Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

We continue our celebration of the 10th anniversary of ‘Bradley’s Basement’ in September by talking about one of my favourite BBC sitcom series ever made – ‘Fawlty Towers’. I still love ‘Fawlty Towers’ as a comedy series to this day, both on TV and audio CD.

My journey with ‘Fawlty Towers’ on ‘Bradley’s Basement’ hasn’t been that extensive compared to ‘Doctor Who’. But the reviews I’ve shared on my blog that are ‘Fawlty Towers’-related are often ones I’ve revisited and improved upon with brand-new thoughts.

I started sharing my thoughts on ‘Fawlty Towers’ in Day 2 of my ‘Bradley’s Basement’s Advent Calendar in December 2015. In the following year, I shared my thoughts on the Specsavers ‘Fawlty Car’ advert, starring John Cleese, which I’ve enjoyed seeing online.

‘Fawlty Towers’ as a comedy TV series became the inspiration for me to write ‘The Space Hotel’, my second ‘Doctor Who’ story featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy, as a ‘Fawlty Towers In Space’ comedy adventure with an Agatha Christie whodunnit mystery.

In 2016, I wrote a sequel to ‘The Space Hotel’ in my Short Trip story ‘The Space Car’, featuring Ace and the Seventh Doctor. I’ve continued the legacy of ‘The Space Hotel’ in my ‘Zorbius’ series in ‘The Zondor Robbers’, ‘The Horror of Time’ and ‘The Two Salvadors’.

Going back to ‘Fawlty Towers’, I created a set of new ‘Fawlty Towers’ pages in September 2016, containing my reviews on the 12 episodes of the series. Looking back, my reviews on the 12 episodes were very short, as I had transferred them from my Amazon page. 😐

Thankfully, over the years, I’ve been able to find time to update my reviews on the 12 episodes of ‘Fawlty Towers’ in 2017 and 2021. It’s been great to update and extend my thoughts on the episodes, as I’ve seen them about umpteen times and love them a lot. 🙂

My favourite episodes from ‘Fawlty Towers’ include ‘Gourmet Night’, ‘Communication Problems’, ‘The Kipper and the Corpse’ and ‘Basil the Rat’. They’re so funny every time I watch them, containing many hilarious moments for the hotel staff and guest characters.

‘Fawlty Towers’ has been under a lot of scrutiny lately, particularly concerning ‘The Germans’ with it having some racial slurs in the Major’s dialogue. But I can overlook these aspects, since the TV show was made at a different time compared to how things are now.

In the time I’ve been doing my blog these past 10 years, we sadly lost actors who were in ‘Fawlty Towers’, including Andrew Sachs who played Manuel in the series and Bernard Cribbins who played Mr. Hutchison in ‘The Hotel Inspectors’. They’re truly missed today.

There has been talk of a reboot series of ‘Fawlty Towers’ being made by John Cleese and his daughter Camilla, but I don’t know if that’s still happening. Frankly, I’m not really that bothered about there being a reboot series or not, as I’m happy with the TV series as it is.

This year, I’ve had the joy of seeing ‘Fawlty Towers – The Play’ at the Apollo Theatre in London not once, but twice. I saw ‘Fawlty Towers – The Play’ in February in the original cast and in August with a new cast. The stage production has been enjoyable both times.

I’m looking forward to when ‘Fawlty Towers – The Play’ will be shown on TV soon via U&Gold in September. This is ahead of the UK tour of ‘Fawlty Towers – The Play’ from 2025 to 2026 and this is part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of ‘Fawlty Towers’, which is amazing.

‘Fawlty Towers’ continues to mean a lot to me as a comedy series. I enjoy revisiting it when I can on DVD or YouTube, since I own the episodes as downloads via Google Play. I’m glad I’ve been able to share my thoughts on the series on my blog these past 10 years.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂