'Don't mention the war!' Fawlty Towers gets stage treatment at Capilano University

Capilano University theatre students are bringing a beloved sitcom about an unloveable hotel to the stage.

A two-act stage version of Fawlty Towers is being performed by instructor Bob Frazer's students at the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts.

The play, written by John Cleese for Broadway, consists of two episodes of the classic British comedy, "A Touch of Class" and "The Psychiatrist," as well as some interstitial scenes from other favourite episodes.

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"I think [Fawlty Towers] is rated the number one situational comedy of all time," Frazer said. "It's a farcical comedy based on basically how [hotelier Basil Fawlty and wife Sybil Fawlty] treat each other, and mostly how Basil treats the guests."

As anyone who's ever seen the show knows, Basil tends to treat his guests rather poorly.

'It was a completely different time'

Frazer says performing Fawlty Towers is teaching his students a lot about comedy, which he says is one of the more difficult genres of theatre.

But one extra challenge presented by the 40-year-old scriptis how politically incorrect it is by today's standards, which is why perhaps the most famous episode of them all, "The Germans," is not one of the ones performed.

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"If you watch all the episodes again, which I did, there's some real racist sections and some misogynist sections that we can do without now," he said. "But it was the 70s, right? It was a completely different time."

The content of the two episodes being performed by Capilano students are largely free of those problems, he says, and audiences have enjoyed the production so far.

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"There's some iconic characters in there and iconic situations."

Fawlty Towers has two performances left on Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts in North Vancouver.

With files from CBC Radio One'sOn The Coast

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