Review: FAULTY TOWERS THE DINING EXPERIENCE, President Hotel

Nostalgia might not be what it used to be but it hasn’t stopped the Faulty Towers Dining Experience rolling on and on for over 13 years in the UK and even longer in its native Australia. 

It might sound strange that this long standing tribute to the one of the greatest British sitcoms comes from down under but culture takes root in the most unexpected places. The world’s oldest annual tango festival is not in Buenos Aires but in Seinäjoki, Finland. Anyone looking for the best Doctor Who-themed burlesque will need to jump on a plane (or Tardis) to New York. Meanwhile, fans of couscous from around the world flock every year to San Vito Lo Capo in Sicily.

And so to this immersive soiree which attempts to recreate the Seventies TV series co-created by Connie Booth and her then-husband, the ex-Monty Python and occasional comic book writer John Cleese. Booth’s Polly isn’t a part of this but instead we have three other principal characters to keep us entertained.

Basil Faulty (the names have been slightly changed for legal reasons) is the owner and proprietor of this creaking Torquay-based hotel, at least according to the paperwork. He’s in eternal terror of his dominant wife Sybil who berates him at every opportunity when not haranguing poor Manuel, the excitable waiter from Barcelona with poor English skills and an unusual pet. 

Certain aspects are very faithful to the original show. In his brown suit, Lawrence Watling’s Basil is a close study of Cleese’s mannerisms, from the arch comments to those guests he feels are underdressed to the sense that this is a man never more than a few criticisms away from roiling over into murder-suicide. Prunella Scales’ role is played by BGT semi-finalist Nerine Skinner who dons a pink suit and an icy veneer to imperiously command the dining room. Leigh Kelly has been stepping into Andrew Sachs’ shoes as Manuel since 2013 and it shows in his excellent clowning and improvisation.

Those familiar with the TV show will experience many flashbacks as various plots are rehashed in front of our eyes. Basil tries to make a bet without his wife finding out, Manuel mounts a table to rouse us all in song and Sybil looks on in utter disdain between ripping strips off the pair of them. It culminates in Basil exploding and giving us a splendid display of goose stepping. In between, they visit each of the tables: Basil accuses one diner of being a German, Sybil laments the empty shell of her marriage and Manuel keeps the rolls coming while working hard for his £4.80 per hour. 

For an experience advertised as "immersive", there is surprisingly little to suggest a Seventies’ setting beyond the cast’s outfits and the food. That latter element is a key part when it comes to transporting us into the decade that taste forgot. The courses are a genuinely apt reflection of contemporary dinners, the last culinary vestiges of the era just before package holidays took off and everyone was suddenly besotted with prawn cocktails, paella and black forest gateaux.

The menu’s basic formula has barely changed since this experience started, especially for meat-eaters: a vegetable soup, chicken breast cooked a-la-something and cheesecake. Going by that alone, the food seems devoid of imagination, midweek fodder that barely seems worth stepping out for. And, indeed, when it is served up with a presentation that is professional but plain, that impression is still there. 

It’s not up to the standards of Six By Nico or Monarch Theatre by any distance but, then again, it is supremely tasty. If anything, it deserves a Michelin star simply for not dousing everything with enough salt to make a camel thirsty (a cardinal sin committed by too many modern restaurants). Like the Fifties-set Dead On Time, praise should be particularly heaped on this production for swerving modern tastes and instead sticking to their thematic guns. None of the dishes commit any real culinary crimes and serve as brief pitstops between a series of increasingly deranged antics.

We’ve all seen these plot points before, some of us more than a few times, but what is presented here is more than just purely vicarious. The transportative nature of seeing this iconic sitcom live in a hotel restaurant is the perfect example of why immersive entertainment has been the nascent art form of this decade. The series has ended and we can never return to Fawlty Towers but, thanks to this namesake, we can spend a night reliving its comedic genius.

Faulty Towers Dining Experience continues at President Hotel.