Fawlty Towers re-opens

The hotel that inspired the cult British television comedy series Fawlty Towers is relaunching after a makeover -- but guests will be spared rants by the rudest hotelier of all time.

John Cleese was prompted to write the classic 1970s series with his then wife Connie Booth after staying with the cast of Monty Python's Flying Circus at the Gleneagles Hotel in the western English resort of Torquay.

Cleese called hotelier Donald Sinclair "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met" after they were berated for their table manners and had a timetable thrown at them when they asked the time of the next bus to town.

Actress Prunella Scales, who played Basil Fawlty's waspish wife Sybil in the comedy that became a worldwide hit, was to commemorate the relaunch by unveiling a plaque at the hotel.

The Gleneagles was to be flattened by property developers who wanted to build luxury apartments on the site.

But Torquay Council refused planning permission. New owners Brian Shone and Terry Taylor have now transformed it into a chic 41-room hotel.

Shone and Taylor originally thought the Fawlty Towers connection was tacky and overdone but now they have decided to embrace it enthusiastically.

Manager Sue Pine told Reuters: "It is quite bizarre. Every day you sit in reception and they come in by the coachload from America, Germany and Holland to see you. We have a big poster in reception and they all have their photo taken."

"We might as well take this situation and use it. The shows are always being repeated somewhere around the world. It is still being shown in several countries," she said.

But guests need have no fear. They will not be berated by a frenetic host screaming at them and the staff led by befuddled Spanish waiter Manuel and long-suffering waitress Polly.

"We are not like them. But we don't mind a bit of fun. We are up for a laugh," Pine said.

Fawlty fans looking for the actual hotel seen at the start and end of the comedy will be disappointed.

The Woodburn Grange Country Club, which was used as the backdrop for the series, burned down in 1991.