My jaw hit the floor when I turned on my computer a bit earlier to see this news. “Comedy series Fawlty Towers is set to be revived after more than 40 years. John Cleese, who played Basil Fawlty, will be returning to write and star alongside his daughter Camilla Cleese.” For a moment, it struck me as the bit of awesomeness I had been waiting for: the revival of a classic, legendary comedy series which will get us all rolling on the floor with laughter again. But the question is, will it? Is this really the time for the revival if such a comedy series, last in production over forty years ago, or should classics remain classics?

Of course, I felt a similar kind of skepticism when it was announced that Monty Python were reuniting in 2013. Lots of questions automatically cropped up, such as what format would the shows take, or over whether the Pythons would be sticking to their old classics or creating new material? In the end, those shows turned out to be a massive, massive success, and I will always count watching Monty Python Live in 2014 as one of the greatest events of my life. Yet a stage show based on TV sketches which most of the audience already know off by heart and a sitcom attempting to revive one of televisions seminal conic characters after a forty year absence are two very different things.

The new show will apparently be a continuation of the original: “The new series will explore how the cynical and sarcastic Basil navigates the modern world….The revival will also see Basil and his daughter, who he has just discovered is his, team up to run a boutique hotel.” To be honest that sounds a lot like an attempt to flog a horse which has been dead for forty years. It sounds as if Cleese and co. want to revive a tried and tested franchise which we all remember with great fondness simply to make a bit of money. Yet that is to forget that Fawlty Towers was very much of it’s time, reflecting and playing with attitudes which were prevalent in the seventies but aren’t popular today. More to the point, Basil Fawlty is a very energetic, physical character: much of the humour of the original series derives from him picking things up, throwing things around and running all over the place. John Cleese is now in his eighties, podgy and greying. For him to play Basil now would, arguably, totally miss the point of what made him so great and so memorable.

I don’t want to sound too negative here. After all, we have been in this position before: whenever we get news like this, whenever we hear of such a revival or reunion, there is always a tendency to be cautious. I was too young at the time, but I’m told that when Gene Roddenberry announced the creation of Star Trek The Next Generation, fans automatically dismissed it. TNG obviously turned out to be a great success, and eventually went on to give rise to several more Star Trek series. Yet the difference here is that, whereas TNG had a completely new cast, Cleese is attempting to revive the same characters from his original series. Moreover, the gap in time between The Original Series ending and TNG beginning was much shorter, especially if we remember that there were Star Trek Films in between.

I thus think I’m right to have rather large reservations about the return of Fawlty Towers. Could it be the return of a classic, or a pointless attempt to flog a long dead horse for money? Might this in fact be a case of a comedian with rather anachronistic views, trying to muscle his way back into the increasingly progressive political and cultural discourse, simply by bringing back a fondly remembered but very much of-it’s-time series? I suppose we won’t be able to tell until we actually see it.