He grumbles a lot, leaves dead pigeons in the water tank and messes with guests' hearing aides as a hotel owner Basil Fawlty is a nightmare.As the main character in the Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society production of ‘Fawlty Towers' however, Bruce Barritt is hilarious.The production sold out almost immediately, even though BMDS added extra showings.If you had to beat back a few old ladies to get tickets it was worth it. ‘Fawlty Towers' was a real treat for fans of the show and newcomers alike.The play covered three episodes written by actor John Cleese and his wife Connie Booth: The Hotel Inspectors, Basil the Rat, and Communication Problems. It was directed by Nicola Wilkinson.Aside from Mr Barritt, actors include Laura Bardgett as Sybil Fawlty, Jym Brier as Manuel and Rebecca Payne as Polly.They all had big shoes to fill and did it admirably. In fact, it might be safe to say that Mr Barritt was born to play Basil Fawlty.It might have been tempting for him to put on an English accent, but he stuck to his cultured Bermudian. It worked well and gave his character a more natural feel. Mr Brier was brilliant as Manuel and Ms Bardgett also had her character spot on. Nobody tried to put their own twist on the character, thank goodness. They stuck to the script, which pleased this fan enormously don't mess with a good thing!Although the actors looked like the television characters, their body language sold me on their performances. Manuel always walked with his knees bent. He never so much as walked but scuttled from place to place. Basil always slouched, and frequently banged his head against hard objects such as the cash box. Sybil always had ramrod straight posture.The supporting cast also did a great job. Particularly, Paul Maccoy as the Major, and Kelvin Hastings Smith as Mr Hutchinson.Although some people, mostly the ones without tickets, have complained that BMDS could have picked a larger theatre for such a popular production, the Daylesford Theatre always lends a special intimacy to a performance. Set designers did a good job of giving a sense of dimension to the set. The relatively small stage area was very cleverly arranged to include a kitchen, reception, back office and even an upstairs bedroom that hung over the stage. And there were at least five different types of ugly wallpaper used on the set just to give it that extra special British kick.The special Sunday dress rehearsal performance was the first before an audience. It took the cast a little while to warm up to their roles, and in spots their timing was a wee bit off. Luckily, before intermission came they had found their footing and were in full form.For those unfamiliar with the Fawlty Towers establishment, the rooms are cold, the bathtub is invisible, and the radio doesn't work in short, it is every low budget English hotel you've ever been in. Along the way, Mr Fawlty dealt with endlessly complaining guests, hotel inspectors, Manuel's missing pet Siberian hamster which looked suspiciously like a huge black rat and a missing slice of veal laced with rat poison that may or may not have accidentally found its way onto a guest's plate.In most comedies the audience feels some sympathy for the main character, but Basil Fawlty is a character one laughs at, not with. He's a hard character to like. On stage, his physical abuse of Manuel, kicking and smacking him, was harder to watch than on television. You get to wishing hard that Manuel would just turn around and give Basil his own medicine back. If Basil was a real person, living in today's world, he would have long been diagnosed with some kind of mood disorder and put on large doses of medication. In fact, there is a flash mention of depression in the script. Despite the anti-hero that is Basil Fawlty, the show probably works because at some stage we've all wanted to shove a pie in the face of a rude client or business associate. We've all had days where we feel we just can't get ahead. Deep down we all wish we had the guts to be as rude as Basil Fawlty.‘Fawlty Towers' was first broadcast on BBC television in 1975. It was inspired by a hotel that the cast of ‘Monty Python' stayed in in Torquay, Devon. During their stay, the hotel proprietor threw something at a guest, hid a guest's bag behind a wall in the garden because he suspected it contained a bomb (there was a ticking alarm clock in the bag), and criticised an American actor's table manners. For a long time the cast was quiet about what hotel actually inspired ‘Fawlty Towers', but it is now accepted that it was Gleneagles, then owned by Donald Sinclair. Mr Sinclair eventually sold up and moved to Florida. Today Gleneagles is a Best Western Hotel.The BMDS performance of ‘Fawlty Towers' made for a fun evening with some of Bermuda's best talent. Given the popularity and the mad scramble for tickets, it might be nice for BMDS to try more old favourites such as ‘Allo Allo' or ‘Are You Being Served?'.Useful website: www.bmds.bm