‘Fawlty Towers’ Stage Play Won’t Have Racial Slurs, John Cleese Says: ‘The Literal-Minded Don’t Understand Irony’

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran The London West End stage adaptation of “Fawlty Towers” will be free of racial slurs, creator John Cleese has said. “Fawlty Towers – The Play” is based on the classic 1975 sitcom and is written by Cleese and Connie Booth and adapted for the stage by Cleese.

Cleese, who co-wrote the original 1975 TV series with Connie Booth and starred as Basil Fawlty, has written the two-hour play based on three of the original TV episodes – “The Hotel Inspector” and “The Germans” from Season 1 and “Communication Problems” from Season 2. “The Germans” episode was in the eye of a storm in 2020 when UKTV removed it as it contained “racial slurs.” The “racial slurs” are contained in a scene in which the character Major Gowen uses the N-word when referring to Caribbean sportsmen and uses a derogatory term to refer to Indians.

The episode was later reinstated after Cleese attacked the decision to remove the episode as “stupid,” as well as taking a swipe at those who take a revisionist view of history in the context of the Black Lives Matter debate.

The press launch of the stage adaptation took place on Thursday, preceded by two extracts from the play. Speaking at the event, Cleese said: “Those scenes where the Major used a couple of words you can’t use now, racial slurs they would come under, we took them out.” “There’s always a problem with comedy that you deal with the literal-minded,” Cleese added. “Whenever you’re doing comedy you’re up against the literal-minded and the literal-minded don’t understand irony.