Monty Python actor John Cleese slams what he calls the “Faulty Towers Rip-Off Dining Experience”.

Veteran actor and comedian John Cleese has taken to Twitter to slam The Faulty Towers Dining Experience, seen recently in Sydney, as a Fawlty Towers “Rip-Off”.

The Monty Python comedian wrote the original Fawlty Towers TV series with co-star Connie Booth in the 1970s and it is one of the best-loved British comedies of all time. Tweeting on Wednesday, Cleese wrote, “I’ve just found out from an Aussie journalist the astonishing financial success of the ‘Faulty Towers Rip-Off Dining Experience’. Had no idea”. He went on to tweet, “Seems they thought that by not asking, and by changing the ‘w’ to a ‘u’, they’d be in the clear! Hilarious”.

The Faulty Towers Dining Experience, which recently received five stars in a review by Limelight Magazine, is staged by Brisbane company Interactive Theatre International, founded by Alison Pollard-Mansergh, and the first Australian production was performed as long ago as 1997. It now plays in more than 20 countries and will be at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in April.

When one Twitter user described the show as “an excellent time”, Cleese clarified over a series of...