Connie Booth clarifies John Cleese wrote all of Fawlty Towers' iconic dialogue as the show turns 50.
Both Booth and Cleese spent months plotting each episode, but Cleese insisted on co-writer credit for Booth.
Booth reveals she felt uncomfortable being praised for lines Cleese wrote, seeking to set the record straight.
John Cleese praises Booth's vital role in shaping characters and delivering nuanced performances on screen.
The 50th anniversary of Fawlty Towers is coming up this year, and John Cleese hasn't been resting, having adapted the classic sitcom into a stage play and co-writing a new series with his daughter. You might wonder what original series co-creator and co-writer Connie Booth had to say about the classic sitcom. Booth had retired from show business in 1995 and earned her degree to become a practising psychiatrist (also an interest of Cleese's, who has been an advocate of psychotherapy for decades). Radio Times caught up with her to ask her thoughts on the series and her work on the series. "In the year and a half it took to write Fawlty Towers," said Booth. "John and I never imagined the impact the show would have. On its 50th anniversary, I'd like to take the opportunity to get something straight. John wrote the dialogue."
"Fawlty Towers" key art, BBC
Fawlty Towers: Connie Booth Reveals John Cleese Wrote All the Dialogue
"Before that dialogue was written, he and I developed the plots," said Booth. "Each episode took about a month to contrive. Out of the ridiculous complications of farce, his brilliant lines emerged. When the issue of billing arose, I thought 'Written by John Cleese, storyline by us both' would've been fine for me. John said they didn't do that in TV comedy and insisted on co-authorship."
"Yielding to John's generous offer turned out to be a kind of poisoned chalice. For half a century," continued Booth. "I've been receiving praise for lines which John wrote. When people quote back words from the script, instead of flattered I felt counterfeit. I've had to say, 'No, John wrote that.' Because I'm American, this disclosure about the pitch-perfect dialogue may be self-evident, but at this celebration of our work, one of the things I wanted to celebrate was the truth."
John Cleese Guilts BBC into Restoring Fawlty Towers to Streaming (Image: BBC)
John Cleese Continues to Praise Connie Booth's Work on the Series
In 2024, when Radio Times interviewed Cleese about his co-writing sessions with Booth, he was equally effusive about her contribution: "I remember I suggested a line for Sybil, and Connie said, 'A woman wouldn't say that.' And I thought, 'I didn't know that.' She was invaluable there: she was better on character, I was better on plot. I can get caught up in plot and then start putting the character maybe slightly off centre and she was always the one who said, 'No no, that's not right for the character at that moment.' Connie was an extraordinarily good actress. If you watch her in the scenes like I was the other day, in "The Germans", nobody's looking at her at all, they're all looking at Basil. She just plays it so beautifully… So having all those instincts was incredibly helpful."
Adi Tantimedh is a filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote radio plays for the BBC Radio, “JLA: Age of Wonder” for DC Comics, “Blackshirt” for Moonstone Books, and “La Muse” for Big Head Press. Most recently, he wrote “Her Nightly Embrace”, “Her Beautiful Monster” and “Her Fugitive Heart”, a trilogy of novels featuring a British-Indian private eye published by Atria Books, a division Simon & Schuster.
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