Many years ago, I first came across the British series Fawlty Towers on PBS.  I enjoyed the episodes I saw and would watch them when I managed to find one on.  It has been many years since I last found one on television.  I discovered that the series was available on DVD and started watching the price.  I recently picked up Fawlty Towers - The Complete Set when I found it on sale.

Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom made by the BBC that aired in the 1970's.  Only twelve episodes were made, with the first six airing in 1975 and the last six airing in 1979.  At some point, the show aired on PBS stations, but it has been many years since I last came across the show on one of those stations, so I don't know if it still airs on any of them.

Fawlty Towers is set in a small fictional hotel of the same name located in Torquay, a seaside town in England.  The hotel is owned and run by Basil and Sybil Fawlty and they only have a few other employees, so they have to deal with the day to day running of things.  Basil is a rude man with delusions of grandeur for the hotel.  Sybil is rather bossy and doesn't seem to do much of anything.  The show was written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, who were married when the first season was made.  They were divorced by the time the second season aired.  Cleese and Booth based the hotel and the character of Basil on the owner of a real hotel in Torquay.  In May of 1970, the members of Monty Python stay at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay while filming in the area.  Donald Sinclair, the owner, was extremely rude to all guests and most of the members of Python moved to a different hotel while Cleese and Booth stayed.  Sinclair's family has claimed that he was nothing like Basil while some former employees and guests have talked about experiences closer to what is in the show.  

Everything that happens in the episodes of Fawlty Towers revolves around the hotel in some way.  The plots are self contained to each episode, so they don't absolutely have to be watched in order.  Certain things about the characters will make more sense as more of the episodes are watched.  Things usually start off well enough in the episodes before spiraling out of control, usually because of Basil.  Despite his profession, he is not a people person and he really doesn't like the guests.  He considers most of the guests riff raff of some sort and looks on them with contempt.  Basil has dreams of attracting higher class guests, and any time someone he thinks is worthy shows up, he falls all over himself trying to suck up while ignoring everyone else.  Basil always gets annoyed by requests from guests, though to be fair, a few of them were more demanding and unreasonable.  One woman could barely hear and kept misunderstanding because she wouldn't turn her hearing aide on since that would run the batteries down.  Another man arrives later and demands the kitchen be kept open and then orders an item not on the menu and gets irate because Basil hasn't heard of it.  Yes Basil screws that situation up, but the man starts off a bit rude as well, and only gets worse as he bellows on about kicking behinds.  A few of the problems aren't Basil's fault, but most of them are.  Only a few scenes during the entire series take place somewhere other than the hotel.  During the opening sequence of most of the episodes, a sign for the hotel is shown.  The sign changes several times throughout the series, sometimes with a letter being ready to fall, or with the words completely changed around to say something else.

At first, it seems like the plots for Fawlty Towers are rather simple since they deal with things like Basil having a bit of work done on the hotel.  As the episodes progress, the stories get more complicated as Basil races around trying to do things.  Most of the time he is trying to keep something from Sybil at the same time.  When something goes wrong, which it always does, Basil then starts to panic as he tries to control the situation, which keeps getting more complicated the more Basil tries to cover it up.  In every episode, Basil ends up on the verge of a breakdown as more and more things go wrong for him.  There tend to be misunderstandings and coincidences that further complicate things for Basil.  The episodes are each about thirty minutes long, and a lot is packed into them, making them much more complex than they seem to be at first.  I was entertained by all the episodes.  

Fawlty Towers is a farce type of comedy which involves a lot of misunderstandings and outrageous situations.  This type of humor is not going to appeal to everyone.  Much of what happens is downright silly, but I think it works very well for the show.  Much of the humor comes from Basil and the ever increasing desperate things he does during the episodes.  He keeps trying to do things, like keep from Sybil that he bet on a horse race, with crazy antics that ultimately just blow up in his face in hilarious ways, like when Basil ends up beating his car with a tree branch when he wouldn't start on an important night after he had refused to take it to a mechanic.  Other characters also do funny things, but I think that most of the humor is provided by Basil and his antics.  Some of the humor is twisted in some way or even dark, like when a guest dies in the hotel and Basil tries to deal with the situation.  

I think every episode of Fawlty Towers is hilarious, mostly because of the things that Basil does and says.  Things build until he has some sort of flip out in each episode and those moments are very funny.  Basil and his fits make Clark Griswold from the Vacation movies look calm and stable.  I think I find The Germans the funniest episode, and not just because of the way Basil acts after suffering from a hit on the head.  Years ago I was watching the episode while my mother was napping on the couch.  She actually started talking in her sleep in response to things happening in the show, which just cracked me up even more.  During the episode, Sybil is in the hospital and she calls Basil to make sure he is doing certain things.  Basil asks if Sybil wants him to move the hotel a bit to one side, and my mother responded that it was fine where it was so he didn't need to bother.  A little later in the show, an alarm goes off that is rather loud.  My mother said to turn that racket off and once the alarm goes off, she said thank you.  Even though that happened years ago, I still remembered when watching the episode again, and it made everything funnier for me.  Later in the episode, after Basil has had an accident but still insists on returning to work, it is hilarious when he decides to tell a joke to German guests that involves him doing a very funny walk.

Fawlty Towers isn't politically correct and some not so nice terms are used at times.  Basil looks down on just about everybody, and he does use some derogatory terms at times.  He is a rude racist who says horrible things at times.  The show does have the potential to offend viewers.  Basil does get violent, usually with Manual, the waiter/bellhop from Barcelona who speaks very little English.  Basil is verbally abusive to Manual and even hits him at times.  I think that stuff was done in a way that was funny, but some viewers may not feel the same way.  There is a lot of slapstick type of humor used in every episode which I think does add to the humor.  

Sybil and Basil have been married for fourteen years when Fawlty Towers begins.  There really isn't any love or affection in the marriage.  Much of the time it seems like they can't stand each other which raises the question of why they ever got married in the first place.  Basil calls her various names, like his little piranha fish or little nest of vipers in place of terms of endearment.  He makes little snide comments about her fairly often.  They each have their own beds, though they do share a room.  Sybil basically bullies him, giving him orders to do this or that while she doesn't do much.  Basil is afraid of her since he will stop right in his tracks when she screeches his name in the right tone.  A few episodes deal with some guests that seem to be more sexually active which really bothers Basil.  He has issues and he is not at all happy about the idea of single couples sharing a room.  There really isn't any sexual content in the show.

Basil Fawlty really should not have a job that involves dealing with the public.  The man basically doesn't like anyone, though if he feels that someone is of the right social class, he will suck up more than my Dyson vacuum.  Basil feels that he is better than most of the guests that stay at the hotel, and he hates the idea of having to serve people he thinks are beneath him.  Basil is always trying to get a better class of people to stay at the hotel and those plans continually go very wrong.  Basil keeps trying to save money, which causes him to hire a waiter who can't speak English and a builder who is incompetent.  He's really not that nice of a person, but he makes a wonderful character for the show.  You can't even say that he means well in most cases, though I did kind of feel sorry for him at times as things keep spiraling out of control for him.  John Cleese is wonderful in the part.

Sybil doesn't seem to actually do that much work.  She'll be around, giving Basil orders to hang a picture, check in a guest, or answer the phone even when he is in the middle of trying to do something else.  She is shown talking on the phone to her friend Audrey in several episodes and every so often she will chat up a guest she finds interesting.  Every so often, Sybil does step in to deal with a guest that is giving Basil fits for some reason.  When she does something, she is usually more effective than her husband.  She doesn't act like she cares that much about Basil most of the time, but she does act differently a few times.  Sybil is very domineering and not that nice of a person either.  Prunella Scales does very well with the part.  

Polly is an art student who serves as a waitress, housekeeper and also helps out at the front desk when needed.  She usually ends up in the middle of a mess created by Basil.  She tries to help him and she has to think quick on her feet at times because of what he has done.  Polly is the most normal and capable character.  She knows other languages and is able to actually communicate effectively with Manual, though she doesn't speak Spanish to him that often.  Polly does get frustrated with Basil at times, but she keeps trying to do things to help him.  Connie Booth does very well with the part, though she isn't around as much as some of the other characters, especially in the second season.

Manual is from Barcelona and only speaks a few English words.  He is the waiter and bellhop who frequently is confused because he doesn't understand English that well.  I don't think that Manual is stupid, though I know that some viewers see the character that way.  He doesn't have any problem doing what is needed the few times someone gives him directions in Spanish, which only happens a few times.  When he actually understands, he is very capable and competent.  The main issue is that Basil decided to hire someone who didn't speak much English because he was able to get away with not paying him as much.  Basil then gets irritated because of his own decision and he doesn't do anything that would actually help, like get Manual lessons in English.  A lot of the humor comes from Manual and how he ends up messing up things because he doesn't understand English.  He and Basil have a somewhat odd relationship.  Basil treats him horribly, verbally and sometimes physically abusing him and Manual remains loyal to him.  Andrew Sachs does wonderful with the part.      

Terry is the chef during the second season.  He is sort of laid back, which does get Basil worked up at times.  He isn't around as much, so Brian Hill doesn't have as much to do.  New guests arrive in each episode, but there are also a few long term guests at the hotel as well.  Major Gowen is an older, somewhat senile, retired military man always looking for the newspapers.  He is the only guest that Basil treats decently.  Ballard Berkeley does very well with the part.  Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby are two older women who have also been at the hotel for a while.  The two women are always together and seem to have taken a fancy to Basil for some reason.  Gilly Flower and Renee Roberts are good in the parts.  The new guests are just around for one episode, with some of them being more integral to the plot than others.

Main Cast

Ballard Berkeley - Major Gowen
Connie Booth - Polly
John Cleese - Basil Fawlty
Gilly Flower - Miss Tibbs
Brian Hill - Terry
Renee Roberts - Miss Gatsby
Andrew Sachs - Manual
Prunella Scales - Sybil Fawlty

DVD Information

Fawlty Towers - The Complete Set has all twelve episodes of the series on three discs.  I believe there is just one DVD version available now, but I did read that a new version will be out in the fall of 2009 with new commentaries by Cleese.  I don't know if any other new extras are planned.  This set has interviews with Cleese, Andrew Sachs, and Prunella Scales with the Cleese interview split into three parts and spread out over all three discs.  The interviews share some insights into the show and are entertaining.  Booth is the only main cast member not featured in an interview, though she is mentioned at times in some of the other interviews.  Cleese does talk about the Gleneagles Hotel and how his stay there inspired the show.

There are commentaries by the director that I haven't listened to.  A Visit to Torquay - Home of Fawlty Towers shows footage from the town and shows the Gleneagles Hotel.  Several people are featured talking about Sinclair and how they were treated by him.  That was very interesting.  There is footage that shows the building that was used as Fawlty Towers in the exterior shots after a fire.  The Helpful Staff and Guest Registry share information about the cast members playing the staff and some of the guests.  Each disc has tips for something, like customer service or how to have a happy marriage.  Those things are just collections of clips from the show that illustrate things somehow tied to the subject, like how Basil deals with customers.  Even though they were just made up of clips from the episodes, they are still very funny.  There are hilarious outtakes, but they only last for a minute and a half which is disappointing.

Episode List

A Touch of Class
The Builders
The Wedding Party
Hotel Inspectors
Gourmet Night
The Germans
Communication Problems
The Psychiatrist
Waldorf Salad
The Kipper and the Corpse
The Anniversary
Basil the Rat

Fawlty Towers is a hilarious show that has inspired many other people since it first aired.  I sort of understand why they decided to not to make any more episodes, but it is too bad that only twelve episodes were made.  Fawlty Towers - The Complete Set is a must have set for fans of the show.

John Cleese Reviews
Around the World in 80 Days ~ Die Another Day ~ A Fish Called Wanda ~ The Great Muppet Caper ~ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ~ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ~ Looney Tunes: Back in Action ~ The Pink Panther 2 ~ Shrek 2 ~ Shrek the Third ~ Valiant ~

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD