Cleese considered 'Fawlty Towers' film

Sipa Press / Rex Features

John Cleese has revealed the outline of a Fawlty Towers movie that he considered writing.

The co-writer of the 1970s BBC sitcom said that he "didn't put a single line down" for the film, but admitted that he was "amused" by the idea of a big screen outing for his lead character Basil Fawlty.

"I did speculate about doing a film...I thought what would be really funny would be if Basil and Sybil got on a plane to visit Manuel in Spain," Cleese told DS.

"The reason I wanted to do that was because I thought Basil would be terrific if a plane ever got hijacked. He would become so furious and he would probably overcome the hijack. And then of course they would bring the plane back to Heathrow, which would make him even more angry. So he would then hijack the plane himself, force the pilot to take him to Spain, where he would be arrested on arrival, and spend the rest of the holiday in a Spanish jail."

The Monty Python comic added: "It amused me for a while to play with that idea, but I don't think I ever mentioned it to Connie [Booth, co-writer]."

Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened and Fawlty Exclusive: Basil's Best Bits will air exclusively on G.O.L.D. at 9pm on May 10 and 17 respectively.

Click here to read our full interview with John Cleese