Description

Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom produced by BBC Television and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Twelve episodes were produced (two series with six episodes each)./nThe setting is the fictional hotel Fawlty Towers in the seaside town of Torquay on the "English Riviera" (where the Gleneagles hotel that inspired John Cleese was situated). The show was written by Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth, both of whom played main characters. The first series in 1975 was produced and directed by John Howard Davies; the second in 1979 was produced by Douglas Argent and directed by Bob Spiers./nIn a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted by industry professionals, Fawlty Towers placed first. It was also voted fifth in the BBC's "Britain's Best Sitcom" poll in 2004./nIn May 1970 the Monty Python team booked a stay in the Gleneagles Hotel (a reference was made to the Gleneagles in "The Builders" episode) in Torquay whilst filming on location. John Cleese became fascinated with the behaviour of the owner Donald Sinclair whom Cleese later described as 'the most marvellously rude man I've ever met'. This behaviour included Sinclair throwing a 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 US-born Terry Gilliam's table manners for not being 'British' (switching hands with his fork whilst eating). Cleese and Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming, furthering their research of the hotel owner./nAt the time, Cleese was a writer on the 1970s British TV sitcom Doctor in the House for London Weekend Television. An early prototype of the character that would become known as Basil Fawlty was developed in an episode ("No Ill Feeling") of the third Doctor series (titled Doctor at Large). In this edition, the main character checks into a small town hotel, his very presence seemingly winding up the aggressive and incompetent manager (played by Timothy Bateson) with a domineering wife. The show was broadcast on 30 May 1971. Cleese 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./nBill 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 (having come into this fresh from helping rip up the TV comedy form book with his fellow Pythons), 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./nAlthough the series is set in Torquay in Devon, none of it was shot in south west England. For the exterior filming, instead of a 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, before being destroyed by a 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 Harrow, Middlesex. 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"./nCleese and Booth were married to each other at the time of the first series. By the second, they had been divorced for almost a year, after ten years of union (1968–78)./nBoth Cleese and Booth were so keen on every script being perfect, some episodes took four months and ten drafts to write until they were satisfied./nThe series focuses on the exploits and misadventures of short-fused hotelier Basil Fawlty, his wife Sybil and their employees, porter and waiter Manuel, maid Polly, and (in the second series) chef Terry. The episodes typically revolve around Basil's efforts to succeed in 'raising the tone' of his hotel and his increasing frustration at the numerous complications and mistakes, both his own and those of others, which prevent him from doing so. Much of the humour comes from Basil's overly aggressive manner, engaging in angry but witty arguments with guests, staff and in particular his formidable wife, whom he addresses (in a faux-romantic way) with insults such as "that golfing puff adder", "my little piranha fish" and "my little nest of vipers". Despite this, he frequently feels intimidated, she being able to stop him in his tracks at any time, usually with a short, sharp cry of "Basil!" At the end of some episodes, Basil succeeds in annoying (or at least bemusing) the guests and frequently gets his comeuppance./nThe plots are occasionally intricate and always farcical, involving coincidences, misunderstandings, cross-purposes and meetings both missed and accidental. The innuendo of the bedroom farce is sometimes present (often to the disgust of the socially conservative Basil) but it is his eccentricity, not his lust, that drives the plots. The events that take place in each episode happen in such a way that they negatively affect Basil's personality and test what little patience he has to breaking point, sometimes causing his mental state to deteriorate to the point where he has all but suffered a total breakdown by the end of the episode (some cut to the credits as he is on the brink of doing so)./nThe guests at the hotel are typically comic foils to Basil's anger and outbursts. Each episode's one-shot guest characters provide a different characteristic that he cannot stand (including promiscuity, being working class, or being foreign). Requests both reasonable and impossible test his temper. Even the disabled seem to annoy him, with the episode "Communication Problems" revolving around the havoc caused by the frequent misunderstandings between the staff and the hard-of-hearing Mrs Richards (not to mention the contributions from dotty resident Major Gowen, one of the show's other regular characters). By the end, Basil faints just at the mention of her name. This episode is typical of the show's careful weaving of humorous situations through comedy cross-talk. The show also uses mild black humour at times, notably when Basil is forced to hide a dead body and in 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 the guests ("May I suggest that you consider moving to a hotel closer to the sea? Or preferably in it.")./nBasil behaves particularly violently towards Manuel (an emotional but innocent Spaniard whose almost total lack of English vocabulary causes him to make some of the most elementary mistakes) including beating the hapless waiter with a frying pan and smacking him on the forehead with a spoon, 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./nBasil often displays blatant snobbishness in order to climb the social ladder, frequently expressing disdain for the "riff-raff" and "yobbos" that he believes regularly populate the hotel. 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 (and sanity) stretching further and further towards breaking point./nBasil Fawlty/nBasil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, is a snobbish and miserly misanthrope 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./nHe is terrified of his wife Sybil Fawlty's sharp tongue (in the episode "The Germans", he wishes that it was this that was ingrowing and not her toenail). He yearns to stand up to her, but his plans frequently conflict with her desires. She is often verbally abusive towards him (memorably describing him as "an ageing, brilliantined stick insect") but although he towers over the diminutive Sybil, he often finds himself on the receiving end of her 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, there are occasions where Basil is shown to lament about the time when there was passion in their relationship, now seemingly lost forever. Also, it appears as though he still does care for her in some way. The penultimate episode — "The Anniversary" — revolves around his efforts to put together a nice surprise anniversary get-together present, involving their closest friends. Things go wrong immediately as, because of Basil's pretending the date doesn't remind him of anything so as to enhance the surprise (gamely accepting a slap in the process), Sybil believes he really has forgotten, and leaves the hotel in a huff. In an interview for the documentary on the DVD box set, Cleese claims that this episode deliberately takes a slightly different tone from the others, focusing on fleshing out their otherwise inexplicable status as a couple (as well as saying that, if a third series had been made, there would have been more episodes like this)./nIn keeping with the general lack of explanation about the marriage, not much is revealed of the characters' back-stories. It is known that Basil served in the British Army and saw action in the Korean War, possibly as part of his National Service. He exaggerates this period of his life, suggesting he spent time in active front line service and proclaiming to strangers: "I killed four men." To this Sybil jokes that "He was in the Catering Corps. He used to poison them." Basil is often seen wearing a military tie (as well as that of the Royal Agricultural College), and his moustache seems to betray an army background. He also claims to have sustained an injury to his leg during the action, caused by shrapnel, although apparently it tends to flare up at surprisingly convenient times for him. The only person toward whom Basil, for the most part, consistently exhibits patience and decent manners is the old and senile Major Gowen, a veteran officer for either of the World Wars (which one is never specified) who permanently resides at the hotel. When interacting with Manuel, Basil displays a rudimentary ability with Spanish which is not entirely explained in any of the episodes (although Basil does at one point say that he "learned classical Spanish, not the strange dialect he [Manuel] seems to have picked up"); this ability is also predictably ridiculed, as in the first episode where a guest, whom Basil has immediately mentally labelled a working-class oik, communicates fluently with Manuel in Spanish after Basil's failed attempt to do so./nCleese 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," and as being "an absolutely awful human being", but says that in comedy, if an awful person makes people laugh, people unaccountably feel affectionate toward him. Indeed, he is not entirely unsympathetic. The "Hotel Inspectors" and "Waldorf Salad" episodes both feature guests who are shown to be deeply annoying with constant, and unreasonable demands, namely Messers Hutchinson and Hamilton. In "Gourmet Night", it's the chef that gets drunk and is unable to cook dinner, leaving Basil to scramble in an attempt to salvage the evening. Much of the time, he is an unfortunate victim of circumstance./nSybil Fawlty/nSybil Fawlty, played by Prunella Scales, is Basil's wife. Energetic and petite (although she wears precariously high heels), she prefers a working wardrobe of tight skirt suits in vivid shiny fabrics and sports a tower of permed and back-combed hair necessitating the use of overnight curlers. 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 phrase "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 regular character who refers to Basil by his first name. When (frequently) she barks this at him, he is generally stopped in his tracks, often flinching./nBasil refers to her by a number of epithets, occasionally to her face, including "that golfing puff-adder", "the dragon", "toxic midget", "the sabre-toothed tart", "my little kommandant", "my little nest of vipers", and "you rancorous, coiffured old sow". Despite these less than complimentary nicknames, Basil is terrified of her. There is only one time in the entire series that he loses patience and snaps at her./nSybil and Basil Fawlty are said to have married on 17 April 1958 and started their hotel in 1960. Prunella Scales has said that the reason Sybil married Basil was because his origins were of a higher social class than hers. In Gourmet Night she recounts an anecdote about "Uncle Ted and his crate of brown ale." This and some of Sybil's behaviour suggests a working class background./nPolly Sherman/nPolly Sherman, played by Connie Booth, is primarily employed as a waitress, although she sometimes seems to be coerced into doing many other jobs in the hotel, perhaps for the extra money. 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 has made, or to keep something from Sybil. Her biggest test of loyalty came in the episode "The Anniversary", when Basil asked her to impersonate a purportedly ill Sybil — albeit in semi-darkness — in front of all the Fawltys' closest friends./nPolly is apparently employed part-time (during meal times), and is an art student whom Basil refers to as spending three years at university. (Polly is not referred to as a student in the second series.) 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; in "The Germans" episode Basil alludes to Polly's polyglot inclination by saying that she does her work "while learning two oriental languages". Like Manuel, she has a room of her own at the hotel./nManuel/nManuel, 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 verbally and physically abused by his boss. When told by either Basil, Sybil, or Polly what to do, he often answers, "¿Qué?" ("What?"). Manuel's character was used to demonstrate Basil's instinctive lack of sensitivity and tolerance. Every episode would involve Basil becoming enraged at least a couple of times by not only Manuel's confusion at his boss's bizarre and complicated demands, but also with basic requests. Manuel is afraid of Fawlty's quick temper and violent assaults, yet often expresses his appreciation for being given a steady source of income in what seems to him an endlessly perplexing society. His relentlessly enthusiastic demeanour and lavish pride in what little English he has grasped suggest that at least some of his persistent difficulties stem from his employers' persistently poor communication skills./nDuring the making of the series, Sachs twice suffered a serious injury while playing Manuel. Cleese describes using a real metal pan to knock him unconscious in "The Wedding Party" episode, although he would have preferred to use a rubber one. The original producer/director, John Howard Davies, explains in the director's commentary that he made Basil use a metal one and that he was responsible for most of the violence on the show, which he felt was essential and intrinsic to the type of comical farce that they were trying to create. 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./nManuel's exaggerated Spanish accent is an integral part of the humour of the show. Sachs' native language is German; he emigrated to Britain as a child./nThe character's nationality was switched to Italian (and the name to Paolo) for the Spanish dub of the show, while in Catalonia he is a Mexican (still called Manuel)./nOther regular characters and themes/nTerry, played by Brian Hall, is the laid-back Cockney chef at Fawlty Towers. Terry's cooking methods are likewise somewhat casual, which sometimes frustrates and worries the neurotic Basil. He 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, seen in "Gourmet Night", who quickly proved himself incapable of holding the job because of a fondness for large volumes of wine, and a baffling passion for Manuel. Terry used to work in Dorchester (not at The Dorchester, as briefly believed by a guest). In "The Anniversary" he and Manuel come to blows as he takes offence at someone else cooking in his kitchen, and proceeds to sabotage Manuel's attempt to make paella for Sybil, leading to fisticuffs between them at the end of the episode./nMajor Gowen, played by Ballard Berkeley, is a slightly senile, amiable old soldier who holds permanent residence in the hotel. He is one of the very few guests whom Basil seems to like. This is possibly because of his former status in the military, making him a symbol of the establishment status that Basil craves. 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. In the episode The Germans he shows that he – like Basil, as it transpires – has trouble forgiving the Germans because of the World Wars; the best he can say about them is that German women supposedly make good card players. In the same episode, he also demonstrates his outdated attitudes towards race where he makes clear the ethnic difference between "wogs" and "niggers" — but in a manner apparently innocent of malice or derogatory bigotry. Despite his good intentions, the Major can cause Basil's devious plans to go catastrophically awry, notably in the episode Communication Problems, when Basil tries his best to keep the money he won betting on a horse race a secret from Sybil./nMiss Tibbs & Miss Gatsby, played by Gilly Flower and Renee Roberts respectively, are the other two permanent residents. Seemingly inseparable, these sweet-natured but cheerfully dotty spinsters appear to have taken a fancy to Basil, feeling as though they need to take care of him. In response to their fond solicitude, Basil vacillates between a sycophantic and superficial charm through to hostility and blunt rudeness during his various conversations with them./nAudrey, a mostly unseen character, had one on-screen 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 a refuge for Sybil from the hotel and from Basil's ludicrous situations. When times get tough (Audrey has a dysfunctional relationship with her husband George), Sybil will offer solutions and guidance, often resulting in the catchphrase "Ooh, I know..." when she tries to commiserate with Audrey's problems. In Audrey's one on-screen appearance she is played by actress Christine Shaw. She is mentioned in "The Hotel Inspectors", "The Wedding Party", "Gourmet Night", "The Psychiatrist" and "The Kipper and the Corpse"./nThe Paperboy, though rarely seen, is significant as he is revealed to be the prankster who rearranges the letters on the "Fawlty Towers" sign to read various (sometimes crude) phrases[citation needed]. This may have been because of Basil's sharp attitude towards him when he was late with a delivery. The shot of the sign (with the hotel exterior in the background) appears at the beginning of every episode but one, "The Germans", when a shot of a hospital is used, as this is the only episode which doesn't begin at the hotel. During the first series, the sign slowly deteriorated throughout the season until almost no letters were left in episode four. Episode five brings the first semi-anagram: "Warty Towels". In the second series, the first episode sign spells 'Fawlty Tower' letter "L" being noticeably askew, and changes in each subsequent episode, from the correct spelling to various semi-anagrams (only "Flowery Twats" from the 11th episode, "The Anniversary", is a proper anagram using all original letters.) The changes progress as follows:/n * Episode 7: "Fawlty Tower" (the letter "L" is askew) * Episode 8: "Watery Fowls" * Episode 9: "Flay Otters" * Episode 10: "Fatty Owls" * Episode 11: "Flowery Twats" * Episode 12: "Farty Towels" The first edition of Fawlty Towers was originally broadcast on 19 September 1975. The 12th and final show was first shown on 25 October 1979. The first series was directed by John Howard Davies, the second by Bob Spiers. Both seasons had their premieres on BBC2./nProduction of the last two episodes was disrupted by a strike of BBC technical staff, which resulted in the recasting of the role of Reg (the wisecracking friend of Basil and Sybil) in "The Anniversary", and delayed the episode's transmission date by one week. The episode "Basil the Rat" was also delayed, not being screened until the end of a repeat showing six months later./nNot 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 postponed as being too political. Later that year, Cleese's sketch was broadcast, but its original significance was lost./nWhen 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./nIt has long been rumoured that a thirteenth episode of the series was written and filmed, but never progressed further than a rough cut . Lars Holger Holm, author of the book Fawlty Towers: A Worshipper's Companion, has made detailed claims about the episode's content, but he provides no evidence of its existence and it is most likely a hoax or fan fiction./nOn the subject of whether more episodes would be produced, Cleese revealed (in an interview for the complete DVD box set, which was republished in the book, Fawlty Towers Fully Booked) that he once had the genesis of a feature-length special – possibly sometime during the mid-1990s. The plot (which was never fleshed out beyond his initial idea) would have revolved around the chaos that a now-retired Basil typically caused as he and Sybil flew to Barcelona to visit their former employee Manuel and his family. Of the idea, Cleese said:/n 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./nCleese may also have relented because of the lack of Connie Booth's involvement. She had practically retreated from public life after the show finished (and had been initially unwilling to collaborate on a second series, which explains the four-year gap between productions)./nThe decision by Cleese and Booth to quit before a third series has often been lauded, as it ensured an avoidance of the possibility that the show's immediately-high status could be weakened with lower quality work later down the line. (Cleese in particular was most likely motivated in making the choice by the end of his involvement with the Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series, which he departed after claiming to have run out of ideas for sketches.) Subsequently, it has inspired the makers of other shows to do likewise. Most notably, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant refused to make a third series of either The Office or Extras, citing Fawlty Towers' short lifespan as the reason. Rik Mayall, Ben Elton and Lise Mayer, the writers behind The Young Ones, which also only ran for two series (each with six episodes likewise), used this explanation too. Elton also took the decision to end his next sitcom, Filthy Rich & Catflap, after only one series, despite its popularity./nCritical reaction/nThe series was not held in as high esteem on its original broadcast as it is today. The Daily Mirror review of the show in 1975 had the headline "Long John Short On Jokes". Eventually though, as the series began to gain popularity, critical acclaim soon followed. Clive James writing in The Observer said the second episode had him "retching with laughter". By the time the series had ended, it was an overwhelming critical success. This did not stop the critic from Television Today from condemning such praise in an article on 14 September 1976, who wrote:/n "devoid of everything that makes good modern comedy. The programme is reminiscent of the post-war university drama society production.....The idea behind Fawlty Towers had the makings of one good sketch for John Cleese, who has in the past been shown to such good effect in original sketch material. The series, however, has over-acting and exaggeration on his part which is embarrassing to watch, writing that has no vestige of wit or skill about it and set pieces that are protracted and neither funny nor slapstick; the whole is pervaded by ill-humour. There is no warmth, no vulnerability of characters, no pathos, no visual cleverness, no funny lines. It is an amalgam of everything that does not reach out to an audience and is the epitome of self indulgence by those concerned. One funny walk and a shouting, bullying tone do not make a comedy series; it is twenty-five years too late for that.....Mr Cleese has to learn (if he has not already done so) not to be deluded by applauding critics just as he must observe those who do not applaud. Fawlty Towers is a try and there have to be many in comedy. But when the try has been made it is time to move on, to change and adapt, bearing the lessons in mind: the most important being a growing awareness of what one is good at doing and what is out of reach of one's ability and personal attributes"/nAnother critic of the show was Richard Ingrams, then television reviewer for The Spectator. Cleese got his revenge by naming one of the guests in the second series 'Mr Ingrams', who is caught in his room with a blow up doll./nIn an interview for the "TV Characters" edition of Channel 4's 'talking heads' strand 100 Greatest (in which Basil placed second, between Homer Simpson and Edmund Blackadder), TV critic A. A. Gill theorised that the initially muted response may have been caused by Cleese seemingly ditching his label as a comic revolutionary – earned through his years with Python – to do something more traditional. He also admitted that he had been one of that chorus when he was young (despite his mother, Yvonne Gilan, being in one of the episodes; she played the saucy French woman in "The Wedding Party"). According to Gill, "that shows you what I know about this business."

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