Prunella Scales’ son issues emotional update as 92-year-old Fawlty Towers legend battles dementia
ACTRESS Prunella Scales is said to have a positive outlook as she continues her battle with dementia.
The Fawlty Towers TV icon was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2014 but continues to work and travel around the world according to son Samuel who stars in All Creatures Great and Small.
Speaking on Lorraine, son Samuel shared a positive update as he explained her new “philosophy” after a recent cruise trip.
He told viewers: “They’re fine, they’re fine. My mother went on a cruise the other day, I’m not sure if she knew where she was but she enjoyed getting there.
“She said, ‘I don’t always know where I’m going but I enjoy getting there’ and I thought if that is her philosophy, that might have to be mine as well.”
Speaking to The Times, Prunella explained: “As one gets older, one’s memory and living from minute to minute changes, doesn’t it? You get less efficient.
“My memory is less good. I mean, I do forget things and that’s age, the same as everybody else.”
Despite being 92 and battling dementia, she’s continued to work in theatre and TV.
She’s just finished recording new voiceovers for a production at the Tabard Studio Theatre in West London.
Yet her most most famous role as Sybil Fawlty in the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers.
With Fawlty Towers set for a reboot, with comic actor John Cleese reprising the hotel based series alongside his daughter Camilla.
The series will see a manic Basil Fawlty, grappling with the modern world as he returns to running a boutique hotel.
However Prunella won’t feature in the reboot as John previously revealed that he planned to set the classic sitcom revival with the death of Sybil Fawlty, the wife of his eccentric alter-ego Basil.
Basil will then move to the Caribbean to be with his illegitimate daughter who is running her own hotel, and John really put the emphasis on the ‘illegitimate part’.
Cleese has previously discussed the reprisal after it was revealed that the classic sitcom is to get a new reboot series, 44 years after it ended.
83-year-old Cleese, will write it again and play Basil Fawlty, like he did with the original two series and he promised the script is “excellent”.