‘You can’t beat the old one’: Jennifer Saunders admits to feeling ‘slight dread’ at Fawlty Towers reboot

‘Why don’t you write a new thing?’ comedian asked, following John Cleese announcing revival

Jennifer Saunders has offered up her thoughts on the forthcoming Fawlty Towers reboot.

In February, John Cleese announced that he and his daughter Camilla would be bringing back the Seventies sitcom, which is widely considered to be one of the greatest comedies of all time.

The news prompted shock from comedy fans, many of whom questioned why the already adored show needed to be revived.

In a new interview, Saunders was asked what her reaction had been to the news that Fawlty Towers is returning.

“Slight dread, I have to say,” she told Metro.co.uk. “I just thought, why? Why don’t you write a new thing?

“I don’t understand why you have to do that. You can’t beat the old one.”

The Absolutely Fabulous star and Cleese appeared together in the French-language film L’entente cordiale in 2006, as well as both voicing characters for Shrek 2.

Cleese, who starred in the original Fawlty Towers series as hotel owner Basil Fawlty, is making the new show in collaboration with Spinal Tap filmmaker Rob Reiner.

The original cast of ‘Fawlty Towers’: Prunella Scales, John Cleese, Connie Booth and Andrew Sachs, pictured in 2009 (Getty Images)

Both Cleese and his daughter will write and star in the revival, which is currently in development.

Cleese, 83, has been known in recent years for railing against political correctness, and is due to begin his own show on GB News later this year.

He disputed claims made in a Guardian column that the new Fawlty Towers would be an “anti-woke nightmare”, saying: “The idea that it’s all going to be about wokery hadn’t particularly occurred to me.”

The original Fawlty Towers ran for two series of six episodes each, in 1975 and 1979.

Speaking to The Independent in 2018, Cleese seemed to dismiss the possibility of a Fawlty Towers revival, explaining: “You wanted Fawlty Towers to be as good as possible, and it’s done and you’re proud of it, and then you suddenly realise that the bar has now got too high.

“If I ever tried to do a Fawlty Towers-type sitcom again, everyone would say, ‘Well, it’s got its moments, but it’s not as good as Fawlty Towers’, so there’s not much point in doing that. You have to do different things.”