John Cleese is developing a Fawlty Towers sequel.

American production company Castle Rock Entertainment, run by actor Rob Reiner, is backing the project.

Cleese is writing and will star in the comedy with his daughter and fellow comic, Camilla Cleese.

US trade publications report: "The new series will explore how Cleese's over-the-top, cynical and misanthropic Basil Fawlty navigates the modern world. Plot details are largely being kept under wraps but the development will bring the story forward to explore Basil's relationship with a daughter he has just discovered he had, as the pair tempt fate and team up to run a boutique hotel."

Rob Reiner, Michele Reiner, Derrick Rossi and Matthew George are executive producing the project.

Director Matthew George says: "Meeting John and Camilla was one of the great thrills of my life. I'm obsessed with Fawlty Towers and the legendary characters he created. I've watched the first two seasons so many times I have lost count. I dreamed of one day being involved in a continuation of the story. Now it's come true."

Cleese, talking about George, added: "What I like about Matt is that, unlike many producers, he really 'gets' the creative process. When we first met, he offered an excellent first idea, and then Matt, my daughter Camilla, and I had one of the best creative sessions I can remember. By dessert we had an overall concept so good that, a few days later, it won the approval of Rob and Michele Reiner. Camilla and I look forward enormously to expanding it into a series."

Fawlty Towers regularly nears the top of charts of British television's favourite sitcoms. It ran for two series on BBC Two from 1975, across just twelve episodes.

The programmes were written by Cleese with his then-wife and co-star, Connie Booth, who now works as a psychotherapist. Camilla is Cleese's second child, through his second marriage, to Barbara Trentham.

A potential home for the new programme has yet to be revealed, but the original's legacy and Cleese's star status mean that if developed to the point of production, it is likely to provoke a bidding war that only major US-owned streaming platforms can afford to triumph in.

10th February update

Speaking to GB News last night, Cleese revealed that the new series will see Basil running a bijou hotel in the Caribbean, and that it will not air on the BBC "because you wouldn't get the [necessary creative] freedom".

He told presenter Dan Wootton: "Yes, it is [true that it's coming back], but in a very, very different form. People have often said 'well, why don't you do another Fawlty Towers and I've said, 'because people will say "oh it's quite good but it wasn't as good as [the original]"'.

"Then my daughter knew a guy ... and we had dinner and we suddenly realised, if we do a sequel, first of all it's interesting, and secondly it does not rely upon [the rest of the characters] ... all these wonderful English character actors who aren't with us anymore. If the only continuing character is Basil, my daughter and I - we've been writing together for sixteen years, which people don't know - we thought we could come up with something quite surprising.

"We thought 'but where?', and we thought no, not in a small English town: much more fun and much more different if it's, say, a Caribbean island or somewhere like that, with a small bijou hotel, but with a few very rich people coming to stay and demanding [service].

"If you put it in the Caribbean it becomes very, very multi-racial. People in the hotel business, they're just from everywhere. ... Austria, Kenya, Nepal - so you can bring lots of different people together."

Responding to commentary in publications on the news of the sequel, he added: "Do you really know what it's going to be like? The idea that it's all going to be about wokery hadn't particularly occurred to me. ... They are assuming, with no evidence at all, that they know what the show is going to be like, and condemning it for that - and that is neither criticism nor journalism."

In a wide-ranging interview, he also spoke about his forthcoming work with the news and topical discussion broadcaster, as well as editorial interference in television programming and how the opposite culture at the BBC of the 1960s allowed the creation of Monty Python's Flying Circus.