Fawlty Towers The Play Review: Shamelessly recycled it may be, but this is a fine reproduction of a vintage antique… it’s as if time stood still, writes PATRICK MARMION

Fawlty Towers The Play (Apollo Theatre, London)

Verdict: Impeccable antique

Judgement:

It may be shamelessly recycled, fifty-year-old comic material. But as shamelessly recycled fifty-year-old comic material goes, John Cleese and Connie Booth’s stage replica of their classic TV comedy Fawlty Towers is still a lot of fun.

It’s such a high-quality copy of the 1975 original that if you look closely, it might even say ‘Made In China’ on the bottom. Fawlty Towers purists will be relieved to hear that there’s nothing new to see here.

Instead, this is a tightly crafted highlights package, distilling the fire drill fiasco, the wall-mounted moose debacle and the ill-fated fiver secretly betting on the horse Dragonfly.

Into the carefully choreographed chaos step deaf old battleaxe Mrs. Richards (a peerlessly contemptuous Rachel Izen), undercover hotel inspectors and many others, including… the Germans.

Being live provides freshness, but this is a risk-free repetition, unthreatened by ‘new material’. Caroline Jay Ranger’s production offers her company all the creative freedom that Kim Jong Un grants the people of North Korea.

It’s such a high-quality copy of the 1975 original that if you look closely, it might even say ‘Made In China’ on the bottom.

And Liz Ashcroft’s staging distills the chintzy Torquay hotel into an open-plan design faux pas – from lobby with flock wallpaper and dining room with lace tablecloths to upstairs bedroom with no sea views.

Adam Jackson-Smith is an impeccable avatar of Basil, right down to the long mustache that mutes his sotto voce sarcasm. He deftly jumps to attention at Sybil’s screeching threats to his manhood (“you have to sew them back on first…”), but he’s also flexible enough to do the whirling, head-bandaged goose step for the bewildered Germans.

Anna-Jane Casey’s Sybil is also a copy of Prunella Scales, while Hemi Yeroham bounces exactly the same rubber ball as Andrew Sachs’ waiter from Barcelona, ​​Manuel. Victoria Fox has the swimming head bobs and mid-Atlantic accent of Connie Booth’s Polly, and Paul Nichols is as blissfully oblivious as Ballard Berkeley’s bemused Major.

It’s as if time has stood still for this beautiful reproduction of a mid-century vintage antique. I suggest you book a private bathroom.

It’s as if time has stood still for this beautiful reproduction of a mid-century vintage antique. I suggest you book a private bathroom

Withnail & I (Birmingham Representative)

Verdict: Not nailed

Judgement:

For some of us – myself in particular – Withnail & I is the holy of holies. The best movie of all time. I would save the Desert Island Flick from the waves. I’ve always enjoyed the sweetly sad story of two young actors at the end of the swinging sixties, heading to the Lake District hoping for a reprieve from poverty, pills and booze. Like British pork in the sinister TV ads of the period, it has a lot going for it.

Some of the dialogue has passed into folklore (“we accidentally went on vacation!”). It features sensational characters ranging from the two self-dramatizing leads of Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann, to Richard Griffiths’ rhapsodic Uncle Monty, and the Cumbrian poacher who keeps a live eel in his pants.

Then there’s the beautifully melancholic soundtrack, which opens with a jazz version of Whiter Shade Of Pale – matching the rain-saturated beauty of the Lake District.

It may seem like folly to tamper with such perfection. But considering the film’s writer and director, Bruce Robinson, wrote this new adaptation in Birmingham and comedy director Sean Foley is at the helm, there was hope.

And if we miss Farmer Parkin’s famous tractor (leg bound in polythene), we still get a fun witches’ competition in the Cumbrian cottage.

We must also salute Robert Sheehan for his role in Richard E. Grant’s Withnail – still the best drunken acting ever put to screen (played by a lifelong teetotaler).

But Sheehan likes to show off, and isn’t sick or anxious enough to win our affection.

However, Adonis Siddique does win hearts with a gentle reincarnation of ‘I’ or ‘Marwood’ – his drug-induced panic and wistful commentary are more than just a comic turn.

Malcolm Sinclair keeps the flamboyant Uncle Monty a sad Edwardian throwback, and there are nice touches from Adam Young as nasally philosopher and drug dealer Danny.

But live music with covers of The Kinks Sunny Afternoon and Spirit In The Sky by Norman Greenbaum sounds more like a pub band.

Nor can creaking sets or animated projections touch the film’s visual cornucopia.

It made me laugh a little, and laugh a lot. But it didn’t penetrate – or break – my heart. For that I have to go back to the movie.

Withnail & I runs until May 25. Fawlty Towers is booking until September 28th.