Fawlty Towers: Encyclopedia - Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers was a British sitcom made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. It is set in a fictional hotel named Fawlty Towers in the Devon town of Torquay on "the English Riviera". The hotel is owned and run by the eccentric Basil Fawlty and his censorious wife Sybil, helped by the maid Polly, the Spanish porter Manuel who could barely speak English and (in the second series) the chef Terry. Permanent guests were the half-senile Major Gowen and the bewildered old ladies Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby. Very few other guests ever stayed long.

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

Only twelve episodes were ever broadcast, but the series has had a lasting and powerful influence. 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 a BBC poll in 2004 of the general public to find "Britain's Best Sitcom". Many commentators considered this surprisingly low.

Fawlty Towers - Credits

The cast:

• Basil Fawlty (played by John Cleese)
• Sybil Fawlty (Prunella Scales)
• Polly Sherman (Connie Booth)
• Manuel (Andrew Sachs)
• Major Gowen (Ballard Berkeley)
• Miss Tibbs (Gilly Flower)
• Miss Gatsby (Renee Roberts)
• Terry the Chef (Brian Hall)

The scripts were written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, who were married at the time of the first series, 1975. By 1979 (second series), Cleese and Booth had divorced after ten years of marriage, 1968–78.

The first series was Produced and Directed by John Howard Davies, the second Produced by Douglas Argent and Directed by Bob Spiers.

Fawlty Towers - Characters

Basil is a snobbish, miserly, xenophobic, sexually repressed paranoiac who is desperate to belong to a higher social class, and sees the successful running of the hotel as his means to this end ("turn it into an establishment of class..."), yet he is trapped in a job where he has to be pleasant to people he either despises or yearns to be above socially; people he would much rather snub. He is terrified of his wife's sharp tongue, yet fiercely wishes to stand up to her. Always trying to cover his mistakes and always the penny pincher, Basil usually turns to Manuel or Polly to help him execute whatever scheme he has planned. It is, of course, imperative that his wife Sybil does not find out. It's bound to go horribly wrong, with all the blame firmly on Basil.

Basil has served in the Catering Corps of the British Army, possibly as part of his National Service and it is assumed that, on leaving, he utilised his gratuity to purchase a hotel where he can utilise his experience. He is frequently 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 (even though Cleese himself was only thirteen years old at the time the war ended).

Basil is often verbally abusive of his wife, but on one occasion is referred to by her as "an ageing brilliantined stick insect". Basil's height and verbally abusive nature is a wonderful cover because, in reality, he is a "hen-pecked husband." Basil tends to hide or even physically recoil when he becomes the victim of Sybil's temper.

As Basil's wife, she's the only one that refers to him by his first name. 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 handling difficult customers. Despite this, however, she rarely participates directly in the running of the hotel; during busy check-in sessions or meal-times, whilst everyone else is busy working around her she's frequently found talking on the phone to one of her friends (usually an unseen 'Audrey') or chatting to customers. She is characterised by an arguably annoying conversational tone and laugh, which Basil compares to 'someone machine gunning a seal'. Basil also refers to her by a number of epithets, occasionally to her face: these include "that golfing puff adder", "the dragon", "toxic midget", "my little nest of vipers", "my little piranha fish", and - memorably - "a rancorous coiffured old sow".

Polly, employed as a waitress, is often stuck doing many other jobs in the hotel. She is also the voice of sanity, although she loyally attempts to aid Mr. Fawlty when he is trying to cover for a mistake he's made.

Polly is, in theory, only employed part-time, and is supposedly an art student: in one episode, she is seen to draw a sketch (presumably an impressionistic caricature) of Basil, which everyone but Basil immediately recognizes. Which art college she studies at, or indeed if she actually does, is not explained. She does find time to sketch, and has managed to sell some occasionally to supplement her meagre waitressing income, even to the hotel guests.

Manuel, the waiter, is a well-meaning but disorganized and constantly confused Spaniard (from Barcelona) with a limited grasp of the English language and customs. He is afraid of Mr. Fawlty's quick temper and violent assaults, yet often expresses his appreciation for being given the position.

• Terry the Chef is probably the next most important character after Polly and Manuel. Terry's cooking style is quite relaxed and Basil occasionally gets frustrated with his "It's all right" attitude. Terry arrives in the second season after the relief of Curt (only seen in Gourmet Night). He used to work in the town of Dorchester.

• Major Gowen is a slightly senile old man who holds a permanent residence in the hotel. He enjoys talking about the world outside and is always on the lookout for the paper.

• Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby are the other two (often inseparable) permanent residents. They seems to take a fancy to Basil, though he switches from being overly kind to utterly rude during various talks with the two.

• The paperboy, though not seen very often, is responsible for changing the "FAWLTY TOWERS" sign to read various (sometimes crude) phrases.

Fawlty Towers - Background and inspiration

Even before this programme existed, English seaside boarding houses and their proprietors had something of a reputation for firmness and intransigence, possibly stemming from the days when soldiers were billeted in small hotels during wartime or national service. 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. Basil Fawlty's behaviour can often be taken to represent macho management at its worst.

Fawlty Towers was inspired by the Monty Python team's stay in the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. Cleese and Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming for the Python show had finished. The owner, Mr. 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 in case it contained a bomb (actually it contained a ticking alarm clock). He also criticised the American-born Terry Gilliam's table manners for being too American, and it is reasonable to assume that his treatment of Gilliam partially inspired Basil's treatment of an American visitor in the episode "Waldorf Salad".

For the outside taping, instead of an actual hotel, the Wooburn Grange Country Club in Buckinghamshire was used. It served as a nightclub named "Basil's" for a short time after the series ended, until it was destroyed by fire.

Sinclair died in 1981, having emigrated to Canada in the 1970s where he was once tracked down by a British newspaper after Cleese named him in an interview. Mr Sinclair and his relatives have never been too happy about the way he has been portrayed, and his widow Betty is now campaigning to remove what she sees as a slur on her husband's reputation, but former staff and visitors have remembered actual events there that were allegedly as ludicrous as those depicted in the programmes. Also the children of Donald Sinclair confirm that it is an accurate rendition of their father.

At the beginning of nearly every episode the name of the hotel appears on a sign outside. The letters are rearranged each episode, as if by naughty children (an anagram, though with artistic license): Fatty Owls, Farty Towels, Flowery Twats, Watery Fowls, etc.

Fawlty Towers - Episode list

First broadcast on BBC 2 on September 19, 1975. The episodes of the first series were:

• "A Touch of Class"

• "The Builders"

• "The Wedding Party"

• "The Hotel Inspectors"

• "Gourmet Night"

• "The Germans"

All six episodes were directed by John Howard Davies.

The second series was transmitted three and a half years later, with the first episode being broadcast on February 19, 1979. The episodes of the second series were:

• "Communication Problems"

• "The Psychiatrist"

• "Waldorf Salad"

• "The Kipper and the Corpse"

• "The Anniversary"

• "Basil the Rat"

All six episodes were directed by Bob Spiers.

The last episode, "Basil the Rat", was not aired until a few months after the other episodes because of a BBC industrial strike which caused the tape to go missing.

Note: 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 'Rats' for 'Basil the Rat' which had been printed in some program guides.

There have been persistent rumours about a "lost" 13th episode, "The Robbers," which involved a blackout at the hotel.

Fawlty Towers - Fawlty Towers influence

Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan have cited Fawlty Towers as a major influence on their sitcom Father Ted.

Two U.S. remakes were made called Amanda's and Payne.

There also was a German sitcom series based on Fawlty Towers.

A few hotels and guesthouses have called themselves "Fawlty Towers", including:

• A youth hostel in Darwin visited in an episode of the travel documentary Full Circle with Michael Palin.
• A hotel in Sidmouth which was painted like a Union Flag
• A hotel in the popular tourist town of Yangshuo in southern China
• A youth hostel in Fingal, Tasmania, now a campus of Scotch Oakburn College

In Christchurch, New Zealand, you will find a private youth hostel named "Foley Towers".

In Newquay, Cornwall, there is a bed and breakfast establishment called "Salty Towers".

There are many Indian restaurants throughout the United Kingdom called Balti Towers.

Fawlty Towers - Awards

1976 - 2 BAFTAs:

• Best light entertainment Performance - John Cleese
• Best Situation Comedy - John Howard Davies

1980 - 1 BAFTA:

• Best Situation Comedy - Douglas Argent and Bob Spiers

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Fawlty Towers", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki