His curly blonde locks and chiseled jaw earned him heartthrob status in the ’80s during his time on Just Good Friends.
But now, more than 40 years later, Paul Nicholas is playing a very different role as the bumbling old Major in John Cleese’s stage adaptation of his hit BBC show, Fawlty Towers.
The 79-year-old said: “Well, I’m at that stage in my life where Peter Pan is no longer an option.”
“I’m at the age where these kinds of roles come up; I recently played Colonel Pickering and that’s no different.”
His comments come as John Cleese revealed that it took him and his then-wife, Connie Booth, twenty minutes to come up with the concept for Fawlty Towers.
Paul Nicholas was a heartthrob in the early ’80s with his chiseled jaw and curly blonde hair, but now he plays the bumbling old Major in John Cleese’s stage adaptation of Fawlty Towers.
John Cleese with the cast of the West End show. From right to left: Victoria Fox, John Cleese, Hemi Yeroham, Adam Jackson-Smith and Anna-Jane Casey
John Cleese with the original cast of Fawlty Towers, the hit BBC comedy
John Cleese was all smiles as he arrived at the West End show preview wearing a pair of blue jeans with dark brown and gray trainers, a plain black t-shirt and a light beige jacket.
Adam Jackson-Smith (left) plays Basil Fawlty in the new stage adaptation and stars alongside Paul Nicholas.
Cleese and Nicholas posing together and smiling despite the bad weather. Nicholas donned a smart suit with gray pants and a black double-breasted jacket with gold buttons to complement his gold and blue tie.
It comes as the West End stage adaptation of the hit BBC series premieres on Saturday, with Cleese declaring: “It’s so much better than on TV.”
Reflecting on how the show came about, the 84-year-old said: “I had lunch with Jimmy Gilmore, the BBC director and producer, and told him I didn’t want to do any more Monty Pythons.
“I said, ‘I’d like to do something with my wife because we laugh at the same things and she’s a wonderful actress and great at dialogue.’
‘She told me to go talk to her and she said she would do the work.
‘Connie and I had a chat that lasted about twenty minutes and we agreed that we would set it in the hotel we had stayed in when the Pythons went to Torquay to film the Monty Python show. Connie spent a lot of time at the hotel, something people forget.
The 12-episode comedy is based on real-life hotel owner Donald Sinclair, who ran the Gleneagles hotel in Torquay and the couple were fascinated by his incredibly rude behaviour.
Cleese poses with a poster of his new play that he has adapted to the theater
Adam Jackson-Smith and Anna-Jane Case on stage taking on the roles of waitress Polly Sherman and hotel manager Basil Fawlty, who were based on real people in a hotel in Torquay.
The cast performing the new play based on this hit BBC comedy. The performance and Q&A are the first real preview of the highly anticipated show.
John Cleese joins the cast for a Q&A following the performance preview. During the live session, Cleese said: “It’s so much better than on TV.”
Cleese and Jackson-Smith posing outside the Apollo Theater in central London. It has been 50 years since the first program was recorded at the BBC studios in December 1974.
Cleese continued: “So I called Jimmy Gilmore and said, ‘We’d like to put it in a hotel,’ to which he said, ‘Okay.’
“And that’s how the BBC used to work in those days. Now it went through three committees, none of which really had any idea what they were talking about.”
Cleese was married to Booth, 83, from 1968 to 1978 after the two met on the comedy circuit while studying theater in New York.
The couple co-wrote and starred in both series of Fawlty Towers, with Mrs Booth playing barmaid Polly Sherman, although they divorced before the second series finished and aired.
It has been 50 years since the first program was recorded at the BBC studios in December 1974.
The new cast of the hit show is the spitting image of the original actors. The play was written by Cleese and his wife Connie Booth, although the couple had divorced before the second series aired.
Cleese posing with Anna-Jane Casey, who was wearing her character Polly’s iconic outfit: a pink suit and a ruffled white blouse with her curly hair tied up on top of her head.
Cleese dominates Anthony, who plays the bumbling Major in the new play. The duo opted for different outfits with Cleese opting for a more relaxed look in contrast to Anthony’s formal suit.
Cleese with his wife Connie, who played Sybil in the original BBC programme. The couple divorced in 1978, but there are rumors that Booth will infiltrate the West End revival.
The original Basil Fawlty posing with the new Sybil, Anna-Jane Casye, who wore her blonde hair in a bun on top of her head and wore a sky blue dress as part of her costume for the photocall outside the Apollo Theatre, in the center of London.
And now the creator of Monty Python has adapted his hit series into a stage show that will premiere this Saturday at the Apollo Theater on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.
Cleese declared today: “The show on stage is better than on television.”
Mrs Booth, who lives in north London with her second husband, the renowned American theater critic John Lahr, is reported to be crashing the West End revival.
Mr Lahr told the Mail: “She will go to see it, probably not on opening night, but she will be there.”
A source added: “She’s looking forward to seeing him, but lately she likes to keep a low profile and stay out of the spotlight.”
