Faulty Towers The Dining Experience will play its 4,000th West End performance on 22 January 2027, opening a year that also brings 15 years in London and 30 since the show began in Brisbane.
The 4,000th performance of Faulty Towers The Dining Experience falls on 22 January 2027, and it is only the first date in a crowded anniversary calendar. The production reaches 15 years in the West End on 26 October 2027, counted from its official opening in 2012, and the same year marks three decades since it was first staged in Brisbane in 1997.
The milestones were announced by artistic director Alison Pollard-Mansergh, producer Jared Harford and Interactive Theatre International, who have two anniversary tours lined up alongside the London run: a national tour of Australia and a string of Scottish dates next spring.
By its producers’ count the show has now played in 43 countries, which they say is more than any other Australian theatrical export, ahead of Tap Dogs at 37. It also bills itself as the longest-running immersive dining show in the world and the longest-running Fawlty Towers production anywhere. Measured by West End tenure it is the eighth longest-running production still on, although it will not appear in the Society of London Theatre’s official longevity records, because the production is not a SOLT member.
Much of that reach comes down to where it performs. Hotel dining rooms, clubs and function suites have been as much its home as theatres, which has let it tour to places a conventional staging could not easily go. The format has barely moved since 1997: the audience are the diners in the restaurant, Basil, Sybil and Manuel serve them a 1970s-style three-course meal over a two-hour evening, and around 70 per cent of what happens is improvised.
The production’s trailer, which is also on YouTube, gives a sense of how the evening runs.
Harford framed the anniversary around the people who have kept the show going rather than the numbers:
“Thirty years is an extraordinary milestone, and what makes me proudest is the company that has grown around the show. Over three decades, Faulty Towers The Dining Experience has created sustained work for generations of improvisers, comedians, actors and administrators in an industry where employment can often be short-term and insecure.
“People have built careers, bought homes, started families and travelled the world while being part of this company. None of this would have been possible without the extraordinary performers and teams in Australia and the UK who have given so much to the show over the years.
“To be celebrating 30 years worldwide, 15 years in the West End and our 4,000th West End performance all in the same year feels very special. What began as a small idea in Brisbane has grown into something none of us could have imagined – and, 43 countries later, we’re still going!”
The UK chapter began in 2008, with a first performance at the Hostess in Mansfield and a debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe later that year, where it became a fixture every summer. London followed in October 2009 with a sold-out weekend in Covent Garden, then two sold-out six-week summer seasons. The West End residency began with previews at the Charing Cross Hotel on 16 October 2012 and opened officially on 26 October; 1,397 performances there preceded a move to the Kingsway Hall Hotel.
The Covid shutdown cost it 359 performances, and it was back in London on 2 September 2021, among the earlier West End productions to reopen. In 2022, the year it marked 25 years worldwide and ten in London, it moved to its present home at the President Hotel in Bloomsbury. Along the way it welcomed its one millionth guest at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019, sold out a performance at the Royal Albert Hall and took a pop-up version of its restaurant on to the London Underground. Guests over the years have included Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Joe Cole, Dame Kelly Holmes and Judy Murray.
The Scottish tour makes four stops next spring:
- 14-18 April 2027: Palm Court Hotel, Aberdeen
- 20-22 April 2027: Forgan’s Broughty Ferry, Dundee
- 23-25 April 2027: The Corinthian Club, Glasgow
- 27 April - 2 May 2027: The Scotsman Hotel, Edinburgh
In Australia the show takes in the Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne and the Adelaide Fringe Festival among eleven engagements:
- 16 February 2027: The Terrace Hotel, Adelaide
- 19 February - 21 March 2027: Adelaide Fringe Festival
- 22-27 February 2027: Sydney Opera House
- 16-21 March 2027: Arts Centre Melbourne
- 1-2 April 2027: The Capital Banquet Room
- 3 April 2027: The Cube Wodonga
- 22-24 April 2027: Stamford Plaza Brisbane
- 4-9 May 2027: HOTA, Home of the Arts, Gold Coast
- 27-29 May 2027: Mercure Hotel Townsville
- 9-13 June 2027: His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth
- 12-14 August 2027: Oaks Darwin Elan Hotel
The show is an affectionate tribute to Fawlty Towers, using scripts and a dining format devised by Imagination Workshop Pty Limited, and it is not endorsed by John Cleese or Connie Booth. The same team is behind the comedy murder mystery Sheer Luck Holmes, whose UK tour we reported in August.
Every 2027 London performance is now booking for Faulty Towers The Dining Experience at the President Hotel, where the 4,000th show and the October anniversary will both be played.
