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There are certain television programmes that you can describe as classics. There are others you can describe as iconic, and then there are those very rare programmes where you only have to say a couple of words and practically everybody knows what you mean. Fawlty Towers. Just 12 episodes, over two series, and yet more than 50 years later it remains part of the British cultural furniture.
To understand Fawlty Towers, we have to go back to 1970, when the Monty Python team were filming in Devon and stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, which was run by a man called Donald Sinclair. John Cleese later described him as one of the rudest people he had ever encountered. The Pythons found him so difficult that most of them decided they were better off staying elsewhere. Cleese and his then wife, Connie Booth, however, were fascinated by him, and rather than simply running away, they stayed on and observed. What they saw became the inspiration for Basil Fawlty.
The real hotelier apparently had very little interest in the traditional concept of hospitality, which is quite useful when you are trying to invent a sitcom character whose principal problem is that he hates having guests in his hotel. The idea was wonderfully simple. Take a hotel proprietor, give him an enormous inferiority complex, make him desperate to impress people he considers socially superior, add a volcanic temper, and then surround him with people who are either more competent than he is or considerably less interested in doing what he tells them.
One of the things that makes Fawlty Towers so impressive is the precision of the writing. These aren’t loose sitcom scripts where people wander into a room and exchange jokes. The episodes are carefully constructed farces where characters move in and out, misunderstandings develop in front of us, and then everything begins to collide, usually with disastrous results. Cleese was already famous through Monty Python, but Fawlty Towers gave him a character who was essentially trapped by his own personality. Basil desperately wants to be respected, to be thought of as sophisticated, to be considered a successful hotelier. Unfortunately, Basil’s personality keeps getting in the way.
The Germans, broadcast on the 24th of October 1975, was the last episode of the first series, and it gave us one of the most famous catchphrases in British comedy. Sybil is in hospital with an ingrown toenail. Basil is running the hotel alone. German guests arrive. Basil warns everyone, “Don’t mention the war.” And telling Basil Fawlty not to do something is practically an invitation for him to do it. Within minutes, the war is being mentioned, then mentioned again and again. John Cleese later explained that the episode was about British attitudes towards the war, the way some people were still obsessed with it 30 years on, rather than simply making fun of Germans. The German guests are remarkably normal. They are polite. They are simply trying to enjoy their holiday. The joke is Basil.
Perhaps the strangest thing about Fawlty Towers is that it didn’t go on forever. There were just 12 episodes, then it was over. There was never enough of it to become stale. Basil never had time to become ordinary. Every one of those 12 episodes feels quite precious. For those of us who grew up in Britain in the 1970s, Fawlty Towers also belongs to a very particular television era. There was no streaming, no box set, no recording. If you missed it, you missed it. And when something became popular, everybody talked about it.
There is a lovely irony about Fawlty Towers. It is a programme about a hotel that isn’t very good at looking after its guests, but it has been extremely good at looking after its audience, because generation after generation has discovered it. And somewhere underneath the shouting, the arrogance, the panic, and the terrible customer service, there is a little bit of Basil in us all. Although hopefully not too much.
What’s your favourite Fawlty Towers episode or moment? I would love to hear from you, so leave a comment below or join the conversation in our Facebook group.
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Take care,
Oliver
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Fawlty Towers is one of ‘The’ great sitcoms, and the performances of all of the main cast were exceptional, but it is another comedy programme where the some of guest stars were given a real chance to stand out in their own right. You mentioned Joan Sanderson as Mrs Richards, but I would add Bernard Cribbins and Geoffrey Palmer for their parts in Hotel Inspectors and The Kipper and The Corpse (my favourite episode). Considering only 12 Episodes were made I don find it strange that there are 3 that I really don’t like much, The Anniversary, Gourmet Night and Waldorf Salad, have their moments, but I find that Basils actions in these 3 episodes are such that I don’t find him particularly funny just rather a sad individual with no redeeming features, whereas in the best episodes I always thought even at his most awkward he still had his at least his sense of humour and that we were laughing with him not at him. But the good far outweighs the bad, the clip you played about the view from the hotel, is just so memorable, as was the majors about watching cricket, (and it’s not racist, just a bumbling old fool from the 70s using the language he would have used), the breakfast in bed rant at the unfortunate Mr Leeman, and the siberian rats chat with Manuel in his bedroom in the final episode are all so memorable I can quote them all and frequently do. I also recall having LP records for 4 episodes that I played to death in the late 70s and early 80s which further engrained these in my subconscious. Thanks for another great episode reminding of this iconic programme