoy hearing about behind-the-scenes antics from guest stars in some of Fawlty Towers’ most popular episodes, including Bernard Cribbins from “The Hotel Inspectors” and Nicky Henson and Luan Peters from “The Psychiatrist.”
Fawlty Towers was first broadcast on Sept. 19, 1975, on England’s BBC 2. Ironically, while there were only two seasons and 12 episodes, the show’s clever writing, frenetic pace and unforgettable characters have kept it a Top 5 pick for the world’s best television comedy for three decades. This timeless collection of a dozen 30-minute farces has been shown in more than 60 countries, and it is a Digital Age testament to the show’s perennial popularity that a Google search on the show will note some 830,000 results.
The exclusive broadcast of Fawlty Towers Revisited on PBS stations nationwide is especially fitting because Fawlty Towers made its U.S. debut on public television stations in 1976, less than a year after it began airing in England. And it still is an audience favorite 30 years later.
Fawlty Towers Revisited is joint project of PBS and BBC Worldwide Americas, and was produced by Iowa Public Television.
CONTACT:
Kim Young
(214) 828-4005
Jennifer Glover-Konfrst
Ph. (515) 242-3146
Media Press Room – www.fawltytowersrevisited.com
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