All language subtitles for Fawlty.Towers.50.Years.Of.Laughs.2023.1080p.WEB.H264-CBFM

SALLY PHILLIPS:
Fawlty Towers is arguably

the funniest sitcom of all time.

In terms of construction
and delivery of laughter,

it is pretty much unequalled,
I think.

Whatever age you were,
everybody thought it was funny.

It was totally unique.

Trying to impress
the illuminati of Torquay

and watching it all fall apart

is agonising, beautiful
and wonderful.

And at Fawlty Towers,
anything could fall apart.

Mr Moose is up!

It's done, done, done.

It's up.

It's down again.

The situations that he's in,
and these amazing lines,

which I still remember
nearly all of today.

I mean, I've got those 12 episodes
stencilled on my head.

We watched in hysterics

as the world's worst hotelier

got himself into
the most impossible positions...

both socially and physically.

I don't know how he does it.

He manages to get his feet
flat on the ground

whilst his bum
is practically touching the ground,

and he's got his hands
behind the back of his head.

He's an acrobat. He's a dancer.
He's a Nureyev of comedy.

And an artist
when it comes to slapstick.

Really, Andre, he's wonderful!

This Basil's wife. This Basil.

This smack on head.

The cast is just solid gold.

Put this combo of people together,

you're of course gonna produce
absolute magic on screen.

He put Basil in the ratatouille?!

Yes!

Ah!

He's from Barcelona.

I think what John wanted to do
was a perfect comedy,

and John believes in perfection.

John Cleese is one
of the most accomplished comedians

to walk planet Earth,

matching a brilliant comedy brain

with a unique physical ability
to make us all laugh.

He was tall, he was lugubrious.

The whole movement of the man
was extraordinary.

Everything is perfect about that man
comedically.

In Monty Python,
Cleese wrote and performed

in the most influential
and funniest sketches of all time...

Hello, Polly!

..some of which involved
the abuse of stuffed animals.

Wakey-wakey!

Rise and shine!

'A lot of
the sketches that I played with John

'were customer and shopkeeper.'

And it was always the shopkeeper

who was the rather mild-mannered,
irritating person,

who won the battle in the end.

Cleese's tall, patrician appearance

made him
the perfect authority figure

in ground-breaking,
iconic satirical skits,

where he could abuse
those socially beneath him.

I look down on him
because I am upper class.

I look up to him
because he is upper class.

But I look down on him
because he is lower class.

I am middle class.

I know my place.

John Cleese could play
upper-class toffs like nobody else.

In something like
the old Frost Report sketch,

"I look down on him"
and all of those different things

about the nature of the upper class,
he is in charge.

The great skill John had, of course,

was to play
these great authority figures,

but undermine them.

It's that sort of
wonderful juxtaposition

between authority and silliness,

which he did so well.

Many of you will have already heard
the tragic news about Newton,

our faithful old retainer.

He fell to his death
early yesterday morning...

from his bed.

Poor, dear old Newton.

And so I am giving the second form
the entire morning off school

in his memory.

Get the spades from me
and the body from Matron.

Someone like David Frost,
who, of course,

was a great alchemist of comedy
in the 1960s,

he would see people,
whether it was The Two Ronnies,

whether it was multiple people
who ended up in Python,

he would see them and think,

"Yeah, these are people
who I need to be working with,

"because they're brilliant."

Terry Jones, Michael Palin,
Eric Idle,

working on a so-called
children's show,

but very anarchic
for a children's show,

called Do Not Adjust Your Set.

John Cleese and Graham Chapman

had been doing
At Last The 1948 Show, Rediffusion.

And Barry Took,

whose job it was at the BBC
to bring comedy to the masses,

sort of brought
those two factors together

and became
Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Their concoction
of intellectual surrealism

paired with the downright daft

heralded a comedy revolution
across the world,

with Cleese at the centre of it all.

If you look at Cleese's performance
in Monty Python,

he's not the kind of
fragile character that Basil is,

he's the very straitlaced announcer,

who speaks straight down
the barrel of the camera

of all of these absurdities,

and the joke
is that he is unflappable.

And now for something
completely different.

An occasional supporting actor
on Python was Cleese's wife,

Connie Booth,
an American writer and performer

he'd met in New York in 1964.

Connie was a regular attender
at the recordings,

and you can hear her,
cos she laughs...

Connie, with this sort of...

..intake of breath.

She doesn't laugh out,
she sort of...

GASPS

And Booth wasn't afraid to get into
the ring with Cleese comedically,

dangerously throwing herself about
to get a laugh.

I can see nothing wrong

with one healthy man
beating the living daylights

out of a little schoolgirl.

Her intuitive sort of style,
with Cleese particularly,

just sparkles on camera,
so she really blossomed.

Python's surreal concepts
often demanded unusual locations.

Filming a spoof
of Scott Of The Antarctic,

but set in the Sahara Desert,

the Pythons needed a beach,
and so headed to the south coast,

armed with inappropriate clothing
and a stuffed lion.

And it was here,

while shooting this bizarre sketch
on a beach in Torquay,

where Cleese found his inspiration

for an irate hotelier
who hated his guests.

The roots of Fawlty Towers
are in this experience

that the whole Monty Python team had

booking into this hotel,
run by a Mr Sinclair.

I remember saying,
"Can we have an alarm call?"

"Yes, yes, yes."

"And... perhaps a cup of tea
or some..."

"Tea?!"

And it was all that sort of stuff.

And then, you know,
"What time do you want it?"

"Well... erm...
We have to leave at seven."

"Seven?! Seven?!"

"Seven o'clock?!" I mean,
he was absolutely just like Fawlty.

Everything seemed to...

Everything to do with hotels
and what the essence of hotels was

was something
that he didn't want to deliver.

He took Eric Idle's briefcase
and threw it over a wall,

thinking it was a bomb.
And when one of them said,

"Why do you think someone
would try to blow up the hotel?"

he just went,
"Well, we've had staffing problems."

Graham, Terry and myself
just couldn't take it.

We thought, "We can't stay here
a moment longer."

So we went somewhere else.

We could not believe
that John had decided to stay on.

And now we realise what a great move
it was to stay there.

And he must have been
just filling the notebook at night

with all these
wonderful Sinclair-isms.

It wasn't long
before a caricature of Sinclair

appeared on our screens.

John Cleese was working on a show
called Doctor At Large,

and he wrote an episode
called No Ill Feelings.

And there is a character in that
that's played by Timothy Bateson

who is basically sort of
the prototype for Basil Fawlty.

It is a hotel proprietor

who treats every single request
made by a guest

as an absolute affront.

Cereal?
No, thanks, just...

Kipper or sausage?

Would the kipper be quick?

I beg your pardon?

Would the kipper be quicker?

Well, it'll be as quick
as it can be.

It can't be quicker than that,
can it?

It's quite exciting, isn't it,

to see that little moment
when you go,

"Something that became absolutely
an iconic sitcom series

"started with this little scene."?

I think it was a very unusual choice
after Monty Python

to do essentially a farce
like Fawlty Towers.

And I think that was
quite a common view.

Famously,
they wrote the first episode

and handed it in
to the BBC commissioning executive,

who sent them back
this excoriating note.

"I'm afraid I find this one
as dire as the title.

"It's a sort of Prince Of Denmark
of the hotel world,

"a collection of cliches
and stock characters

"that I can't see
being anything but a disaster."

Oh, dear, oh, dear.

That's shocking.

As terrible mistakes go,

I mean, that is right up there
with turning down the Beatles,

but, I mean, thank goodness
somebody saw sense at the BBC.

A series of six
was eventually commissioned,

and Cleese's comedic tour de force
came to life

in all its madcap glory.

Ah!

I'd never seen anything like
this weird, lanky tall guy before,

who was just rude to everyone,
such an arrogant snob,

and yet, you couldn't help
but like him.

At 9pm on Friday,
the 19th of September 1975,

Fawlty Towers
opened to the viewing public...

CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

..welcoming us in

with this unorthodox
classical refrain,

a world away from
your standard sitcom theme tune.

It didn't feel like
a normal sitcom opening.

It was very genteel.

SINGS THEME TUNE

Not of its time. It's not '70s.

And then you close in on the sign,

and you see
someone has reordered it,

and if it says, "flowery twats",
it's made it quite rude.

So before you've even got
through the door of the hotel,

you know what this is about.

You're starting with a good laugh,
and usually, they were.

"Fatty owls" and stuff like that.
It's just so silly.

But nothing will beat
"farty towels."

You later find out
that it's the paperboy

who's been moving
the letters around.

Because obviously,
Basil's horrible to him,

and that's his little revenge.

Everything in that show is kind
of precision-engineered to be funny.

In the hands of writers
John Cleese and Connie Booth,

even the mundanity of checking out
would have us cracking up.

Goodbye, Mrs Fawlty.
Goodbye, Mr Firkin.

Satisfied customer.
We should have him stuffed.

I think making it as simple

and a clear and tight environment
as he did

was very, very clever.

And cheap, probably.

But, you know, it worked.
It worked very well.

Fawlty Towers is set in a world

that is in many, many ways
incredibly familiar to you.

And then you put in all these
eccentric characters into it.

It just produces
something incredibly magical.

Manuel!

From the outset, it was clear
this was no ordinary hotel,

with owner Basil
and Spanish waiter Manuel

forced to communicate through
minimal words and casual violence,

resulting in chaos for all.

Que?
Throw it away.

Throw it away.
Throw it away.

Now!

Throw it...
Oh!

So you immediately think

whatever's supposed to be
happening here isn't happening.

And whatever order someone's
trying to impose has collapsed.

At the heart of all the disorder
was Basil Fawlty.

Every single request made by a guest

is treated
as the most terrible infringement

of Basil Fawlty's time.

What's happened to the old idea of
doing something for your fellow man?

Of service?
I mean, today, people just...

Mr Fawlty? Yes, I'm coming!
I'm coming! Wait a moment!

He makes reference to riff-raffs,
yobbos,

and this sort of...
the sadness of the character.

His whole life, he is being forced
to be polite to people

who he perceives
as being beneath him.

So then, when you bring
someone in from the outside

who is actually of proper class,

all of a sudden,
everything goes out the window

and he is the most important thing
in the room.

And that's very clever, because that
is what creates the comic situation.

Would you put both your names,
please?

Well, would you give me a date?

I only use one.

You don't have a first name?

No, I'm Lord Melbury,
so I simply sign "Melbury".

Go away.

I'm so sorry to have
kept you waiting, your Lordship.

I do apologise.
Please do accept my forgiveness.

Now, is there something...

something, anything,
that I can do for you? Anything?

Almost the moment that John Cleese
starts to ingratiate himself

with anyone in any of the episodes,

we almost automatically know
that he's been taken in.

There's a facile nature
to Basil Fawlty

that means that those
he will be impressed by

are more often than not
those that will screw him.

Indeed, Melbury is a conman,
and Basil is appalled

when Sybil opens the safe
to check the bogus Lord's valuables,

which leads
to one of the funniest reveals

in sitcom history.

There's a couple of moments where
Fawlty can't handle what's happened.

He doesn't do a sort of immediate...
immediate action

and then just...
casually sniffs them.

I think that...
I mean, that's a skill John has.

He looks at them
and then he shakes them by his ear.

He's able to play

at a very, very sort of
almost stationary, minimal level.

And the next moment,
he's gone completely mad.

How are you, then?

All right, mate?

How's me old mucker?

Any valuables to deposit,
Sir Richard? Any bricks, or...

I do apologise.

You bastard!

The moment he realises that,
in fact,

he's taken himself for a ride,

his anger will immediately be spent
through slapstick.

It flows out of him.

Yet again, he's got it wrong.

And it's the class system and,
you know, these wonderful...

I think he still believes,

though he's a conman,
he's Lord so-and-so.

He still wants to believe that.

CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

One of Basil's schemes to put
Fawlty Towers on the social map

is to serve haute cuisine
to Torquay's high society.

Cordon bleu was everywhere,

so we pick up
those old 1970s cookbooks,

and you see
these ridiculous shanks of lamb

decorated to look like a nose,
or whatever it was,

and glace cherries and pieces
of pineapple thrown everywhere.

In the episode Gourmet Night,

Basil's bright idea
is to attract Torquay's social elite

to sample the culinary delights
of Fawlty Towers,

which naturally ends
in unmitigated disaster.

The beauty of Gourmet
is that right at the beginning,

we know that his car is playing up,

so the audience instantly knows

that there's gonna be a problem
with the car.

Just pull yourself together,
all right?

Make an effort!

'The car is one of Basil's enemies.'

You know, it's joined all the people
who work in the hotel

as another thing
that is out to get Basil.

The tension is ratcheted up
for the viewers,

and as one catastrophe
follows another,

Basil is forced to race across town

to fetch gourmet meals
for his guests.

And at the very pinnacle
of this "high" drama,

the inevitable happens.

Come on!

And then you have him
beating up the car

in that classic, classic,
classic scene

that everybody remembers.

I'm gonna give you
a damn good thrashing!

It's a magnificent moment -

the way it's shot,
the timing, the performance.

We know it's ridiculous
what he's doing,

that a man's thrashing his car,
but we've all been there.

My first car was a Morris Marina
and broke down all the time,

and I was like, "I'm gonna
beat the shit out of my car!"

SHE LAUGHS

And he does it for you.
It's brilliant.

After frantically running back
with the gourmet meal,

Basil finally
gets to present the posh nosh,

but in typical Fawlty style,
the tension builds,

making the comic reveal

even more excruciatingly intense
for the viewer.

And he looks, and it's not duck,
it's some sort of trifle.

He puts it down again,

and then he lifts it off
as if it would've changed.

It's the most painful episode
to watch,

and comedy
sometimes has to be painful.

Duck's off. Sorry.

It's a perfect half hour of comedy.

While Basil had nothing but contempt
for anyone beneath him,

his most acerbic comments,
and often the most imaginative

and witty when it came
to sticking the knife in,

were aimed in the direction
of his wife, Sybil.

What are you on about?

I wish you would help a bit.
You're always refurbishing yourself.

What?
Oh, never mind. Never mind!

Don't shout at me.
I've had a difficult morning.

Oh, dear, what happened?

Did you get entangled
in the eiderdown again, hm?

Not enough cream in your eclair?

Or did you have to talk to
all your friends for so long

you didn't have time
to perm your ears?

'How he and Sybil got together,
I don't really know.'

Nor does he seem to, either.

Pre-Fawlty Towers,
Prunella Scales had appeared

in everything
from sitcoms to Greek tragedies,

and even had a stint
as a bus conductress

in Corrie in 1962.

When she was offered the role,
from a shortlist of 15,

Scales wanted to explore
who Sybil really was.

Prunella Scales,
being the wonderful professional,

went off and invented a tale

of her being
sort of lower middle class

and seeing Cleese
as this sort of authority figure

and quite upper class.

And having aspirations
to run a restaurant or hotel

and seeing the possibility
with Basil,

and love sparkled,
and everything else.

So that's why Prunella Scales
as Sybil

comes across as so reasonable.

She's got that idea in her head
that they loved each other once.

But when it came
to running the hotel,

Sybil was clearly the boss,

ruling with caustic authority
and biting sarcasm,

dished out in perfectly timed,
pithy one-liners.

Look, I was here first.
Well, it's my turn now, then.

I fought in the Korean War,
you know.

I killed four men.

He was in the catering corps.
He used to poison them.

Basil is fearful of Sybil.
That's the key thing, is fear.

The dread that she'll find out

that he's bet on the horse,
Dragonfly.

If I find out the money
on that horse was yours,

you know what I'll do, Basil.

You'll have to sew 'em
back on first!

There's a guy
who's been thoroughly emasculated,

and he... she's policing him,

so he genuinely worries
about her reaction to things.

In the episode
where the Australian girl shows up,

you can actually see elements of,
"Hang on a minute.

"I may not be able to stand Basil,
but he's mine,

"and you need to know
that he's mine."

So, the dynamics
were really cleverly put together.

I just popped in
to have a look at these hinges.

You know, the ones we've...

Do you really imagine,
even in your wildest dreams,

that a girl like this
could possibly be interested

in an ageing,
brilliantined stick insect like you?

So, it's lovely when

something kind of happens
where a character does something

a little bit unusual
and shows a quality, like jealousy,

that you didn't think
would actually be there.

With his own sex life
seemingly non-existent...

It sort of comes across
in his frustration

with everything that happens.

I mean, you can tell
that he's not getting a lot of it.

..Basil's Victorian values ensure
when an unmarried couple check in,

he's morally outraged.

Now, what's going on here?

Well, I can't give you
a double room, then.

Oh, look...
It's against the law.

What law?
The law of England.

Nothing to do with me.

"Nothing to do with you"?
Nothing at all.

I can give you two singles,
if you like...

You get the idea
that this guy's such a prude

because he's
so sexually frustrated himself,

so he becomes
quite sort of puritanical,

where it suits him.

In contrast to Basil was Mr Johnson,

the faux-Mediterranean,
leather-trousered medallion man

played by Nicky Henson.

That wonderful scene
with Nicky Henson,

as the sort of swinger character,

who Basil thinks of
as a kind of throwback,

you know,
a kind of evolutionary throwback.

He makes jokes about him being
a Neanderthal or a caveman,

so that shows his snobbery,

but what he's really showing
is his envy.

Are you dining here tonight,
here in this unfashionable dump?

Well, I wasn't planning to.

No, not really your scene, is it?

I thought I'd try Italian.
Anywhere you'd recommend?

Oh, what sort of food
were you thinking of? Fruit, or...?

Erm, anywhere they do French food?

Yes, France, I believe.
They seem to like it there.

He does those ape noises,

and it's really an argument
about virility

and Basil's fear
of sexual inadequacy.

Good evening.
Good evening.

Oh, that's a lot better.

Nicky Henson, kind of the opposite
of John Cleese - you know,

a sexually potent man
who enjoys his life and is cool.

He's the anti-Basil.

It might help
to think of Basil as a man

who never quite had his chance

of participating
in the sexual revolution,

because nobody asked him, really.

To be honest,
it wouldn't be much fun

having sex with Basil Fawlty.

Fawlty Towers has become synonymous

with appalling standards,
poor service and chaotic situations,

and while Basil Fawlty
was usually the one responsible,

things were only made worse

by lovable but totally inept
Spanish waiter Manuel.

The two of them together
producing some of the most painful

and hilarious scenes
in sitcom history.

Get a clean one.
It's clean now!

"He's from Barcelona" -
his wonderful three words

which just, you know,
come up so often.

"He's all right. He's all right.
He's from Barcelona."

To me,
it's a quite strong observation

on the attitudes
of someone like that -

post-war era, post-imperial,

still dreams we're
the greatest country in the world,

how their attitude was
to foreigners.

Oh!
What are you doing?!

I'm so sorry. He's from Barcelona.

'Nobody understands Basil.
His wife doesn't understand him.'

And yet he's forced to communicate

with someone
who can't speak English.

There is too much butter
on those trays.

No! No, no, senor.
What?

Not, "on, those, trays."

No, sir. Uno, dos, tres.

Making him not understand English
was a masterstroke

because then you can go
straight into physical comedy.

Clean...
Clean.

..the windows.

Argh!

Morning, Fawlty.
Morning, Major.

The window, see.
Look, clean the windows.

Ah! Si, comprende,
comprende, comprende.

To see them rehearsing together,

you could just see them
sparking off each other,

inspiring one another.

I think one of the things
about John Cleese

and Andrew Sachs together
is it does have...

it has the violence

of great silent-movie
and early-sound slapstick.

Come here.
Eh?

You're a waste of space.
Oh!

Every time a spoon hits a head,

you can feel it.

They are
the ultimate comedy double act,

if you think about it,
and unfortunately,

because they're in a sitcom,

they don't get,
you know, pulled out like that,

but that is what they are.

You could just imagine
Abbott and Costello

or Laurel and Hardy
doing exactly those set pieces.

Manuel, let me explain.

Argh!

You've got two brilliant
physical-comedy performers

doing this
absolutely ridiculous stuff.

And he grabs Andrew Sachs,
smashes his head against the wall.

MANUEL SQUEALS

I mean, we can see
that it's not a real wall,

but who cares?

The violence to Manuel
is incredible,

and these days,
you'd get cancelled for that.

If you look
at the old silent movies,

which I know John Cleese
was a massive fan of,

there's a lot
of really hard-hitting stuff

because that's what got
the bigger laughs.

You know, when the person fell,
they really fell on their backside.

If they climbed or were hit
on the back of the head by a ladder,

it really looked
like they were hit hard,

so it needed that,

and that creates
that kind of manic energy.

In one scene,
mistaking Manuel for a burglar,

Basil grabs for a weapon,

but as you can hear,
as he hits him across the head...

Oh!

..the pan was real.

Famously, properly hurt him

because he hit him
around the head with a saucepan.

I mean, that... that was real.
He wasn't given a prop saucepan.

That was a real saucepan,

and he bashed him
round the head with it.

One of the really good things
about Fawlty Towers,

you watch that and you do know,
"Yes, that actually did hurt."

It is crazy.
Talk about suffering for your art.

In the Fawlty dysfunctional family,
the one calm head was Polly,

the long-term waitress-cum-maid
-cum-problem-solver.

Polly is an art student,
who they have fortuitously hired.

She is the only person
on the premises

who actually has a scrap of sense
and knows what she's doing.

Connie, both as the character
she played and the way she wrote it,

softened it up a bit.

One good thing
about actors who write

is that they always give themselves
a decent part,

and it's often forgotten

that this is a John Cleese
and Connie Booth writing credit.

That makes it fantastic
because Connie Booth as Polly

is one of the great
supporting characters.

What's that smell?

Flowers.
I just got them from the garden.

What are you stinking
the place out with those for?

What's happened to the plastic ones?

They're being ironed (!)

Connie Booth, who never,

as far as I'm concerned,
gets enough praise,

she takes
the one real piece of sanity

that exists in Fawlty Towers,

which of course is not...
comedically, is not rewarding,

but is necessary,
because if everyone was mad,

then the thing becomes overwhelming.

Often, Sybil is in between them,

and poor Polly has been roped in
to whatever crazy scheme

that Basil has come up with in order
to get himself out of trouble.

When Polly is interrogated by Sybil
for having a wad of cash,

her quick wit allows her to decipher
Basil's over-the-top charade

so she can pretend
she'd won it on a horse.

No, not fish! Small!

Fly! Fly!

Flying Tart!

No! No, no!
It got off to a flying START,

and its name...

..was Dragonfly.

Thank you, Polly.

She would put herself
on the line for him, and no-one...

You don't know why, really.

It's the mutual respect
of the two creators, the actors,

the writers, into those characters.

And it shows that there's a woman

doing the writing on this show
as well as John Cleese,

because men write women quite badly.

Virtually every female character
is either a dragon

or she's a girl being all flirty
and all... you know, being all sexy,

and there was a chance
that Polly could have been that,

and she isn't.

And in contrast to the off-screen
husband-and-wife relationship,

on screen, Basil treats Polly

as a cynical father
would treat a daughter.

Yes? A single for tonight, is it?

Mr Fawlty,
may I introduce Richard Turner.

I'm sorry?
He's a friend of mine.

Oh, you know each other, do you?

'He never flirts with her at all.'

I think cos they were married
in real life.

You can't write the characters
to have a flirtation,

then it takes over the whole thing.

But one brief hint
of their home life

did slip into one scene,

when Basil does an impression
of the English maid

using Connie Booth's
native North American accent.

He does an impression of Polly,

but he doesn't do
an impression of Polly,

he does an impression
of Connie Booth.

Don't play dumb with me.
I trusted you.

You're responsible for this.

Oh, I've got a friend

who'll look after him, Mr Fawlty!

I often wonder
whether he just accidentally slipped

into being John Cleese
in that moment, but it's lovely.

In the 1970s,
the service in British hotels

was far more basic than it is today.

You used to go into these hotels

and smell the cabbage
burning downstairs, you know.

I mean, it was just awful.

However, in the US,
it was a very different story.

New York has more hotel rooms

than some countries have people.

If you want to settle for the best,

you'll find the hotel
is a self-contained city.

'Americans had the best hotels,
the best service industries.'

Everything was so professional
and slick.

To highlight the contrast
between the two service industries,

Cleese and Booth
created Mr and Mrs Hamilton -

a brash, no-nonsense Yank
and English wife,

whose requests
are highly incompatible

with the way things
are usually run at Fawlty Towers.

Thank you. Do we need
to reserve a table for dinner?

Dinner?
Yes.

Problem?

Well, it is after nine.
So?

Well,
we do actually stop serving at nine.

Nine?
Well, if you could go straight in...

We've just driven five hours
to get here!

We'd like to freshen up,

maybe have a drink first,
you know?

Yes.
You couldn't do that afterwards?

Do what?
Well...

Have our drink-before-dinner
after dinner,

freshen up and go to bed?

Well, if you could,
it would make things easier for us.

Shall we go to bed now?
Would that make it easier for you?

Temper-wise, they're both
like powder barrels ready to go off,

and I think
that's where the great comedy

in that episode lies.

Carrying the flag
for the American service industry

was Bruce Boa,
who would go on to star

in The Empire Strikes Back
and Full Metal Jacket.

You know exactly what sort
of character you're going to get

from Bruce Boa,
and he plays it with such anger

and aggressiveness.

How much of this Mickey Mouse money
do you want

to keep the chef on
for half an hour?

One, two, three, £20, huh?
That enough?

I'll see what I can do.
Thank you.

And, of course, Terry, the chef,

he's not sticking around, he's gone.

Basil now has to
make a Waldorf salad

without knowing
what a Waldorf salad is.

And a hilarious opportunity
to show off his masterful ignorance

when it comes to
international cuisine.

Could you make me a Waldorf salad?

Oh, er... A Wal...

Waldorf salad.

Well, I think
we're just out of Waldorfs.

LAUGHTER

I do remember one day

John Cleese
coming over to the rest of us,

sitting, and saying,

"Isn't he just brilliant?"

Because he was so impressed with

the seriousness
of the way he did it.

Well, that was what made it
so funny.

Playing it straight
as the angry American,

Bruce Boa is in perfect contrast

to the manic performance
Cleese gives

in trying to convince the guests
the chef they paid for

is still in the kitchen.

I was making another Waldorf...

Making another Waldorf salad?!

What are you making
another Waldorf salad for?

Careful, Mr Fawlty,
I'm only a little fella!

What do you think
Mr and Mrs Hamilton must think...?

LAUGHTER

Mr Hamilton,
may I introduce Terry Hu...

LAUGHTER

Where did he go?

The non-existent chef is one of
the funniest things ever, I think,

and particularly
when he's caught midway, when the...

Mr Hamilton comes in and...

I thought the double-take that
John Cleese did there was brilliant.

There are these moments
when somebody who was less snobbish

and less concerned with status
than Basil

would admit
that there was some problem,

but it's already
clearly established,

we know
that Basil just can't do that.

He simply can't do that.

He has to keep going
along these paths

until he has got
to this almost psychotic space.

And it ends with him...

He's got all the guests around him,

and, you know,
he's getting some of them to say,

"No, we're happy with the service,
perfectly happy with the service,"

but then
it very quickly turns around,

and everyone just starts listing off

all the things
that have gone terribly wrong.

I'm not satisfied.
No, we're not satisfied.

Well, people like you never are,
are you?

What?
What?

The British don't complain.

We're scared of complaining,
we don't want to make a fuss,

and we don't wanna cause
any offence.

It takes an American

to start British people
to start going,

"Actually, no, I'm not satisfied,"
and actually standing up to him.

And it's like he's opened a valve.

And then you have
this most extraordinary outburst

from Basil Fawlty.

Have you any idea
of how much there is to do?

Do you ever think of that?
Of course not!

You're too busy sticking your noses
into every corner,

poking about for things
to complain about, aren't you?

Well, let me tell you something!

This is EXACTLY
how Nazi Germany started.

A lot of layabouts
with nothing better to do!

Again, it's just a perfect example
of how Basil Fawlty

shouldn't be
anywhere near hospitality.

Basil, you feel, should've perhaps
been in a monastery,

just somewhere
where he could have a wooden board

and bang his head against it
a few times.

Welcome back

to our unauthorised celebration
of Fawlty Towers.

12 perfectly crafted comedy farces,

each of the plots
is masterfully written

to weave
increasingly manic behaviour

through scenes of escalating chaos,

which drive viewers to hysterics
and Basil to hysteria.

Where is the key?
I mean, would you believe it?

I mean, would you believe it?

The first time we've ever had a fire
here in this hotel,

and somebody's lost the key!

I mean, isn't that typical
of this place?

Oh, thank you, God (!)
Thank you so bloody much!

LAUGHTER

I'd love to have got
into Cleese's head

when he and Connie were writing this

cos how did they keep that all
up there?

Every script was like a Bible.
I mean, it was so thick.

Allegedly
three or four times thicker

than any other half-hour script.

It's absolutely mind-blowing

that they were allowed to rock up
with 135 to 140-page scripts.

That's longer than a film.

I've worked with John long enough

to know that he goes over things
again and again

to work out why it's funny,
how he can make it more funny.

It's almost like he has a kind of,
in his head,

a pattern, a thesis, almost,
of how he wants to play it.

And that worked so well
in Fawlty Towers.

It actually produced
this wonderfully choreographed...

piece of madness.

Long, intricate and perfectly timed
physical setpieces

were integral to keeping up the pace
and developing the plot.

Basil?
Ah!

LAUGHTER

Look what you've done,
you stupid great tart!

Wait a minute.
What?

I think it'll be all right.
Yes.

Yes, you're right. Argh!

LAUGHTER

Look! Look at it!

Look at it! I mean, look at that!

Can I help, dear?
Yes! Go and kill yourself.

The thing about Fawlty Towers
is it's constructed like a farce,

like a stage play,

which makes it different
to almost every other sitcom.

John obviously understood farce.

It's all about timing.

Farce is something
which you can really pin down

where the laughs are gonna come,
exactly how they're going to come,

what move is going
to provoke the laughter.

When one of the guests dies,

Basil, Polly and Manuel
spend most of the episode

trying to hide the body,

often using comical,
if unorthodox, methods

to keep it under wraps.

Murder! Murder!
Slap her! Slap her!

AUDIENCE EXCLAIMS,
LAUGHS

Oh, spiffing. Absolutely spiffing.

Well done.

Two dead, 25 to go.

LAUGHTER

Farce is different
to other kinds of comedy

because it has very strong rules.

Lots of deception.

Generally, it's based on
someone trying to hide something.

There's confusion,
mostly about identity.

Mistaking somebody
for somebody else,

that's a big part of Fawlty Towers.

When friends of the deceased guest,
Mr Leeman, arrive,

with him now in the laundry basket,

Basil believes, at first,
they are the coroners.

And Polly has to save him
with an inspired piece of wordplay.

Oh, I see! Mr Leeman!

Yes.

We thought you said "the linen".
Brilliant!

Sorry, sorry. That's it.

That's how farce works, you know.

It's a series of misunderstandings,

and then you have this kind of
comical build-up, like a drum roll.

Not only of the verbal jokes,

but the physical slapstick comedy
as well,

to have this big climax
at the end of the episodes.

Could I get my hat?

Your hat?
Yes.

It's just there.
Yes, I'll have it sent on.

What? Do you have
a card with your address?

I'll send it on.

Well, could I just get it?
Well...

But do you have to have it now?

The beauty of great farce
is that you still want the people,

however broken, strange
and odd they are,

you still want them to succeed.

The episode Basil The Rat

is another near-perfect example
of farce.

Seeds of the chaos to follow
are cleverly planted

with the introduction
of what appears to be

a new guest in the kitchen.

Er, shall I get you the wine list?

Mr Fawlty? "Mister?"
Oh, please, call me waiter.

Look, I'll go and get a chair,
and then you can really tuck in.

There's some stuff in the bin
you might like.

Potato peelings, cold rice pudding,
that sort of thing.

Not exactly haute cuisine,

but it'll certainly help
to fill you up.

Ah, Sybil,
may I introduce the gentleman

who's just opened
the self-service department here?

It transpires that he has come
to check the environmental health.

To have a health inspector arrive...

SHE SNEEZES

..was going to create

wonderful tension
and wonderful humour.

For most sitcoms,

a health inspection would be
all you needed to drive the plot.

But Cleese and Booth
cleverly created a situation

where Manuel's pet,

a Siberian hamster/rat,
was loose in the hotel,

providing
ingenious new opportunities

for bedlam, Fawlty-style.

..to be getting on with.

God! What was that?

Bloody television exploding again!

I'll deal with it, you go upstairs.

That was a gun!

Yes, it did sound like it,
didn't it?

LAUGHTER

Moths.
What is going on here?

It's agony cos it's like
a guided missile, this rat.

He's gonna have
a health inspector there

and a rat there,
and they're gonna meet,

and it's gonna kill Fawlty again.

It's beautiful,
the way it's written.

The audience are in on the secret,

so the constant high-level risk
of the rodent being discovered

escalates the tension
for the viewers.

And when a real rat was used
in the studio,

also for a certain member
of the cast.

'I remember during rehearsals...'

Do you mind?

Que?

..John saying, "Now, when we do
the scene with the rat,

"it will be a real rat."

And I said,
"Oh, right. I'm not good..."

I was even frightened
of my own hamster, to be honest,

once it got let out of a cage.

John Cleese very kindly said,
"I will come in the night before,

"we will have a closed studio,

"and I will sit opposite
the table where you're sitting,

"and I will tell you funny stories.

"And that will distract you."

With the rat in Quentina's handbag

and a health inspector
only feet away,

Basil is desperate
to catch the rodent.

What ARE you doing?
What?

He had his hand in my bag.

Once again,
it's Polly's quick thinking

which saves the situation,

coming up with a reason
to go through the bag.

Bomb scare!
What?

As always, salvation is temporary.

Amazing physical comedy,

that moment where Fawlty
reaches into the woman's handbag

and is attacked by the rat.

And then it jumps out.

LAUGHTER

It's just amazing!

..blue, Edam?

And as is typical for farce,

the two elements, which have been
expertly kept apart till now,

one health inspector and one rat,

are dramatically
brought face-to-face -

to brilliant comic effect.

LAUGHTER

W-Would you care for rat, or...?

LAUGHTER

And there's sort of
a perfect ending.

We have
the environmental health officer,

who is in absolute shock,

Sybil sort of making a reference
to the weather.

I'm afraid
it's started to rain again.

LAUGHTER

And Manuel just slowly drags Basil,

who is out for the count,
just on the floor,

across the back of shot.

He has a sort of breakdown,

and that's the ultimate breakdown,
the final breakdown.

But Fawlty Towers
wasn't Cleese and Booth's

first foray into farce.

In an exquisite and rarely seen
short film made in 1974,

they starred together
in an adaptation

of Anton Chekhov's short story
Romance With A Double Bass.

When you first start watching it,

you just think,
"Where is this gonna go?"

And the minute you see, you know,
that John Cleese goes for a swim,

you know something's gonna go wrong.

As a treat for Fawlty fans,

this hasn't been seen on British TV
for more than 30 years

and has the striking image

of Cleese swimming naked
but for a top hat,

followed by Booth's character
disrobing,

before it quickly descends
into farce.

A man turns up.

He steals her clothes,
steals his clothes,

and the rest of the movie
is the two of them naked,

Connie and John.

'How are they doing this?
This is outrageous!'

Booth's character, an aristocrat,
is due back at the palace

to meet her fiance
at her engagement ball,

while the naked Cleese, a musician
booked to play at the party,

tries to smuggle her in
inside his double bass case.

Why did you leave me
without permission?

Er, to collect my instrument,
dear lady.

John Cleese is, again,
trying to maintain

both some form
of surreptitious behaviour

and, at the same time, dignity.

There's all sorts of elements
thrown into it,

with this wonderful sort of
Cleese and Connie Booth...

..good-natured Englishness
about it, somehow.

Even though it's based
on a Russian short story.

It's a joy.

There was quite a chill in the air
this morning.

Yes, there was. Yes.

I didn't think that
it would turn out quite so warm.

It's naked laughter with Chekhov,

but what's really interesting
about it is that

that's the place
where the Fawlty Towers troupe

kind of came together
for the first time.

Andrew Sachs
has got a small role in it.

Smychkov?

Smychkov?

Smychkov?

In an accent most Fawlty Towers fans
wouldn't recognise,

the Sachs character helps Cleese
with his double bass case

to smuggle Booth
back into the palace.

Come on,
you'll be late for rehearsal.

Yes. Right.

One of the things, I think,
that also informs great farce

is when the audience themselves,
they know the secret.

The person who is
right in the middle of the farce,

they are carrying the secret
with them,

and those around
have no knowledge whatsoever.

It's the perfect way of doing it.

No, don't.
That's all right.

No, don't bother. Please don't.

You'd do the same for us.

No, I wouldn't.
Course you would!

Leave it!

I'd never help you. Never!

It is the...

cutest little film,
and I insist everyone watches it.

Cleese and Booth
were such a comedic tour de force,

even their divorce,

during the four years it took
to write the second series,

couldn't knock them
off their creative stride.

This really speaks to
the depth of the relationship

between these two people, right?

The idea that, yeah, we might not
be able to live together,

but there's enough respect there,
there's enough goodwill,

there's enough ability
to see each other for what we are,

not what we're not,
that we can still work together.

And I think
that's got to be very rare.

But on screen,
it was business as usual.

The breathtakingly witty scripts
delivered by the cast

with impeccable comic timing.

Going to have a flutter, Fawlty?

No, no, no, no, no.

No, Basil doesn't bet any more,
Major.

Do you, dear?
No, I don't, dear, no.

No, that particular
avenue of pleasure

has been closed off for me.

LAUGHTER

And we don't want it
opened up again, do we, Basil?

No, you don't, dear. No.

You can watch an episode
and not know

whether it's from series one or two,

and with such a long gap,
that's extraordinary.

In the studio records,

John Cleese's ability
as a live performer

is caught on these rare outtakes,

as he improvises
by pulling funny faces

to keep the audience entertained
in between takes.

Oh, don't be ridiculous, Basil.

It was very obvious that
John Cleese spent a lot of the time

keeping the audience
sort of at that fever pitch

that he needed them to be

for when they were actually
doing the filming.

And so he's doing
a lot of gurning,

a lot of silly-face-pulling,

and the audience
are clearly absolutely loving it.

And there's a wonderful moment
when Sybil slams a door...

DOOR SLAMS

Even the rickety set
got Cleese's magic comedy touch.

John Cleese, the comedy mind
instantly working,

with the whole psychiatry sort of
subtext of that particular episode,

tapping the set

and adding to that
sort of comedic value to it.

That's the sign
of a true comic genius,

where you react
to something unexpected

and get an even bigger laugh
out of it.

In the actual take,

BBC director Bob Spiers
comes up with an elegant solution

to the wobbly set issue.

Is that so strange?

Will you stop hitting me?!
Get away from this door,

and don't you dare
try and come in here tonight!

They pan in...

..to John Cleese for a close-up,

and then the audience have
this fantastic reaction of,

"Oh, that's clever,
that's absolutely wonderful."

But again, you wouldn't know that
if you haven't seen the outtake.

Another joke viewers at home
may not have been aware of

came at the expense of the former
Private Eye editor Richard Ingrams.

Richard Ingrams,
brilliant journalist and curmudgeon,

professional curmudgeon
shall we call him,

was quite negative,
or shall we say very negative,

about Fawlty Towers,
and John Cleese in particular.

During the frantic-paced action

trying to hide the dead body
of a guest in one scene,

a brief appearance
of an unsavoury character

was an open goal
for Cleese to get even.

Oh, sorry!
Sorry, coming in like that. Sorry!

They burst into a room
and there's a hotel guest

with an inflatable blow-up doll,

and he's called Mr Ingrams.

And that was his little revenge
on Richard Ingrams,

and how delicious it was.

He's always got form with that.

I mean, a lot of the characters,
I think,

were based on people who might have
crossed John in the past.

Welcome back
to our unauthorised celebration

of Fawlty Towers,
a hotel where owners and staff

conform to
the well-established sitcom rule

that each of the main cast should
represent a member of a family.

We've got Manuel,
who is the little boy, the toddler,

and then you've got Dad,
of course, John Cleese.

Since coming here from Spain,
leaving my mother...

Outside.
Que?

Outside. Thank you.

Sybil is the kind of
scary matriarch.

Polly is the sensible daughter.

And the extended family
could be said to stretch

to two doddery old
resident matriarchs

who'd be occasionally seen
mithering over Basil.

Oh, well, have a lovely weekend!

And don't do anything
we wouldn't do.

Oh, just a little breathing, surely.

What's funny is that
they regard Fawlty as their son,

slightly wayward son.

So they'll always clamp onto him
just when he's really, really busy.

And in the naming of the spinsters,
Miss Tibbs,

who I'm sure is named after a film
called They Call Me Mr Tibbs,

a violent Blaxploitation film
of that era,

and Miss Gatsby,
named after The Great Gatsby.

Just bizarre.

It really reminds us, doesn't it,

of a kind of chintzy bygone age
in the UK,

where, post-war,

something you would do
if you needed care

is you'd go and just become
resident in a hotel.

I mean, it's unthinkable now
that people would do that,

it'd be just be too expensive.

But back in the day,
hotels had long-term residents

who were basically
using them as care homes.

The longest serving resident
was the Major,

a befuddled ex-military man
from a bygone era

played expertly
by the sprightly Ballard Berkeley.

Do you, er, need any help, Major?
Don't move!

We think of Ballard Berkeley as
this kind of crusty old character.

He'd been a handsome,
romantic leading man in the 1930s.

Go and find a photograph of him
when he was young,

he was rather dashing.

Having worked with Alfred Hitchcock,
David Lean and Noel Coward,

Berkeley's pedigree
ensured a composed performance.

Even when he is mistakenly
doused with a cup of tea.

What on Earth
do you think you're doing?!

I'll look for the missing £10
immediately, Mrs Richards.

Where exactly did you find it,
Major?

In my pocket!

The Major is, in a way,
Basil's only friend.

And the Major represents, yes,

this sort of world which
Basil wishes Britain was still in.

You know, a kind of
rather pleasant imperial stupor,

where everyone was jolly decent
to each other.

Booth and Cleese were generous in
giving all characters funny lines,

and Berkeley gives
a masterclass of bonhomie

undercut with
a savage sense of humour.

Couldn't do without her, Major.

She's a fine woman, Mrs Fawlty.

No, no, I wouldn't say that.

No, nor would I.

There's a brilliant bit
where the Major starts talking

to the moose's head
cos he can hear Manuel's voice.

Absolutely brilliant portrayal

of a man who is not just
an old fuddy-duddy,

but is actually insane.

I can speak English!

Oh, hello, Major! How are you today?

I-I-I-I'm fine, thank you.

It's a beautiful day today!

They're very clever, the characters,
cos we feel like we know them.

Cleese and Connie
have drawn them so clearly

that they are a perfect vessel
for the plot.

When Brian Hall
joined the Fawlty family

in series two as Chef Terry,
he was playing catch-up,

and wanted some background
on his character.

There's some lovely
pieces of direction.

Terry, the chef,
he said to John Cleese,

"Can you tell me
a bit more about my character?"

And he said, "Well, just play him
like he was wanted by the police."

And if you watch that,

he's always a bit twitchy
and looking over his shoulder.

And that's a brilliant note.

Terry, this kitchen is filthy!

Filthy Towers, eh?
Now, look!

Look, all kitchens are filthy,
Mr Fawlty.

In fact, the better the kitchen,
the filthier it is.

You can see how
he might have run away

from some crime in London
and be hiding out in Torquay.

As well as the regulars,
the Fawlty Towers guest book

contained an illustrious list
of famous names.

You've got people like Ken Campbell,
who's fantastic in it.

It's almost like real life.
He's goading John Cleese,

he's saying, "I'm from the world
of left-wing improvised theatre,

"and I'm gonna take the piss out of
John Cleese for half an hour."

We're thinking of having this room
done up, as a matter of fact.

Really? A sort of Captain's cabin,
a couple of charts on the wall,

few ropes, wheel in the corner,
that sort of thing.

Yeah, give it a bit of class (!)

You had Una Stubbs go through it,

you had Bernard Cribbins,
you had Geoffrey Palmer.

Geoffrey Palmer as the doctor
in The Kipper And The Corpse,

wonderful, hound dog,
sure hand sitcom actor

that you know exactly what sort of
performance he's going to give,

he gives it impeccably every time.

I'm sitting here.
It's not lunch till 12...

I'm still having breakfast!
It's finished.

All gone. Breakfast, kaput.

I'm having sausages.

It's not allowed.
Put that back.

Look, I'm a doctor.
I'm a doctor and I want my sausages.

I tell you it's finished.

Bye-bye. Please, bye-bye.

Everyone loves Bernard Cribbins.

It's a beautiful thing
when you watch someone like that

playing a part that you don't
think of as a Bernard Cribbins part.

Because Bernard Cribbins wasn't
normally that kind of, you know,

"What an annoying man!"

This afternoon,
I have to visit the town

for sundry purposes which would be
of no interest of you,

I'm quite sure, but nevertheless,
I shall require your aid

in getting for me
some sort of transport,

some hired vehicle that is to get me
to my first port of call.

You all right?
Oh, yes.

Yes, I find the air here
most invigorating.

I see. Well, did I gather
from your first announcement

that you want a taxi?
In a nutshell.

Case, more like.

He dominates everything,
so he comes in

and, you know,
he's easily as good as Cleese.

One of the most memorable
guest spots

was the indomitable Joan Sanderson

as hard-of-hearing battle-axe
Mrs Richards.

You call that a bath?

It's not big enough
to drown a mouse.

It's disgraceful.

I wish you were a mouse.

Joan Sanderson had that voice
that pierced anything.

It was almost like you were dealing
with your headmistress all the time.

She always played these really sort
of hatchet-faced, you know, moaners.

When I pay for a view,

I expect something
more interesting than that.

That is Torquay, madam.

Well, it's not good enough.

Well, may I ask
what you were expecting to see

out of a Torquay
hotel bedroom window?

Sydney Opera House, perhaps?

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

Herds of wildebeest
sweeping majestically...

Don't be silly.
I expect to be able to see the sea.

You CAN see the sea.

It's over there,
between the land and the sky.

She just really carries that show.

And, of course,
plays off him brilliantly.

Despite its brilliance,
by 21st century standards,

some of the portrayals
of foreign characters

can be seen as stereotypical,
outdated,

and wouldn't pass muster today.

There is a slight shadow
that has to be discussed

whenever you talk about
Fawlty Towers,

and to be fair,
not just Fawlty Towers,

lots of sitcoms in the '70s,

and that's sort of
the issue of racism.

If you look at it
in a really simple way,

I think it's true that
there are a lot of victims.

So, obviously, Manuel,
who's Spanish.

And then the Irish builder.

Builder O'Reilly was subject to

a remarkably damning diatribe
from Sybil,

redolent of Irish jokes
typical at the time.

He's shoddy, he doesn't care,

he's a liar, he's incompetent,
he's lazy.

He's nothing
but a half-witted, thick Irish joke!

Oh, hello, O'Reilly!

Oh, funny, we were just
talking about you,

and then we got onto another
Irish builder we used to know.

Oh, God, he was AWFUL!

O'Reilly is someone who's walked
into this absolute hornet's nest

without a clue
about what's happening here.

And there's a barbed comment
about the sexuality of Greeks

after Chef Kurt
tries to kiss Manuel.

I know, I should never have hired
a Frenchman.

He's Greek, Mr Fawlty.
Greek?!

Of course!
That's even worse, they invented it.

I can't think of many gay characters
that were in 1970s sitcoms,

and actually,
even though he's got drunk

because he's miserable
because Manuel doesn't love him,

he's not being laughed at
because he's gay.

He is a real gay man,
he's not a caricature of a gay man,

and that's quite an advance.

The most uncomfortable one

is where he seems
to not trust the doctor

because the doctor is Black.

He's come out,
"Argh! It's a Black guy!"

Mr Fawlty.

Yes, sir.
Dr Finn.

Ah! Oh, how do you do, Doctor?

Once he knew what he was doing,
there was no resistance, was there?

That would have been really obvious.

"I don't want you putting
your Black hands on my wife."

It's obvious, it's horrible,
it's nasty, it's pernicious,

it's all of those things.

The shock of it is real.

It's one of those things
where you go,

you're laughing at
the British person being an idiot,

because he is being rude

to the people
from outside of the country.

So it's a very fine line to walk.

Undoubtedly, the most infamous
incidents of dodgy race relations

occurs when a party of Germans
descends upon Torquay.

It's only 30 years after the war
this episode was made.

For that generation,
the war looms large.

To play with that
and to be that outrageous about it

is really edgy.

Still concussed

after a fire extinguisher
exploded in his face,

Basil is determined
not to say the wrong thing.

Oh, we weren't expecting you.
Oh, weren't you?

They're Germans,
don't mention the war.

I see.

It's an early example of the awkward
humour that Ricky Gervais does.

The whole
"don't mention the war" thing,

it's just a horrible bomb
waiting to go off.

Now, would you like to eat first,

would you like a drink
before the war...ning

that trespassers will be tied up
with piano wire...

Sorry! Sorry!

It's the fact that he doesn't just
realise his error fairly quickly,

he compounds it
and goes on and on about it,

and it gets worse and worse.

Is there something wrong?

Would you stop
talking about the war?

Me? You started it!
We did not start it!

Yes, you did, you invaded Poland.

It is dangerous territory,

but at the time,
it was brilliantly funny,

and it's because, actually,

all credit due to the actors
playing the Germans.

You watch it and you think,

"That is going to end
in something completely grotesque."

So, and, yeah, there it is,

it ends in something
completely grotesque.

Who's this, then?

HE SHOUTS

I'll do the funny walk.

HE SHOUTS

Stop it!
What? Stop it!

I'm trying to cheer her up,
you stupid Kraut!

Him goose-stepping,

alongside Del Boy
falling through the bar,

is probably one of the most iconic

elements of physical humour
in British sitcoms.

The full goose-stepping,
silly walks bit,

with a bandage on the head,
he's clearly gone...

It's beautifully done.

He created this absolute
physical wreck of a human being,

with this lanky,
all arms, all legs person

who got everything wrong,
and that's what you're laughing at.

To hammer home the fact Fawlty
should be the butt of the joke

and not the Germans,

a typically chaotic climax
gives them the last word.

However did they win?

Yeah, so that is a question that
I've asked myself many a time.

And I think that the answer is,
by not worrying about it too much.

We're not laughing with him
at the Germans,

we're laughing at his stupidity
as to how he behaves to the Germans.

And that's why it's OK.

There are only two series
of Fawlty Towers,

which closed its doors
after just 12 episodes.

It's like Fleetwood Mac
writing Rumours,

they could maybe do one album
that's almost as good,

they can never do another one.

And he knew he'd done it.
That's it, that's Cleese.

Audiences at home
clamoured for more,

and repeats would get
over 13 million viewers.

While abroad,
its reputation was growing,

and by 1984, it was one of the BBC's
most sold programmes worldwide.

It was a product that the BBC knew
was a commercial winner, really.

With each episode so packed full
of sublime comedy writing,

it was no surprise other regions
tried to adapt their own versions

for domestic audiences -
even the Germans had a go.

Wir sind nicht in deiner Heimat.

Neues Brot. Wirf das weg.
Ha?

Wirf das wag.

That's TV start to finish.

Some German production company
tried to cash in on Fawlty Towers,

come up with
essentially a carbon copy,

but without any of the nuance,

without any of the timing,
without any of the ability.

The Americans
tried and failed three times

to remake
this classic British comedy.

The American versions,

they're all fairly short-lived
and fairly big flops.

And you can kind of see why.

Snavely saw Blazing Saddles star
Harvey Korman

playing alongside Golden Girl-to-be
Betty White,

snidely snapping at guests
like Basil,

but without the ironic wit
of the original.

You'll be taken care of,
just wait your turn!

Snavely is the one
that is most like Fawlty Towers,

it's even got the same set.

It's pretty much almost identical,

except that
because it's Harvey Korman,

there's a slightly weird quality
to the character.

In the British version,
Prunella Scales plays Sybil

with that real
acerbic kind of darkness,

and Basil needs that.

Because then you believe
he's unhappy.

Do you understand?!

Yes!
Good.

Whereas, in the other version,

it was Harvey's character
who was the kind of more...

He wasn't as horrible,
and she wasn't as horrible to him,

so it just sort of missed a bit
for me,

it just didn't quite work.

Oh, Mr Bishop, we missed you.

Did you have a pleasant phone call?

Your phone receiver was greasy,
I had to wipe it off.

Henry!

He's still a guest.

The Americans then
remade Fawlty Towers again -

with another Golden Girl,
Bea Arthur.

But producers of Amanda's
made the inextricable decision

to cut the character of Basil Fawlty
altogether,

leaving Arthur to deliver

a wisecracking performance
with little support.

Distinguished guests, 102.

Huh?

You'll have to excuse him,
he's from Toronto.

She's quite good on the one-liners,
but there's rather too many of them.

Every time someone says something,
she says something under her breath.

Have a wonderful day,
and please, please,

if there is anything
that you should want...

you can take a flying leap.
What?!

I said, "Have a wonderful sleep."

It gets a bit wearing after a while.

And in 1999,

John Larroquette admirably
wisecracked through the scripts,

but the punches
lacked the hard-hitting impact

and manic chaos of the originals.

Here's some things
for the lost and found.

Really? What did the little
fun-seekers leave behind?

Well, this hat was in 208.
Hideous.

I found this book in the bar.

Danielle Steel. This is not a book,
might as well read the hat.

The rhythm of it still feels like
a very traditional sitcom.

The agony and the waiting
to see everything implode,

the ultimate anarchy,

is something
which never got replicated.

I think the reason that
this show didn't kind of work,

even though they tried
two or three times

to reboot it in the States,

was because I think
you have to have an understanding

of the British class system
to really get the joke.

And it doesn't exist in the States
the way that it exists over here.

This is social commentary
on a whole people,

and if you don't understand that,

it's kind of you're missing
the biggest part of the joke.

But are we soon to be given
a US remake

with the original British Fawlty
back behind the check-in desk?

It's a testament to how loved
in the States is Fawlty Towers,

that one small announcement
about a possible remake

just caused this huge stir.

John Cleese and his daughter Camilla

are in talks in America
with Rob Reiner's company.

So, the premise,
Basil Fawlty finds out

he's got a long-lost daughter,
played by Camilla Cleese,

and they open up
an exquisite boutique hotel.

Ooh, a reboot of Fawlty Towers.
Oh, that's dangerous.

But then, you do have John Cleese
doing it, so you never know.

I think John Cleese
probably needs the money.

And so I think
it's as simple as that.

Well, I thought...
Oh, come on, John. You're 83!

Sit down, you know. Play golf.

Regardless of what happens,
the original Fawlty Towers

has given us one of the greatest
sitcom character creations

in the hands of a supremely gifted
physical comedy performer.

You got a Mrs Richards staying here?
Oh...

Nobody would be as funny as him
playing that character.

He brings so much extra
of just, physically, who he is.

It's one of those rare occasions,
as it turns out,

where every single person
is at the top of their game.

Every cog is working in concert

to make it the sort of sublime show
that it is.

Stupidissimo!
You continental cretin!

I'm sorry, I'll get you another one.
Un altro!

Pronto! Pronto! Pronto!

It's flawless.
It's absolutely flawless.

When you watch every episode,
even now, 50 years later,

there isn't a single moment
where you think,

"Oh, they could have
done that one better."

And John Cleese's
physical commitment to comedy

hasn't grown old either.

What do you mean, "out"?
He's drunk! Drunk?

Drunk, soused, potted, inebriated!
Got it?!

I don't believe it.
Neither do I. Perhaps it's a dream.

No, it's not a dream,
we're stuck with it. Right!

It inspired so many people
to want to be as good

and have something
that millions of people

all over the world will know.

For a comedy to last nearly 50 years

and still pick up new audiences,

that shows how special it was.

It's still extreme,
it's very British, it's very funny.

It'll probably be popular
until the end of time.

To keep that kind of intensity
and make it funny,

that was quite an achievement.