01 March, 2011

Dinner With Basil, Sybil, and Manuel

If anyone wants to know what to get me for my birthday, then hire these folks for a party.





These are the actors from Australia's Interactive Theatre's Faulty Towers: The Dining Experience. For a fee they'll come to the restaurant of your choice and put on a show in the tradition of Fawlty Towers. Here's an account of their performance in Edinburgh.

If you ask for more salt, you will get a bundle of salt in paper (salt and pepper). Then Basil – whose manhandling of Manuel has won newspaper plaudits for the most convincing random comedy violence – stabs him with a fork, with much punning along "you fork me" lines. Manuel, asked to wait on the tables, stands in the centre of a set of diners and does his matador impression. Meanwhile, there is plenty of running through the restaurant when Manuel mishears the word "sapphire".

Sybil, amid ear-piercing shouts of "Ba-sil!" tells us that she brought back her shoes from Spain – and got a much better bargain than Basil, who brought back the hapless waiter.

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