IT is one of television’s best-loved and most enduring shows and created side-splitting new takes on themes as varied as Waldorf salads, hotel inspectors, assaults upon defunct automobiles and herds of majestically sweeping wildebeest.

Now the UK’s first John Cleese endorsed Fawlty Towers production is heading for the Wyvern Theatre featuring Swindon actress Erin Leighton in the role of Polly.

The Official Fawlty Towers Dining Experience at the Wyvern’s Spotlight Room restaurant on Saturday has sold out, as have two further performances there in April.

But more are being added to cope with demand.

Former St Joseph’s School pupil and drama graduate Erin, 29, who has been touring with the show since its launch in November, said: “It’s been great. The audiences have been roaring with laughter.”

Set in the dining room at Basil and Sybil Fawlty’s infamous seaside hotel, the cast recreate some of the sit-com’s best known scenes of lunacy and farce while diners enjoy a three course ‘Gourmet Night’ meal.

There have been several eating-out experiences based on the show but this is the first in the UK that Cleese, who co-wrote the 12 episodes with former wife Connie Booth, has endorsed.

Hence, the Official Fawlty Dining Experience - directed by Olivier Award winner Ian Talbot OBE - is spelt with the show’s original “w.” The unofficial versions are Faulty Towers with a “u.”

Erin, who has appeared in numerous stage and film productions, first watched Fawlty Towers as a little girl.

“Even then I was wailing with laughter. The older I got, the more hilarious it became. I still find it hysterical today. It’s timeless comedy.”

Erin, who still lives in the town, won the role as Polly, the long suffering, ever patient chambermaid originally portrayed by Connie Booth, following an audition in London.

For the past four months she has appeared alongside seasoned professionals Jonathan Hansler (Basil), Jess-Luisa Flynn (Sybil) and David Boyle (Manuel) at theatres across the country.

“Polly is constantly trying to keep Basil calm and out of trouble while chaos ensues all around.

"I’m finding it ironic playing the only straight laced character in the cast, considering what a strange character I am in real life,” said Erin.

“The biggest challenge for me was to perfect Polly’s unique voice and accent.”

No two shows are the same as they involve improvisation and interaction with the audience amidst hoots of laughter.

“The scripts are so well known, the audience often joins in,” she added.

Erin appeared in the Advertiser in September as one of the cast of a locally-produced movie that won the best independent film award at the Global Film Festival Awards.

John Cleese got the idea for his famous sit-com based around a rude, irascible hotel manager while he was staying at the Gleneagles Hotel, Torquay on location with Monty Python in 1970.

He was astonished at the unreasonable, verging-on-crazed behaviour of Donald Sinclair, who died at 72 in 1981.

Written with Connie the first six episodes were broadcast by BBC2 in 1975.

A further six, written by the couple after their divorce, were screened by the Beeb in 1979.

Cleese played the irate, put upon Basil Fawlty, Prunella Scales his bossy wife Sybil, Booth the peace-making voice of reason Polly and Andrew Sachs the bumbling Spanish waiter Manuel.

The show topped a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000.

It is planned for the Official Fawlty Dining Experience to appear at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and have a permanent West End residency.

More information and performance dates at the Wyvern, including possible further Swindon shows, can be found at fawltytowersdining.co.uk