What else is to be said other than it was the greatest sitcom
ever made. Starring and written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, with
unforgettable performances by Andrew Sachs and Prunella Scales. Many
travelers I have met over the years just think its a great comedy, but
don't realize it's actually a hard hitting documentary on British
hotels. This is what the sit-com format was made for.
Comedy at it's brilliant best.
..
PROGRAMME OUTLINE
Fawlty Towers, owned and managed by Basil Fawlty is located in
the English holiday area of Torquay, Devon.His life is made
hell by his constantly nagging wife, Sybil. His patience is pushed to
the limit by the dim whitedSpanish waiter, Manuel, who always
gets things wrong. "You continental cretin" was just one of the names
given to him by Basil. Polly was the waitress who seemed to be always
there to help Basil out of a sticky situation, such as when Basil wins
some money on a horse race, and then tries to hide the money from his
wife (who thinks he has stopped betting). John Cleese based his
character on a real hotel manager, when he was once in Torquay, and
this gave him the idea for a TV show. Fawlty Towers is still one of the
most famous and talked about British comedy shows of all time, and the
ratings are still very high on repeat showings even though the last
episode was made in 1979.
It was while filming for Monty Python's Flying Circus in
1971 that JohnCleese and the rest of the team chanced to stay at the
Torquay hotel which would inspire him to create Fawlty Towers. It was
run by an hotelier (described by Cleese as 'wonderfully rude') and his
domineering wife. When a guest asked him for the time of the next bus
to town, the manager flung the timetable at him and told him to look it
up himself. He went on to hurl Eric Idle's briefcase into the street in
case it contained a bomb and then complained that American Terry
Gilliam's table manners were too American. 'He seemed to view us from
the start as a colossal inconvenience,' mused Michael Palin. After one
night, the Pythons moved out. But Cleese never forgot the hotelier and
his wife and wrote them in a series based on the books of Richard
Gordon.The episode, entitled No Ill Feelings, was setin
a hotel and was first screened on 3February 1973. The
producer, HumphreyBarclay, was impressed by the hoteliers andtold Cleese: 'There's a series in those two.'
Two years later when Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth
were thinking up ideas for a series, the hotel quickly came to mind.
The original hotelier was much smaller than his wife so the lanky
Cleese hadto reverse the sizes in order that he could star as
the manic Basil Fawlty alongside Prunella Scales as the formidable
Sybil. Besides hapless Spanish waiter Manuel, whose tenuous grasp of
the English language was explained by the fact that 'he comes fromBarcelona',
the hotel staff comprised chambermaid Polly, the voice ofsanity
in the eye of the storm, and chef Terry (in the second series).Resident
guests whose mere presence was a constant irritant to Basilwere
the permanently confused Major Gowen and the elderly Miss Tibbsand Miss
Gatsby.
MAIN CAST
Basil Fawlty - John Cleese
Sybil Fawlty - Prunella Scales
Polly Sherman - Connie Booth
Manuel - Andrew Sachs
Major Gowen- Ballard Berkley
Miss Tibbs- Gilly Flower
Miss Gatsby- Renee Roberts
Terry - Brian Hall
EPISODE GUIDE
BBC Television (BBC 2) 12 Epiosodes (30 mins) Creators / Writters: John Cleese & Connie Booth Produced and Directed by John Howard Davies, Douglas
Argent and/or Bob Spiers.
SEASON ONE
(19 Sep - 24
Oct 1975) . Episode
1 - A Touch of Class
Basil is trying to hang a picture and
is complaining about the class of guests at the hotel, when it is
visited by Lord Melbury. During frantic acts to
make the Lord more comfortable, Basil succeeds at only making himself
look like an idiot. When Polly meets up with an inspector at the hotel,
he informs her that Lord Melbury is a con artist, which Basil doesn't
believe until he finds bricks, instead of valuables, inside Melbury's
suitcase. Basil is furious, and his mad fit drives away the real royal
guests, Sir Richard and Lady Morris.
Episode 2 - The Builders
Basil and Sybil leave the hotel for a
weekend, leaving Polly and Manuel in charge. Basil leaves Polly
with instructions that Mr. O'Reily was going to do some
renovations in the hotel, unknown to Sybil, who believes Mr. Stubbs is
doing the work. When the construction goes all wrong, Basil and O'Reily
must fix it before Sybil comes back. She does, and throws a fit. She
calls Mr. Stubbs to put things right, but when he comes in the morning,
the work has already been done.
. Episode 3 - The Wedding Party
While trying to fend off the romantic
advances of a French antique dealer, Basil is keeping tabs on the
unusual practices of a young couple in the hotel. Manuel only makes
things worse by getting drunk on his birthday. When the couple's
parents drop in, Basil goes haywire, and succeeds only in making
himself look like the unusual one. .
Episode 4 - The Hotel Inspectors
With the rumour of hotel inspectors
being in town, Basil must try to figure out which of his guests are the
inspectors. A couple of wrong guesses and fits of madness on Basil's
part lead nowhere, and he is totally unprepared when the real
inspectors show up and ends up giving a really bad impression by getting his own back on one of his
guests.
Episode 5 - Gourmet Night
Basil's desperate attempts to upgrade
the class of Fawlty Towers results in a gourmet night for well known
public figures. After throwing out the regular guests from the dining
room, only four people show up for the dinner. Their new chef gets
extremely drunk not being able to cook. Therefore Basil must pick up a
duck from a local restaurant instead of the lobster the guests were
hoping for, this is the one where his car breaks down and he decides to
give it a dam good thrashing...see the movie by clicking on the picture.
Episode 6 - The Germans
Sybil is staying in the hospital for
an
ingrowing toenail, and Basil is left in charge of the hotel. Hisnumerous attempts to hang a moose head
in the lobby are interrupted by Sybil's phone calls, reminding him to
hang the moose head. A fire drill must be held that day too, which
Basil manages to pull off with only a few minor problems, until Manuel
sets the kitchen on fire! The extinguisher gives Basil a concussion,
but he escapes the hospital to go back to the hotel, where several
German guests are arriving. After many failed attempts at not
mentioning the war to them, and doing his famous Adolf impersonation,
his doctor rushes in with a shot. While Basil tries to escape, the
moose head falls on top of him. . . . .SEASON
TWO
(19 Febuary -
26 March 1975) .
Episode
1 - Communication
Problems
Basil bets on a horse, which is
forbidden by Sybil, and wins 75 pounds. While trying to cover this up
from his wife, he must deal with an extremely hard-of-hearing old woman
who claims someone in the hotel stole her money. When both sets of
money turn up at the same time, Basil has some explaining to do. .
Episode 2 - The Psychiatrist
Basil is jealous of a handsome guest,
and turns his attention to a couple who are doctors. However, when he
finds out the husband is a psychiatrist, he takes all measures to make
himself appear normal. Meanwhile, he is trying to find the girl the
handsome guest smuggled up to his room in the night. A woman from
Australia only makes things worse, because Sybil believes Basil is
going after her, Basil makes the whole thing very difficult for himself
by always being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time!
Episode
3 - Waldorf Salad
Two late visitors arrive at the
hotel, and English woman and her obnoxious American husband. They
insist on eating supper, but Terry refuses to work overtime, so Basil
must cook in his place, meanwhile taking the 20 pound bribe from the
husband to keep the kitchen open. The husband's demands for a Waldorf
salad and a screwdriver cause increasing confusion for Basil, and when
the couple discover a real cook is not in the kitchen, they gather all
the guests together. They all complain about the bad service, and poor
management of the hotel, and Basil tells Sybil it's them or him. He
leaves, but then returns shortly to book a room.
Episode 4 - The Kipper and the Corpse
A guest at the hotel dies in the night,
and Basil believes it to be the cause of out-of-date kippers in his
breakfast. A doctor at the hotel says that he has been dead for hours,
the kipper theory is dropped. Basil and Manuel try desperately to keep
the dead guest out of sight of the others, with the body ending up in
the kitchen, office, and another couple's bedroom. When the dead man's
colleagues show up for a meeting, Sybil must explain what had happened.
Episode 5 - The Anniversary
Basil has invited friends over for their
15th anniversary, but Sybil thinks he has forgotten and drives off.
When the friends arrive, Basil can't reveal that Sybil has left, so he
says she is upstairs, ill. When her friends want to see her, Polly must
disguise herself as Sybil and fool them. When the real Sybil returns,
Basil throws her in a closet, and the speechless friends leave.
. Episode 6 - Basil the Rat
The Public Health Inspector declares
that the hotel kitchen is far below the standard, and gives the staff
one day to fix it. Basil goes to get Manuel to help, when he discovers
Manuel's pet, a Filigree Siberian Hamster. Basil declares it as a rat,
and tells Manuel to get rid of it. Polly says her friend will take it,
but she really hides in a shed out back. When the inspector comes back
the next day, Manuel discovers his pet has escaped back into the hotel,
and a rat hunt ensues. Meanwhile, Basil is trying not to give the
inspector the piece of veal covered in rat poison. . .
