2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Reviews:
The Scotsman (20 August 2008)
****
THE lady beside me is, by now, terrified to put her elbows anywhere near the table. A fellow across the room is staring at a bucket of raw carrots, regretting requesting the vegetarian option. And as for the poor dear in the corner who's found something "belonging" to Chef (he's drunk, of course) in her soup, well, if only this were the real Torquay hotel of the John Cleese BBC sitcom, at least she could demand her money back.
But the insults, humiliation and calamitous service come as part of the ticket price (along with a fine three-course meal – the real B'est Restaurant chefs thankfully aren't actually drunk, although they do look pretty bemused). The show is the work of Interactive Theatre Australia, the southern hemisphere's premier Fawlty Towers impersonators. Apart from when the occasional stretched Aussie vowel cracks their European accents, this trio are painstaking and gifted imitators.
Manuel (Tony Nixon) bumbles around confused, smashing dishes and taking all manner of verbal and physical abuse from Basil. Sybil (Alison Pollard-Mansergh) bosses in her shrill nasal caw. Basil schemes, connives and gradually cracks. The cast can entertain only so many diners at once, and it's dragging a bit by the crème brûlée. But you're as good as guaranteed at least one personalised put down each, and what's consistently funnier than anything else is the look on patrons' faces, as they're belittled, bullied and accosted with bread rolls. Go in a big group (monopolise attention; safety in numbers), give as good as you get (the cast are at their best when ad-libbing). And for God's sake, keep your elbows off the table.
Reviewer - Malcolm Jack
The Daily Telegraph (11 August 2008)
The most adorably amusing show on the Fringe is Fawlty Towers: The Dining Experience, based on a rather well-known British sitcom. You sign up for lunch or dinner at a bona fide Edinburgh restaurant specially commandeered by a trio impersonating uptight hotelier Basil, disdainful wife Sybil and hopeless Spanish sidekick Manuel. Everything, barring the kitchen sink, is thrown into the experience - misunderstandings and mayhem, insults and goose-steps.
I suppose I shouldn't judge too harshly a rather humourless fellow diner who got so preoccupied with the whereabouts of her vegetarian option that she interrupted Alison Pollard-Mansergh's Sybil mid scripted flow to complain. The actress gave her a look of withering disbelief before switching on the exaggerated charm like a pure pro: "I'll see what I can do, dear," she purred, heading off for the kitchen. Faultless and priceless.
Reviewer - Dominic Cavendish
Three Weeks (14 August 2008)
****
I finally join the brunette at the table after being made to wait in the rain. Catering is a highly stressful business generally, but here the violent domestic problems of the couple who run it spill over into the dining area and onto our tables. Throw in their Spanish waiter and his escape-prone pet rat and you have an eating experience not dissimilar to trying to get food in a Japanese POW camp. However, rather than being left bored waiting for the food to arrive between courses, a battle will invariably break out between the tall acerbic host and either his domineering wife or the little Spaniard, or more often both. My compliments to Basil, Sybil and Manuel, the perfect tribute act.
Reviewer - Seth Ewin
The Independant (11 August 2008)
You can mention the war if you like, but just don't ask for more butter. Because if you do, your waiter, Manuel, will find an unsuspecting female diner and proceed to head-butt her. Welcome to Faulty Towers: the Dining Experience – a real-life night with Basil, his wife Sybil and the English-mangling Spanish waiter who are abusing audiences at the Edinburgh Festival.
Here, in the B'est Restaurant in the heart of Edinburgh, diners can feel part of a 13th episode of John Cleese's drama, which was inspired by the Monty Python actor's experiences in a Scottish hotel.
The show "stars" three impersonators of Basil, Sybil and Manuel who roam through the restaurant, taking their comedy to the tables, and occasionally making such a large scene that everyone is involved.
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.
A couple of real waiters, meanwhile, do a sterling job of getting people fed, watered and the meals cleared. Dinner, and the show, is brought to a close with the foul-smelling spray of a fire extinguisher and general comic pandemonium.
Interactive Theatre Australia, which originally developed the mainly improvised show for corporate events, said that for between £25 and £37 (depending on whether they require breakfast, lunch or dinner), people can enjoy fishing the chef's false teeth out of their tomato soup, catching bread rolls, and stroking the hamster – or is it a rat? – that Manuel (played by Tony Nixon) keeps in his pocket.
Although the show avoids quoting from Fawlty Towers – which in a British Film Institute poll was once voted the best television show of all time – there are references to well-loved episodes, with a fire drill, the astonishingly accurate Basil attempting to place a secret bet on a race, and some exaggerated goose-stepping. The food, audiences are grateful to discover, is genuine, and edible.
The creative director Alison Pollard-Mansergh, who also plays Sybil, said: "You need to have the food so that the audience can experience the mayhem, and people are loving the fact that they feel part of the '13th episode'."
Reviewer - Senay Boztas
Broadway Baby (15 August 2008)
*****
Why on earth would anyone want to have a Fawlty Towers lunch? The classic 1970s sitcom featured deeply dysfunctional husband and wife hotel managers Basil and Sybil Fawlty, and their hapless Spanish waiter Manuel. Every meal was a disaster, with Basil insulting the guests, Sybil shrieking, Manuel misunderstanding every instruction and incurring Basil’s wrath.
Interactive Theatre Australia have developed the Faulty Towers dining experience to transport us back to that 1970s era. There is a sense of nervousness and anticipation as the audience wait outside the B’est Restaurant in Drummond Street. Instead of filing into the dining room, the characters come out to greet us, and treat us to our first taste of the mayhem that follows. There’s a missing seating plan, Manuel is trying to serve us peanuts, Sybil is nagging both Manuel and Basil, and Basil is eyeballing the guests.
[The performer playing Basil] gives a perfect interpretation of the angst-ridden Basil. He has all the facial expressions, changes in vocal pitch and physical presence of John Cleese. Alison Pollard-Mansergh is wonderful as Sybil, nagging Basil and then chatting to the audience and on the phone. Tony Nixon seems to have become Manuel, and his misinterpretations of instructions are even funnier in real life than they were on screen.
The show covers some familiar themes from the tv show, including Basil betting and Manuel’s pet. But most of the real laugh out loud moments come from the characters interacting with the audience. For example, as Manuel can’t quite reach my corner seat to serve the soup, he pops under the table and reappears at my knees. Basil and Manuel’s efforts to get wine bottles open in various ways give rise to some great physical comedy, and, amazingly, in the midst of all this we do get our food and wine, mostly all in one piece. With the restaurant setting it is sometimes difficult to see all of the action, but the cast work well to keep things moving around the room.
The show might not work so well if you’re not familiar with the original tv series, but if you are, you’ll love it. Equally, had the cast not been so convincing this experience could have been tedious rather than entertaining. Finding yourself at the sharp end of Basil’s tounge for having your elbows on the table, being gently patronised by Sybil while Manuel serves a roll by throwing it at you is marvelous fun, and to be highly recommended.
Reviewer - Kathryn Mack
Edinburgh Evening News (8 August 2008)
*****
BULLIED, badgered and belittled. Welcome to the Basil Faulty school of customer service – and yes the name is spelled correctly. My dining companion was probably too young to really appreciate the genius of BBC 2's classic sitcom Fawlty Towers - or was until Monday, when he received a baptism of fire – Faulty Towers The Dining Experience, at B'est on Drummond Street.
You've heard of pre-theatre dining? Well imagine enjoying a meal during the performance and you'll get the gist of this hilarious evening from the Interactive Theatre Australia.
The action starts in the lane by the side of the restaurant. Tonight is a sell-out already. That's 75 covers. And everyone is nervously waiting to be seated. The performance part of the evening starts at 8pm, but get there 15 minutes early for the full effect.
The amuse bouche, a peanut, yes, a single peanut served by Manuel from a silver platter under the ever-watchful eye of Basil, is dispensed at this point.
Then it is time for Basil to reveal the seating plan for dinner. A three-course affair, which, despite the haphazard nature of Faulty Towers, is actually a very presentable affair – but more of that later.
As Manuel guides individual parties to their tables, Basil continues to abuse and amuse in equal measure. Indeed. [The performer playing Basil] makes a scarily authentic Cleese-esque host.
Once inside, the cast of three ensure everyone is seated, if not comfortably, properly: "Elbows . . ." snaps Basil at one middle-aged lady who has inadvertently forgotten her manners, much to the amusement of everyone else.
By the end of the evening everyone will have been the target of Basil's smouldering disdain at some point.
As for the rest of team, well, hear Alison Pollard-Mansergh screeching from the kitchen and you'll swear that Prunella Scales has come on board for the night.
And then there's Manuel, aka the diminutive Tony Nixon, who happily clambers onto a table and stands there when ordered to wait on a table by Sybil.
And talking of tables, the table settings are, well, interesting. Knives and forks are misplaced and for some reason there is a random water glass, smeared with butter and containing two spoons, on our table. Do they really think we are going to complain?
With drinks ordered – the only part of the evening not included in the ticket price – everything steps up a gear.
First course tonight, and every night throughout August, is soup. Just soup.
"That's soup," says Mrs Faulty unnecessarily as she plonks a bowl of broth in front of each of us.
Elsewhere, Manuel is dispensing bread rolls, throwing them through the air to diners, before joining in the soup service at such a breakneck speed that every-one ducks for cover, just in case. One trip is all it will take.
The soup, is obviously not from a can, despite Sybil's joke. Carrot and coriander for some, lentil for others – my dining companion declares it is quite delicious. The broth, too, is tasty. A thick meaty mix. Good old-fashioned comfort food. Although a couple of diners had a surprise in theirs. Not that I'm going to spoil the moment.
Oh, and because Sybil had taken my spoon away, and I hadn't drained my bowl of soup, Manuel insisted I finished it by drinking it from the bowl - only then would he take it away.
Then the fun really begins and before the main courses have even been served we have already experienced a bullfight acted out on a table, a fire drill, the secret bet routine, "I know nothing" and references to Mr Stubbs the builder and the drunk chef.
There's a hint that the main courses are about to appear, when Manuel arrives with a basket of vegetables and places them before the poor woman who plumped for the vegetarian option. Other options include vegan, gluten-free and lactose intolerant.
The rest of us, meanwhile, are served either chicken or lamb – not that we are given a choice. When two diners swap plates Basil quickly swaps them back. When they do it again, he decides to cut up the lamb and feed the chicken-lover himself.
The chicken is fresh and tender and stuffed with well- seasoned haggis. It is served on a bed of mash and with a creamy mushroom sauce. The whole combination just melts in the mouth and is strangely appropriate fare for the French rustic chic of B'est.
The lamb, which my companion has been allocated, is also cooked well and served with seasonal veg and mash. As good as many a meal he has enjoyed he declares, obviously surprised. But then, this evening is not just about the entertainment. B'est have a reputation to uphold and despite the mayhem all around, do just that.
Reaching the finale of the evening – Manuel invites one young lady to stroke his pet hamster, which he keeps in his pocket out of the sight of his bosses. Of course, it's really a rat, and it escapes. More eye-watering mayhem.
To be honest, it is hard to fault Faulty Towers The Dining Experience. The kitchen is run with military precision and a special mention must go to the waiting staff who defer in character to Mrs Faulty while expertly ensuring that everyone's meal is served straight from the pass.
The only problem you might find is that you laugh so hard you end up with indigestion.
Trust me, it is worth it. This evening is set to be a highlight of the 2008 Fringe and will sell-out fast. In fact, a little bird tells me they have already been booked for a return visit next year.
Reviewer - Liam Rudden
Daily Record (15 August 2008)
****
RUDE waiting staff, a rat in the kitchen and unidentified floating objects in the soup usually mean a meal from Hell but they also add up to an unforgettable show at the Fringe.
A tribute to the much-loved Seventies sitcom, the live version of Faulty Towers may have a slightly different spelling to the TV programme but it contains all the characters and gaffes that made the series such a classic.
The action takes place in B'est restaurant, where the audience are served a meal by Aussie actors playing Basil, his domineering wife Sybil and the long-suffering waiter Manuel who, as we all know, comes from Barcelona.
There is a loose plot involving a long-tailed Siberian hamster and Basil's doomed attempts to place a bet, but most of the laughs come from the chaotic audience interaction.
A continually furious Basil stalks the restaurant ordering diners to get their elbows off the table while Sybil occasionally takes a break from haranguing her husband to patronise the punters.
Meanwhile, Manuel is clambering under the tables and emerging with a puzzled look and a pair of frilly knickers. [The performer playing Basil] is uncanny [in his role]. Pompous but simultaneously bristling with frustrated rage, he bullies Manuel just as mercilessly as his wife nags him.
Despite the sounds of plates smashing in the kitchen and Basil's increasingly violent pep talks with Manuel, they manage to serve a three-course meal to the audience over the two-hour duration of the show.
It is not the most relaxing meal you will ever have but it is a memorable one. In one episode of the TV series, Basil deals with an unusually happy guest and announces, "A satisfied customer. We should have him stuffed."
Faulty Towers left me satisfied but I'll pass on the stuffing.
Reviewer - Jonathan Trew
The Times (6 August 2008)
Basil Fawlty glares furiously at me as I wander back into the restaurant after making a phone call. “Oh, you decided to come back did you? How very nice of you.” He rolls his eyes and herds me back to my table and an uninspiring plate of roast lamb.
Moments later a bristling moustache appears over my shoulder, at ear height. “Eat up, go on. Eat up.”
Welcome to Faulty Towers: the Dining Experience - three actors performing as Basil, Sybil and Mañuel in a real Edinburgh restaurant for most of August.
It is one of several immersive theatre experiences at the Fringe this year, ranging from interactive murder mysteries to The Factory, a grim recreation of the Nazi gas chambers in an underground bomb shelter.
The festival has always boasted quirky shows but this year's bumper crop reflects the expanding popularity of audience participation drama around the country.
Barbara Matthews, director of theatre strategy at the Arts Council, said that although immersive theatre was a prominent feature of international festivals, it was seen as a niche interest in Britain. That is now changing: “There's much more of it around than ever before.”
Immersive theatre grew out of theatre innovations in Eastern Europe and South America during the Sixties but then fell out of fashion in the Eighties.
Holly Kendrick, director of the National Student Drama Festival, said that it was becoming much more prevalent in universities and drama schools. Alexander Wright, a director of Belt Up, a York group that has won awards for its immersive productions, said: “There's no reason other than tradition to have that strict actor/audience divide. Getting rid of it heightens everything.”
Faulty Towers: the Dining Experience is at the slapstick end of the spectrum but its performers take it no less seriously for that. [The performer playing Basil] believes he is “channelling Basil Fawlty” while Tony Nixon feels that “it is Mañuel reacting now, not me.”
The production was founded in Brisbane, Australia, in 1997 and has proved a hit at festivals and corporate functions. Alison Pollard-Mansergh, who plays Sybil, said that they had been nervous of bringing the show to Britain, fearing it “would be like selling ice to the Eskimos”.
So far the Eskimos are buying. The B'Est restaurant in Drummond Street has been selling out two shows a day, despite a ticket price of £37, which includes the performance and a three-course dinner but not wine.
Only about 14 minutes of the two hours are scripted. The rest is improvised around some familiar skeleton plot lines and the diners' responses.
The experience begins with a pre-dinner drink outside the restaurant. Passers-by nudge each other and point at [the performer playing Basil], whose uncanny resemblance to John Cleese, deranged twitches and pitch-perfect vocal impersonation bring the original Fawlty back to furious three-dimensional life. “We're not with you,” one startled middle-aged woman says after he has been staring at her for several seconds. “Good,” he barks.
Inside the restaurant diners are systematically abused. Mañuel burns his fingers on a stack of hot plates and plunges them into the nearest water glass to cool off. The chef's false teeth turn up in one diner's soup.
The best ideas are straight lifts from the original 12 episodes with new jokes thrown in. It is Mañuel's birthday, Basil has a bet on a horse, Mañuel has a pet rat he thinks is a hamster.
“Haven't you heard of the Black Death?” Basil screams at him when he discovers it, before directing the hapless waiter to a table of older diners.
“It was very popular in the Middle Ages. Ask them.”
The show has one big problem. The actors take scrupulous care not to steal precise dialogue but their own words are just not as funny as the Cleese-Connie Booth scripts.
Most of the diners don't seem to mind. Grace and John Stewart said: “They've got all the mannerisms and everyone seemed to want to be involved. We loved it.”
Reviewer - Ben Hoyle
The Groggy Squirrel (7 August 2008)
This was one of the most madcap and fun packed dining experiences I can recall. I laughed so hard my jaw is aching. The combination of a very nice three course lunch and very close-up floor show is one that I find hard to fault. Sure, the limitations of performing around the tables in a restaurant mean that at some points in the show, all the action may be happening at the other end of the room.
Of course, the alternative is having them right in front of you removing your cutlery or giving you someone else's dishes. And having Basil stare at you for keeping your elbows on the table is a very scary experience, let me tell you.
The show starts before we enter the restaurant and the seating is part of our introduction to the afternoon (or night if you are in for dinner). Chaos and mayhem follow as everything disastrous you could imagine taking place will somehow occur, and a few things you certainly wouldn't imagine will also jump out at you. To tell too much would be to give away some of the magic. Suffice to say, this was one of the most entertaining lunches I can recall and for fans of Fawlty Towers, is a must see experience. I did see a couple of youngsters who looked bemused and can only assume their comedy education has been lacking.
The cast handled the whole affair with a timing and flair that can only come with extended planning, rehearsal and a lot of performances. These people are at the top of their game and this is one of the must-see shows at Edinburgh (or any of the other places round the UK they are performing for the next month. They almost had a residency in London but it fell through so if there are any London restauranters reading this ...). The food is tasty as well.
Reviewer - Ron Bingham
Fringe Review (6 August 2008)
****
Faulty Towers the Dining Experience does exactly what it says on the tin. Located in B'est Restaurant on Drummond Street; Sybil, Basil and Manuel invite you to spend the evening in their dubious company.
Various scenes and happenings from the TV series have been lifted into the show - from Basil placing a bet on a horse, to Manuel's pet 'hamster' running amok in the restaurant. However, the actors' ad-libbing and engagement with the audience is even better than the created 'scenes', and it is safe to say the diners entered into the farce with gusto.
The actors' impressions of the incredibly well known characters were absolutely uncanny - with special mention going to Basil, whose clipped tones, brusque manner and manic eye movements were so studied, with your eyes closed you might have thought the TV was on in the background.
This was a thoroughly entertaining evening, which, for lovers of Fawlty Towers will be as close as you will get to being transported into that hell-hole Torquay hotel. The food was good too, and the ordinary waiters and waitresses dealt with the mayhem surrounding them incredibly well - ducking flying bread rolls, launched across the restaurant by an incompetent Manuel.
A price tag of £37.00 seems a little steep, and will probably keep all but the most die-hard fans and moneyed tourists away, but if you can afford it and you loved that most hilarious of sitcoms, head to B'est Restaurant before the run sells out!
Reviewer - Alice Booth
Festmag (10 August 2008)
****
Dear Mr Faulty,
I write with regards to the dining ordeal I experienced this week. Never before have I been so very insulted. Never have I been so cajoled, bullied, manhandled or shouted at over the course of a meal. The service was awful and the food merely above average. Furthermore, one of the delightful group of ladies I dined with did not receive her soup until at least three minutes after the arrival of my own starter. Had there not been such mayhem occurring throughout the restaurant which, for fear of being struck by a flying bread roll, I was forced to watch, I might easily have begun eating out of turn.
Nor, sir, was I any more impressed by the standard of your staff. The waitress—your wife—while clearly aware of the proper workings of a high-class restaurant, preferred instead to make jokes to the diners about the subtleties of your marriage. Without wishing to pry, Mr Faulty, it would be remiss of me if I failed to comment that the marital difficulties which you and your wife so obviously experience might, by some individuals, be construed as utterly farcical.
Your foreign assistant, Manuel, demonstrated far deeper levels of incompetence. Not content with secreting in his pocket a small rodent, you may be interested to learn that one diner was tricked by the Spaniard into performing the part of an enraged beast in a rudimentary enactment of a bull fight. While, I will admit, I did allow myself somewhat of a titter at the time, I feel obliged to express outrage on behalf of the unfortunate gentleman. Far more pressing, however, is the issue of your use of cheap foreign labour, and the linguistic difficulties entailed therein. Your failure do deliver instructions in a manner which the poor chap could understand, you will accept, resulted in consistent errors of communication. I laughed solely because the alternative was to cry.
A harrowing dining experience indeed, Mr Faulty. I can only assume the applause with which my fellow sufferers greeted the final course was that of utter relief, although I find myself at a loss to explain exactly why several of your erstwhile guests rose from their seats to underline this communal release of anxiety. In lieu of this, I demand compensation. A three course meal at your restaurant would prove satisfactory.
Yours sincerely
Evan Beswick
Reviewer - Evan Beswick
The Edinburgh Blog (25 August 2008)
The Edinburgh Blog attended one of the last performances of Interactive Theatre’s ‘Faulty Towers the Dining Experience’. As the name of the theatre company suggests, this is truly an interactive show where the audience are subjected to Basil’s wrath, Manuel’s incompetence and Sybil’s sickly helpfulness during a two hour meal at the B’est restaurant on Edinburgh’s Drummond Street.
Our experience started while we queued outside B’est with Manuel serving, at first sight, canapes only to realise it was peanuts on a silver tray. We were instructed to have only one! Our first encounter with Basil was being ordered into the restaurant by name and table number.
Those familiar with Fawlty Towers will be very aware of what a meal at the famous Torquay hotel entails. A woman was branded a trouble maker when ordering a bottle of wine which Basil had no inclination to open; another found false teeth in her soup; another was force fed her vegetables when she dared to leave them on her plate; latecomers were humiliated to a ‘Basil’ dressing down in front of a silent restaurant; diners were regularly instructed to remove their elbows from the table; Manuel produced a bucket of water when asked for a jug. Sybil explained the customer wanted a jug of water, at which point Manuel filled the jug from the bucket. All very Fawlty Towers and all very entertaining.
The reenactment of famous scenes from the TV series were particularly enjoyable. The biggest laughs of the afternoon came when Manuel lost his hamster in the restaurant and the ensuing chaos. Of course the show would not have been complete without a goose-stepping Basil.
Regular waiters at the B’est restaurant helped to serve drinks (not included in the ticket price) and food. For starter we were eventually served a carrot and pepper based soup and for main a choice of chicken with rice or beef stew. Dessert was a chocolate orange cheesecake. All dishes wee competently done, a good accomplishment considering over a hundred diners were packed into the room.
The three cast members of “Faulty Towers the Dining Experience” acted their parts superbly. Alison Pollard-Mansergh was excellent as the domineering wife and she mastered Sybil’s grating laugh exactly. Although [the performer playing Basil] ’s Australian accent crept in occasionally he was a great ‘Basil’ and genuinely made the audience fearful of him. As you can see by the photos Nigel is perfectly suited to the role of Basil. Though, my favourite was Tony Nixon as the downtrodden and hapless Manuel.
Essential | Worth a watch |One to miss
The run of ‘Faulty Towers the Dining Experience” is almost over, with just another extra show tomorrow (26/08). Following this the show picks up its British tour. Try and catch it, or hope it returns to the Festival Fringe next year!
Chortle (25 August 2008)
***
This is about as interactive as theatre gets, a dining experience with a difference. Basil, Sybil and Manuel are all there to greet the audience, seat them, then serve them a three-course meal while performing original sketches, improvised chatter and scenes inspired from the TV show.
The acting is exemplary, with Tony Nixon stealing the hearts of the audience with the victimised naivety that makes Manuel so special. Alison Pollard-Mansergh has the hardest job holding the role of Sybil, but gives a brilliant performance and proving a likable host. [The performer playing Basil] is a scarily convincing Basil, stalking the restaurant, screaming at his guests to keep their elbows off the tables and ensuring that no one feels comfortable in his presence.
This is not a show for people unfamiliar with the characters, but if you are a Fawlty fan then this is a good way to get up close to the goose-stepping nonsense.
Reviewer - Corry Shaw
London Evening Standard (10 August 2008)
***
If watching repeats of the best ever British comedy series no longer suffices, why not try dining chez Fawlty? This is the delightfully quirky Fringe experience offered by Australian trio Interactive Theatre who, under Basil's malign guidance, turn a three-course lunch at an elegant restaurant in Drummond Street into a cross between school dinners and national service.
The actors look the spitting images of John Cleese, Prunella Scales and Andrew Sachs (Polly is on her day off). Alison Pollard-Mansergh has Sybil's ear-piercing screech and it's particularly amusing to hear her bow to today's foodie-fads and ask customers if they are lactose-intolerant.
[The performer playing Basil] captures Basil's poppingeyed apoplexy, although his response to my request for a Waldorf salad was to tell me to take my elbows off the table.
Between courses are accounts of crisis in the kitchen and Manuel-inspired mayhem but the logistics of feeding 70-odd people make this experience feel a little diluted and overlong.
Reviewer - Fiona Mountford |
