I ONCE met a real life Basil Fawlty.

He ran a caf and I'd gone in there for lunch with my son and his grandparents.

This chap, although he was older than John Cleese when he played the manic, hen pecked hotelier, displayed many of the mannerisms that drove Fawlty's "guests" up the wall and had the TV viewers in hysterics.

He was abrupt, he stuck to the caf menu like it had been handed down to him by Moses himself and he buzzed about the place like somebody had strapped an invisible outboard motor to his back.

But there's only one Basil Fawlty and Altrincham Garrick is about to bring the host from hell to the stage in the north west premiere of Fawlty Towers. Or rather, Peter Birch is. Is it daunting, playing a role that is so closely associated with a comedy colossus like John Cleese?

"I quite like a challenge and taking on this role that everyone immediately associates with him and nobody else, is an extra challenge. I suppose I should be over awed by it but perhaps, foolishly, I'm not. The guidance we've had from Angie, the director, is to get as close as we can to what people see on television. At the end of the day I'm trying to do enough for people to say, oh, he's doing a good impression of John Cleese," says Peter, who also wants to bring some of his own interpretation to the iconic comedy role.

Written by Cleese and his former wife Connie Booth, Fawlty Towers, which was shown on the BBC in the 1970s, was inspired by a real life oddball who ran a hotel the Monty Python team stayed in. Fellow Python Graham Chapman, later writing in his autobiography, described this chap, called Donald Sinclair, as "off his chump." The show ran for 12 episodes and the stage production will feature three of them - The Kipper and the Corpse, The Germans and Communication Problems. What feels like a million repeats later, the show's popularity remains undiminished. Why?

"Part of it is they only did two series, so it left people wanting more. Some of it is the Monty Python hangover and it was one of those programmes the whole family used to watch. You got the odd bloody' but compared to these days, the language is quite tame," he says.

n Altrincham Garrick presents Fawlty Towers by John Cleese and Connie Booth from December 4-9 at 7.30pm. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677, or Altrincham Tourist Information Centre, Stamford New Road, Altrincham. A two ticket for the price of one policy operates on opening night.