Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be caught up in the madness of Fawlty Towers?
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You can subject yourself to the insanity of Basil, Sybil and Manuel in the similarly titled Faulty Towers, a long-running, licensed, Australian-produced interactive dinner-and-show experience based on the classic 1970s British sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth.
Mercure Canberra stands in for the dining room of the Torquay hotel and regular servers bring the audience members - up to 120 of them - a three-course meal as mayhem unfolds around them.
Faulty Towers began in Brisbane in 1997 and has international companies - Sottile has performed with the show in London and around Europe.
Anthony Sottile plays the hapless, English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel.
He's under the thumbs of the married owners of Fawlty Towers, bossy, bad-mannered Basil (Jack Newell) and sharp-tongued Sybil (Monique Lewis-Reynolds).
There's no Polly, both for logistical reasons and because as the most sensible staff member she wasn't really needed.
"It's one-third scripted: the rest of it is improvised," Sottile says.
There are plenty of references to well-remembered episodes and incidents from the TV series - Basil the Rat, the fire drill, the Germans - but it's the spontaneous interactions between the actors and their dealings with the audience that are the comic heart of the show.
"The first 15 or 20 minutes we're reading the audience," he says.
They're trying to work out which people will be most likely to respond well to interaction with the characters and whether they're dealing with an audience that responds most to Basil, Sybil or the underdog Manuel.
Sottile remembers one performance in Denmark where Manuel was singing to entertain the diners.
"A lady happened to walk through the door from the bathroom and I said, 'Did you wash your hands?"
The audience laughed, he began singing again and another diner walked in. And then another.
"The audience just went crazy."
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Sottile worked in administration for years before deciding theatre was what he wanted to pursue.
In 2009, at 33, he began studying at Sydney Theatre School and six months after graduating he landed the role of Manuel.
"I've been doing it ever since," he says, with other plays in between.
The heavily improvisational element of Faulty Towers helps keep it fresh.
While none of the TV show's creators are involved with the production, Sottile says one company enjoyed the presence of the original Manuel at a performance.
"Andrew Sachs's wife surprised him and brought him to the show.
"He absolutely loved it."
- Faulty Towers: the Dining Experience is on at Mercure Canberra, corner of Ainslie and Limestone Avenues, Braddon on Sunday, July 18 at 7pm. Tickets $99. Please send any diet enquiries to customerservice@imagination-workshop.com. Bookings can be made at Eventfinda.
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