Do you think any modern sitcoms stand up against Fawlty Towers?
“My problem is that I don’t watch them any more. I don’t watch television. I am so guilty about not having read enough that I tend to read. Now and again I see something that I like. I watched three episodes of The Office and I thought it was terrific. I saw one Extras and it was excellent. I think there’s a huge amount of talent, but writers don’t work as hard as they used to. They lack experience. I do proudly say that in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s the UK had the least bad television in the world. I don’t think that’s true any more. The problem now is that it’s run on the basis of money and the audience is broken up into too many small chunks. It takes a lot of money to make good series and they just won’t pay for the writers.” Whose decision was it to end the show after two series? Were you never tempted to keep it going? “It was a totally joint decision with me and Connie. We both felt we’d done our best. We both knew that if we did any more it would not be as good. I made that mistak
“My problem is that I don’t watch them any more. I don’t watch television. I am so guilty about not having read enough that I tend to read. Now and again I see something that I like. I watched three episodes of The Office and I thought it was terrific. I saw one Extras and it was excellent. I think there’s a huge amount of talent, but writers don’t work as hard as they used to. They lack experience. I do proudly say that in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s the UK had the least bad television in the world. I don’t think that’s true any more. The problem now is that it’s run on the basis of money and the audience is broken up into too many small chunks. It takes a lot of money to make good series and they just won’t pay for the writers.”Whose decision was it to end the show after two series? Were you never tempted to keep it going?”It was a totally joint decision with me and Connie. We both felt we’d done our best. We both knew that if we did any more it would not be as good. I made that mistake
