Fawlty Towers - the dining experience

‘Fawlty Towers - the dining experience’ is being presented around the world by Rajna Barry’s Interactive Theatre Australia. On Sunday the 22^nd August the WA presentation finished its booked-out, 14-show run at the Willetton Sports Club, Burrendah Boulevarde (a planner's spelling error), Willetton, This highly successful performance was played in the dining room to around 70 diners, an ideal number for the cast of three to handle – and humiliate – comfortably.

       In the bar area, the patrons are having a casual drink, when Manuel (Andy Foreman) enters and starts tipping half-finished drinks into a large glass, before clearing away the empty glasses. Basil Fawlty (Michael Davoren) comes in and spreads his insincere warmth around the waiting diners, prior to berating Manuel.

       Sybil (Karen Hamilton) then asks that the diners be taken into the restaurant and be shown to their seats for the three-course meal (tasty). Once in the dining room all hell breaks loose as the incompetent, linguistically challenged, Manuel helps the waiters serve the warm bread rolls. So started this collection of Fawlty Tower snippets presented around our meal.

All of the mannerisms, political incorrectness and voices that we know and love were perfectly delivered. The cast of three had an uncanny resemblance to the original cast members. The small number of actors aided the smooth interaction between themselves and the audience / diners.

The actors had obviously spent a great deal of time summing up every likely situation, then learning ‘ad libs’ which they delivered with a professional spontaneous ‘off-the-cuff’ manner. Before the meal, whilst in the bar, they also summed up and selected likely candidates for their fun, and then went on to conquer their audience.

Placing a young ‘loving’ couple on a table for two in the centre of the room was perfect for the pickings. Then there was the young teenage boy that was forcibly offered a baby’s highchair. The audience got into the spirit of the show and loved every second.

The cast must have had experience as stand-up comics, as they read their audience perfectly.

I can only hope that Jack Hibberd’s ‘Dimboola’ that will be performed in October, by a WA team at the Victoria Park Bowling Club, can be as successful. The Dimboola ‘Wedding Lunch’ tickets are half the price of the Fawlty Towers (too cheap?).

Founded in 1997, Interactive Theatre Australia is based in Brisbane. Their actors have to have an innate audience feedback, with a fast recall of stock lines and situations. There are four troupes performing the show, with all ‘dining experiences’ fully booked for 2010 and 2011, and they are now taking bookings for 2012. The shows are touring all areas of the British Isles, along with Scandinavia, the Nederlands and Belgium.

Good luck to this very clever Aussie export in Europe.