Romcom filming in Bath this summer

John Cleese is set to star in a new film alongside his daughter Camilla and screen legend Sylvia Syms.

Camilla Cleese plays the female lead in One Night in Bath.

The Fawlty Towers legend reportedly asked producers for a role alongside Camilla and plays an aggressive businessman in the film, which co-stars stand-ups Russell Kane, Henning Wehn, TanyaLee Davis and Becky Brunning, with cameos from Tom Ward and Geoff Whiting.

Described as 'a big, expansive, feel-good romp, with a thoroughly modern twist', the plot of One Night In Bath has the main character Al meticulously planning and executing a grandiose marriage proposal to his girlfriend Lauren.

But instead of sweeping his prospective fiancé off her feet, he inadvertently engineers the worst day of her life, causing her emotional and physical trauma, public humiliation and an aeronautical near-death experience.

Russell Howard had been rumoured to be playing the male lead, but the reports have been denied by his agent. Geoff Whiting, the Bath-based booker for Mirth Control's nationwide gigs, who is acting as One Night in Bath's casting director, said he has been sounded out for the role.' 'He's been approached to be in it,' Whiting told Chortle. 'It is under consideration, he's just seen the script.'

Howard 'is keen to be involved,' co-writer and producer Chris Harris added, although he stressed that the comedian hadn't made any formal commitment.

One Night in Bath is currently scheduled to shoot in late August.

'The film is a typical boy-meets girl situation' Harris's co-writer and executive producer Jonathan Willis told the Bath Chronicle. 'The boy brings the girl to Bath. He wants to show her around and do all the wonderful things there is to do in Bath but it all goes horribly wrong.

'We’ve got a great cast.  Camilla Cleese is the female lead. We wanted someone quirky and we’d watched her doing stand-up and thought she’d be absolutely perfect.

'After casting Camilla, I got this phone call. I heard a voice say "It's John Cleese here! Is there a part for me in your film?" So we’ve got him playing an aggressive and nasty businessman. It is the first time John and his daughter have acted together, so it could be comedy gold.'

Willis co-writes and produces with Chris Harris. The director is Martin Owen, who previously helmed the horror Abducted, featuring comedian Andy Dick as a serial killer of reality stars.

Currently starring in the BBC sitcom Hold The Sunset, Cleese and his daughter have previously worked together on a so-far-unstaged musical version of A Fish Called Wanda.

Last year, Camilla was also part of a troupe that revived classic At Last The 1948 Show sketches by her father, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor in Chicago. She made her Edinburgh Fringe stand-up debut in 2014 in American...ish, with Cort McCowan and Sarah Tiana.

Syms made her name in films like the classic 1958 wartime drama Ice Cold In Alex, before moving into comedy, starring with Tony Hancock in The Punch and Judy Man and Sid James in The Big Job.

In 1972 she switched to sitcom with ITV's My Good Woman, in which she played a committed charity worker, alongside Leslie Crowther as her besotted husband, before returning to the channel with the comedy At Home with the Braithwaites in the noughties. More recently she has appeared in Rev and the Mighty Boosh clique film Bunny and The Bull.

Wehn will be playing a hot air balloon pilot in One Night In Bath, despite his fear of heights. 'Luckily we can shoot his scenes on the ground' Willis told the Chronicle.

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 28 Feb 2018