I had the pleasure of going along to G.O.L.D.’s Fawlty Towers: Re-opened launch this morning. The show, on this Sunday (10 May, 9pm), celebrates the legendary sitcom’s 30th birthday by gathering together cast and crew (including, for the first time in 30 years, Connie Booth) to relive their memories and trace the history of the show. Should be good. At today’s launch there was all cast members, and I got to sit in on some of the round table interviews afterwards with Andrew Sachs, Prunella Scales and John Cleese. I’ll stick up Prunella’s interview tomorrow and John’s on Friday, but today here’s Andrew Sachs, talking about the role that made him a star and loved by millions.

TV Scoop: How are you Andrew?
Andrew Sachs: How am I? I’m fit. And upright. Vertical. At my age it’s uncanny. I get a bit worried actually because I still go up the stair two steps at a time. But I’m busier than ever.

TVS: Is it nice to be reunited?
AS: It’s lovely, it really is. This hasn’t happened before to this extent. As John said we meet occasionally and I’ve known Pru and, in particular, her husband Timothy West on and off since 1961. We were on tour together so I know that side of them. Connie I don’t see so much of, but I bump into her in the street sometimes because she still lives in Hampstead. I think she has left showbusiness altogether, which is wise! John I see occasionally when he comes back over, and we meet up. It’s a nice team. I think that was a part of the show’s success – we were a good team. There were no egos that I noticed, and everyone listened to everyone else.

TVS: Was that the overriding dynamic of the team? That everyone got on so well?
AS: Yes, we really did get along very well. I don’t think a harsh word was said at all between us. I really can’t remember any anguish while doing the show. I get a bit deaf about that, and it’s very difficult to get me impatient. I was enjoying myself too much.

TVS: So your memories of doing the show are entirely positive?
AS: I really did enjoy it. My only little niggle I suppose was that my part wasn’t big enough. It really was quite a small part. If you add up all the minutes that I was actually onscreen they don’t amount to much, apart from the last episode we did – about the rat, sorry, hamster. So I could have done with a bit more work. I was sitting around in rehearsals watching the others and hopefully learning a bit. Previous to Fawlty Towers, I had had 25 years in the business, on stage. If I have any talent for comedy timing and so on it’s because on stage… I appeared with Brian Rix in the Whitehall farces… and when you have the audience in front of you and you get it wrong on the first night you’ve got time to ask yourself why it didn’t get the laugh you expected. You can make tiny little adjustments. In my case it takes me about eight weeks, while doing a show, to get the best out of the material and a gag. When you’re armed with that technique that you’ve learned over the years, and then you do something like Fawlty Towers and only have one go at the audience… regularly I’d come off and think that I wanted to do it again but didn’t have the time. It’s the lack of time. After all the audience plays a huge role in a comedy show. We had a live audience, so it was difficult to get the right effect so quickly.

TVS: Do not like watching it back then?
AS: I’ve got enough ego and vanity to want to watch it occasionally. But I haven’t seen it for a while, so not really. I can’t remember when I watched it last. If there’s a clip that comes up for some reason, or some reference to Fawlty Towers on television, I have a nice smile and so does my wife. I view it with great affection and it was a great opportunity.

TVS: There’s a huge turn-out today, how do you feel about the interest?
AS: It’s unbelievable… overwhelming. I’m so happy to be a part of it, if only a small part. It’s only three months out of my 60 year working life. I’ll tell you a little story, if I may. I was on a cruise, three or four years ago. It was a theme cruise, and there was a team of us describing our various skills – choreographer, producer, casting director… My brief was to talk about drama and all aspects of drama. I was asked to talk about Fawlty Towers, and I initially thought why they would want me to talk about Fawlty Towers in a drama demonstration. But when you think about it, it is a drama. It’s a tragedy, because the situations in it are so human and recognisable. Real stuff. Drama, I suppose, is… if you slip on a banana skin it’s tragedy, but if you’re watching someone slip over on a banana skin it’s comedy. One of passengers, a cockney, said to me, “what I can’t understand mate, is that you were talking about going around the world, doing all these plays and things… I don’t know how you do it. You’ve been doing it for years and I don’t know how you keep doing that and still have time to do your regular job as a waiter!”

TVS: Do you think Fawlty Towers could be made today, given the politically-correct society we live in?
AS: People kill each other on stage and in television these days. It’s much more violent now. We know it isn’t real, so it’s perfectly alright. I hope it would be made. I come from Germany, and my first language is German, and they got me over there to re-dub the first series. I worked with all German actors and they were brilliant. They bought all six episodes from the first series, except for one. Guess which one? They couldn’t take that, but I think they have shown it since.

TVS: In today’s society, at what point do you think humour crosses the line?
AS: I think the profession is partly to blame for doing things that are clearly wrong. Smutty words, personal jokes about somebody’s disability… I hope will always remain out of bounds.