Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers
Series title card. The "Fawlty Towers" sign changed every episode.
Created by	John Cleese Connie Booth
Starring	John Cleese Prunella Scales Andrew Sachs Connie Booth
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	12 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Original release
Network	BBC
Release	19 September 1975 – 25 October 1979
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Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Only twelve episodes were ever produced, but the series has had a lasting and powerful influence on later shows.

The show is set in a fictional hotel Fawlty Towers in the Devon town of Torquay on the "English Riviera". The series was written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, both of whom played main characters, and was broadcast in two series: the first, in 1975, was produced and directed by John Howard Davies, and the second, in 1979, was produced by Douglas Argent and directed by Bob Spiers.

In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, Fawlty Towers was placed first. It was also voted fifth in the BBC's "Britain's Best Sitcom" poll in 2004.

Origins

Fawlty Towers was inspired by the Monty Python team's stay in the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay in May 1970. Cleese and Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming for the Python show had finished. The owner, Donald Sinclair, was very rude, throwing a bus timetable at a guest who asked when the next bus to town would arrive, and placing Eric Idle's suitcase behind a wall in the garden on the suspicion that it contained a bomb (it actually contained a ticking alarm clock). He also criticised the American-born Terry Gilliam's table manners for being too American (he had the fork in "the wrong hand" while eating), possibly inspiring Basil's treatment of an American visitor in the episode "Waldorf Salad".

John Cleese was a writer on the 1970s British TV Sitcom series Doctor in the House and Doctor at Large for London Weekend Television. The character was developed in an episode of Doctor at Large entitled "No Ill Feeling" about an aggressive and incompetent manager of a small town hotel. The show was broadcast on 30 May 1971.

Until the 1970s, the proprietors of English seaside boarding houses had a reputation for firmness and intransigence. Cleese had also parodied the contrast between organisational dogma and sensitive customer service in many personnel training videotapes issued with a serious purpose by his company, Video Arts.

Bill Cotton, the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment in the mid-1970s, said after the first series was produced that the show was a prime example of the BBC's relaxed attitude to trying new entertainment formats and encouraging new ideas. He said that when he read the first scripts he could see nothing funny in them, but trusting that Cleese knew what he was doing, he gave the go-ahead. He said that the commercial channels, with their emphasis on audience ratings, would never have let the show get to the production stage on the basis of the scripts.

The writers, Cleese and Booth, were married at the time of the first series (1975). By the second series (1979), Cleese and Booth had divorced after ten years (1968–78).

Plot directions and examples

The episodes typically revolve around Basil Fawlty's efforts to succeed and his frustration at mistakes, both his own and those of others, which prevent him from doing so. Much of the humour comes from Basil's insulting and sometimes aggressive manner, engaging in angry but witty arguments with guests, staff and in particular his frightful wife, whom he addresses with insults such as "that golfing puff adder", "my little piranha fish", and "my little nest of vipers". Despite this, he frequently feels intimidated as she is able to insult him with equal venom. At the end of some episodes, Basil succeeds in annoying the guests and sometimes gets this thrown back in his face.

The plots are intricate and farcical, involving coincidences, misunderstandings, cross-purposes, missed meetings, and accidental meetings. The sex of the bedroom farce is sometimes present, often to the disgust of conservative Basil, but it is Basil Fawlty's eccentricity, not his lust, that drives the plots.

The guests at the hotel are typically comic foils to Basil's anger and outbursts, with requests both reasonable and impossible testing Basil's temper. The show also uses mild black humour at times, notably when Basil is forced to hide a dead body, and some of the comments made by Basil both about Sybil ("Did you ever see that film, How to Murder Your Wife? ... Awfully good; I saw it six times") and about the guests ("May I suggest that you consider moving to a hotel closer to the sea? Or preferably in it.") border on the psychopathic.

Basil behaves violently towards Manuel (an emotional and largely inept Spanish waiter who cannot understand English) for innocent mistakes, exacting on some occasions physical violence, including beating Manuel with a frying pan and hitting him over the head, despite Manuel's piteous pleading. The violence directed at Manuel has been one of the few reasons for negative criticisms levelled at Fawlty Towers over the years. In this, and in other exaggerated physical mannerisms of Basil, Fawlty Towers employs physical comedy.

Basil displays blatant snobbishness, expressing disdain for the "riff-raff" that he believes currently stay at the hotel, in order to climb the social ladder. His desperation is apparent, as he makes increasingly hopeless manoeuvres and painful faux pas in trying to gain favour with the wealthy, yet finds himself forced to serve and help people he sees as beneath him. As such, Basil's efforts tend to be counter-productive, with guests leaving the hotel in disgust and his marriage stretching further and further towards breaking point.

Characters

Basil Fawlty

Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, is a snobbish, miserly, xenophobic and sexually repressed paranoiac who is desperate to belong to a higher social class. He sees the successful running of the hotel as a means of achieving this ("turn it into an establishment of class..."), yet his job forces him to be pleasant to people he despises or aspires to be above socially.

While he is terrified of his wife's sharp tongue, he wishes to stand up to her, and his plans often conflict with her wishes. She is often verbally abusive towards him (describing him as "an aging, brilliantined stick insect") and though he is larger physically than Sybil, he often finds himself on the receiving end of Sybil's temper, expressed verbally or physically. Basil usually turns to Manuel or Polly to help him with whatever scheme he has planned, while trying his best to prevent Sybil from finding out. However, Basil does show genuine concern for Sybil, asking her often in "The Germans" if she is going to be alright from an operation and laments about the times when there was passion in their relationship.

Basil served in the Catering Corps of the British Army, possibly as part of his National Service, but makes it seem as if he was a soldier. He claims: "I fought in the Korean War, you know; I killed four men." To which his wife jokingly replies to the threat: "He was in the Catering Corps; he used to poison them." He is often seen wearing a military tie and a military-type moustache. He also claims to have sustained an injury to his leg in the Korean War caused by shrapnel, although this tends to flare up at surprisingly convenient times.

Cleese himself described Basil as thinking that "he could run a first-rate hotel if he didn't have all the guests getting in the way".

Sybil Fawlty

Sybil Fawlty, played by Prunella Scales, is Basil's wife. She is often seen to be a more effective manager of the hotel, making sure Basil either gets certain jobs done or stays out of the way when she is handling difficult customers. Despite this, she rarely participates directly in the running of the hotel; during busy check-in sessions or meal-times, while everyone else is busy working, she is frequently talking on the phone to one of her friends (usually Audrey, who makes her sole on-camera appearance in "The Anniversary") with her memorable "Oohhh I knoooooooow," or chatting to customers. She has a distinctive conversational tone and braying laugh, which her husband compares to "someone machine-gunning a seal". Being his wife, she is the only one who refers to him by his first name, although Basil also refers to her by a number of epithets, occasionally to her face: these include "the dragon", "toxic midget", "my little nest of vipers", "my little piranha fish", "the saber-toothed tart", "my little kommandant", "that golfing puff adder!", and "a rancorous, coiffured old sow". Despite these less than complimentary nicknames, Basil is terrified of her.

Polly Sherman

Polly Sherman, played by Connie Booth, is employed as a waitress, although she is often stuck doing many other jobs in the hotel. She often stands as the voice of sanity during chaotic moments in the hotel, but is frequently embroiled in ridiculous masquerades as she loyally attempts to aid Basil in trying to cover a mistake he's made, or to keep something from Sybil.

Polly is apparently employed part-time (during meal times), and is apparently an art student. Despite her part-time employment, as the most competent of the hotel staff she is frequently saddled with many other duties. In one episode, she is seen to draw a sketch (presumably an impressionistic caricature) of Basil, which everyone but Basil immediately recognises. Polly is also a student of languages, displaying ability with both Spanish and German; a comment by Basil in one episode alludes to Polly's affinity for learning more languages. Like Manuel, she has a room of her own at the hotel.

Manuel

Manuel, a waiter played by Andrew Sachs, is a well-meaning but disorganised and constantly confused Spaniard from Barcelona with a poor grasp of the English language and customs. He is constantly verbally and physically abused by his boss. When told by either Basil, Sybil, or Polly what to do, he answers, "¿Qué?", which means "What?", and "Sí", which means "Yes". Manuel's character was used to demonstrate Basil's instinctive lack of sensitivity and intolerance. Every episode would involve Basil becoming enraged by Manuel's confusion at his boss's bizarre and complicated demands. He is afraid of Mr. Fawlty's quick temper and violent assaults, yet often expresses his appreciation for being given the position.

During the making of the series, Sachs twice suffered serious injury while playing Manuel. Once Cleese used a real metal pan (accidentally), rather than a fake rubber one, to knock him unconscious in "The Wedding Party". Later, when his clothes were treated in order to make them give off smoke after he had been let out of the burning kitchen in "The Germans", the corrosive chemicals used went through them and gave Sachs severe burns.

Sachs' Spanish accent when in character is an integral part of the show. Sachs' native language is actually German. When the series was dubbed for broadcast in Germany, he voiced the German translation of Manuel, with a Spanish accent.

The character's nationality was switched to Mexican for the Spanish dub of the show broadcast to most of Spain, while in the Basque region he is an Italian called Manolo.

Other regular characters

Terry the Chef, played by Brian Hall, is the chef at Fawlty Towers. Terry's cooking style is quite relaxed, and Basil occasionally gets frustrated with his "It's all right" attitude. Terry appears in only the second series of episodes. During the first series there was no regular chef character seen in the show. The only first series chef was "new" chef Kurt, only seen in "Gourmet Night", who quickly proved himself incapable of holding the job due to a fondness for large volumes of wine, and a baffling passion for Manuel. Terry used to work in Dorchester (not at The Dorchester).

Major Gowen, played by Ballard Berkeley, is a slightly senile old soldier who holds a permanent residence in the hotel, but is one of the few that Basil likes. He is often introduced as their "oldest resident". He enjoys talking about the world outside (especially the cricket scores and bemoaning workers' strikes) and is always on the lookout for the newspaper. He seems to have trouble forgiving the Germans due to the World Wars. He has outdated mannerisms towards race, calling black people golliwogs in an innocent manner. Major Gowen, despite his good intentions, can cause Basil's devious plans to go catastrophically awry, notably in "Communication Problems" when Basil tried his best to keep his secret (albeit successful) betting from Sybil .

Miss Tibbs & Miss Gatsby, played by Gilly Flower and Renee Roberts respectively, are the other two (often inseparable) permanent residents, who are slightly scatty spinsters. They seem to take a fancy to Basil, and feel as though they need to take care of him, although he switches from being overly kind to utterly rude during various talks with the two.

Audrey, a mostly unseen character, had one onscreen appearance in "The Anniversary". Audrey is Sybil's lifelong best friend, and mostly appears in the form of gossiping, trivial telephone calls to Sybil. Audrey is used as a source of refuge for Sybil from the hotel and from Basil's ludicrous situations. When times get tough for Audrey (she has a dysfunctional relationship with her husband George), Sybil will offer solutions and guidance, often resulting in the infamous catchphrase Ooh, I know... when Mrs. Fawlty tries to understand her problems.

The paperboy, though not seen often, is responsible for changing the "Fawlty Towers" sign to read various (sometimes crude) phrases, such as "Fatty Owls", "Flay Otters", "Farty Towels", "Watery Fowls", and "Flowery Twats". (The last of those is the only anagram shown that uses all the letters.) The shot of the sign with the hotel appears at the beginning of every episode but one, "The Germans", when a shot of a hospital is used, as Sybil is having an operation on her ingrown toenail.

Episode guide

Main article: List of Fawlty Towers episodes

Fawlty Towers was first broadcast on BBC2 from 19 September 1975 to 25 October 1979. The first series was directed by John Howard Davies, the second by Bob Spiers.

Production of the last two episodes was disrupted by a strike of BBC technical staff, which resulted in the recasting of the actor who had originally been cast as Reg in "The Anniversary", and delayed the episode's transmission date by one week. The episode "Basil the Rat" was also delayed, and was not screened until the end of a repeat showing six months later, due to the tape going missing.

Not the Nine O'Clock News was originally scheduled to debut after an episode of Fawlty Towers and Cleese was to have introduced Not the Nine O'Clock News in a sketch referring to the technicians' strike, explaining (in character as Basil Fawlty) that there was no show ready that week, so a "tatty revue" would be broadcast instead. However, the 1979 general election intervened, and Not the Nine O'Clock News was pulled as being too political. Later that year, Cleese's sketch was broadcast, but its original significance was lost.

When originally transmitted, the individual episodes had no on-screen titles. The ones in common currency were first used for the VHS release of the series in the 1980s. There were working titles, such as "USA" for "Waldorf Salad", "Death" for "The Kipper and the Corpse", and "Rat" for "Basil the Rat", which have been printed in some programme guides. In addition, some of the early BBC audio releases of episodes on vinyl and cassette included other variations, such as "Mrs Richards" and "The Rat" for "Communication Problems" and "Basil the Rat" respectively.

It has long been rumoured that a thirteenth episode of the series was written and filmed, but never progressed further than a rough cut . Though Lars Holger Holm, author of the book Fawlty Towers: A Worshipper's Companion, has made detailed claims about the episode's content, little further evidence has been unearthed to prove its existence. Lars dedicates a chapter to the story of his opportunity to watch a finished thirteenth episode called "The Robbers".

According to Lars, a former BBC employee allowed Lars to view the complete episode at his flat one night in London. After viewing the 45 minute episode, Lars ran the entire script through the copy facility on a fax machine. He reproduces the script in his book. The episode was supposedly scheduled for broadcast on 9 January 1980, but never aired. Neither BBC officials nor John Cleese have ever confirmed or denied the existence of this episode.

Some people dismiss this as deliberate fiction on Holm's part, pointing to his work as a fiction writer, his penchant for making deliberately absurd comments [1], and the far-fetched scenario which supposedly allowed him to photocopy the script. However, in Michael Palin's published diaries of the period he states that the second series of Fawlty Towers was to be seven episodes and that the final episode was cancelled due to an industrial dispute, which lends credence to Holm's claim.

Awards

Three BAFTAs were awarded to people for their involvement with the series. Each of the two series were awarded the BAFTA in the category for "Best Situation Comedy", the first won by John Howard Davies in 1976, and the second by Douglas Argent and Bob Spiers in 1980. John Cleese won the BAFTA for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" in 1976.

More recently, in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, Fawlty Towers was placed first. It was also voted fifth in the BBC's "Britain's Best Sitcom" poll in 2004 and second only to Frasier in The Ultimate Sitcom poll of comedy writers in January 2006. Basil Fawlty came top of the Britain's Funniest Comedy Character poll, held by Five on 14 May 2006.

Remakes and inspiration

Three attempted remakes of Fawlty Towers were started for the American market, with two making it into production. The first, Chateau Snavely, was produced by ABC for a pilot in 1978, but the transfer from coastal hotel to highway motel proved too much and the series was never produced. The second, also by ABC, was Amanda's, notable for switching the genders of Basil and Sybil. It also failed to pick up a major audience and was dropped. A third remake called Payne (produced by and starring John Larroquette) was also produced, but was cancelled shortly after. There also was a German sitcom based on Fawlty Towers and Guest House on Pakistan's PTV, also resembling the series.

The popular sitcoms 3rd Rock From The Sun and Cheers (both of which Cleese has appeared in) have cited Fawlty Towers as an inspiration, especially regarding its depiction of a dysfunctional "family" in the workplace, and Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan have cited Fawlty Towers as a major influence on their sitcom Father Ted.

Several of the characters have made other appearances, as spin-offs or in small cameo roles. In 1981, in character as Manuel, Andrew Sachs recorded a comic version of the Joe Dolce song "Shaddap You Face" (with an equally amusing B-side "Waiter There's a Flea in My Soup"). However, the record was not released because Joe Dolce took out an injunction to halt its release as he was about to issue his version in Britain. Gilly Flower and Renee Roberts, who played Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby in the series, reprised the roles in a 1983 episode of Only Fools and Horses. In 2006, Cleese played Basil Fawlty for the first time in 27 years, for the FIFA World Cup in Germany song "Don't Mention the War", named after the phrase Basil used in "The Germans". In 2007, Cleese and Sachs reprised their roles for a six-episode corporate video for Norwegian oil company Statoil. In the video, Fawlty is running a restaurant called "Basil's Brasserie", while Manuel owns a Michelin Star restaurant in London.

In November 2007, Scales returned to the role of Sybil Fawlty in a series of sketches for the BBC's annual Children in Need charity telethon. The character was seen taking over the management of the eponymous hotel from the BBC drama series Hotel Babylon, interacting with characters from that programme as well as other sitcom characters. The character of Sybil was used by permission of John Cleese.

A Lonely Planet Tourist Guide of London summarised its critique of the bad state of London hotels by stating that "Fawlty Towers was really a documentary".

Filming locations

Although the series is set in Torquay, none of it was shot there. For the exterior filming, instead of an actual hotel, the Wooburn Grange Country Club in Buckinghamshire was used. It later served as a nightclub named "Basil's" for a short time after the series ended until it was destroyed by fire in March 1991. The remnants of the building were demolished and the site was bought by developers. Other location filming was done mostly around the Harrow area of north London: In the episode "The Germans", the opening shot is of Northwick Park Hospital. In the episode "Gourmet Night", the exterior of Andre's restaurant was filmed on Preston Road in the Harrow area. The launderette next door to the restaurant still exists today and Andre's is now a Chinese restaurant called "Wings". The famous sequence where Basil beats his car with a branch after it stalls was filmed on the corner of Mentmore Close and Lapstone Gardens in Kenton, just east of Harrow.

Potential film adaptation

With only 12 episodes made of Fawlty Towers, the BBC was keen to prolong the show. But both Cleese and Booth had felt that series two had been far better than series one and trying to make a third that would be even better was near impossible. However, according to John Cleese in the extras section of the Fawlty Towers three-disc DVD set, and in the book Fawlty Towers Fully Booked, a plot had been developed for a 90-minute feature-length film in which the hotel would be removed and the characters used in a broader, more ambitious landscape. Cleese says:

We had an idea for a plot which I loved. Basil was finally invited to Spain to meet Manuel's family. He gets to Heathrow and then spends about 14 frustrating hours waiting for the flight. Finally, on the plane, a terrorist pulls a gun and tries to hijack the thing. Basil is so angry he overcomes the terrorist and when the pilot says, "We have to fly back to Heathrow", Basil says, "No, fly us to Spain or I'll shoot you". He arrives in Spain, immediately arrested and spends the entire holiday in a Spanish jail. He is released just in time to go back on the plane with Sybil. It was very funny, but I couldn't do it at the time. Making Fawlty Towers work at 90 minutes was a very difficult proposition. You can build up the comedy for 30 minutes, but at that length there has to be a trough and another peak. It doesn't interest me. I don't want to do it.

DVD Release

Fawlty Towers - The complete series was released on DVD on 16 October, 2001, available in regions 1, 2 and 4. A "Collectors Edition" is available in region 2.

Further reading

• Fawlty Towers: A Worshipper's Companion, Leo Publishing, ISBN 91-973661-8-8
• The Complete Fawlty Towers by John Cleese & Connie Booth (1988, Methuen, London) ISBN 0-413-18390-4 (the complete text)

External links

• Fawlty Towers at the bbc.co.uk Guide to Comedy
• Fawlty Towers at the British Film Institute
• Fawlty Towers at the BFI's Screenonline
• Fawlty Towers at the MBC's Encyclopedia of Television
• Fawlty Towers at IMDb