Fawlty Towers Page 14

  A closer perusal of the scripts reveals that every single episode features a large number of linguistic games, puns, word-plays, onomatopoeic attempts to translate one language into another. (See for instance how Basil’s impromptu translation of German into English, “Wir wollen ein Auto mieten” — “we would like to rent a car” — becomes, “I see, you volunteer to go out and buy meat”) There are also misunderstandings arising from different characters investing the same words with different meanings, from general confusion created by words not properly uttered, or deliberately distorted, or deceptively pronounced, or pronounced in the temporary absence of the listener, so as to fatally change the latter’s perception of the given context. In short, the essential intellectual device employed by the scriptwriters is: verbal misunderstanding inevitably leading to a breakdown of communication.

  Particularly characteristic of this phenomenon is the episode in which verbal misapprehension is explicit, namely, Communication Problems. The deaf Mrs. Richards refuses to turn on her hearing aid, and, in consequence, gets practically every verbal message wrong. In a significant way this makes her a symbol of Fawlty Towers in general. Her absolute rock-solid self-assurance in the midst of roaring hurricane Basil could tempt one to associate with the eye of the storm, which itself, by reason of its stability, defines the whirling madness around it. In a figurative sense, the essence of this static, imperturbable nucleus could thus be expressed by the equation: Fawlty Towers = Communication Problems.

  In a most congenial way, the major themes of the entire series are comprised in this one episode. We have S:t George, patron saint of England, we have the old dragon, we have Basil’s desperate hope for a better future, we have the staff and the guests caught up in confusion and misunderstanding initiated by a series of false allegations. Above all, we have Sybil’s ultimate triumph and Basil’s terminal humiliation. (Sybil: “If I find out the money on that horse was yours, you know what I’ll do, Basil.” Basil: “You’ll have to sew ’em back on first.”)

  The development of the tragedy from its first deceitful glimmers of light (“There is a very nice little filly running at Exeter this afternoon, Mr. Fawlty.”), to the downfall of the hero at the hands of immortals, indifferent to human happiness and human despair, is as compelling as that of any of Euripides’ plays. This parallel with classical tragedy should not however be over-indulged. As opposed to Greek tragedy, in which the action is set in motion by the chorus, or more rarely by the principal actors, any given Towers episode characteristically begins in medias res. We are introduced into an ongoing action with a number of people present.

  In A Touch of Class, for instance, we are soon privy to the first typical pun and its typical concomitant confusion. Basil: “There’s too much butter on those trays.” Manuel: “No, no Senor — uno, dos, tres.” From there we are led on to the play on the Italian word for butter (burro) which in Spanish means donkey. (This is to become a common verbal ploy throughout the series — Manuel and Basil soon exhaust their meagre stock of words of each other’s languages). And very quickly the intellectual content of the scene (on those trays — uno, dos, tres) degenerates into onomatopoeic babble. Manuel: “Burro is iiii-aaaa.”

  Linguistic confusion is at the heart of every scene in which Basil is depicted as the white man and Manuel as his burden. (“Please, understand, before one of us dies!” Communication Problems.) Or consider the scene in which Basil tries to explain that there are two dead pigeons in the water tank, and Manuel instead forms the impression that it contains two flying piglets. Incidentally, this sort of incomprehension leads Basil to associate Manuel’s language skills with those of uneducated coolies — pigeon becomes pidgin, “like your English.” (Basil the Rat.)

  The linguistic problems that bedevil the relationship between Basil and the Major are different in kind, but equally capable of creating confusion. The Major, a little hard of hearing and perhaps a touch more than just a little senile, misinterprets most of what Basil says with a sort of benevolent inconsequentiality as he wanders off. (The Major: “She’s a fine woman, Mrs. Fawlty”. Basil: “No, no, I wouldn’t say that”. The Major: “No, nor would I.”)

  In those rare moments of interaction between Basil and the Major in which the latter is portrayed as being a little more alert, puns and illogical deductions rather than plain dottiness play a decisive role in creating misunderstandings.

  Basil: No Germans staying this week, Major ... may I have the gun?

  The Major: But they are animals ... they spread disease, Fawlty ... he was sitting there, eating the nuts, if you please.

  Basil: What did you say it was?

  The Major: A vermin (pronounced with a thick ‘i’, almost like an a) a dirty rat... ”

  Another well-constructed dialogue is that initiated by the Major on the difference between Indian and West Indian cricketers. The argument insidiously confounds women with infantile pagans.

  Basil: They do get awfully confused, don't they? They’re not thinkers. I see it with Sybil every day.

  The Major: I do wish I could remember her name (the woman he invited to see the game). She's still got my wallet.

  Basil: (cutting the Major short) As I was saying, no capacity for logical thought.

  The Major: Who?

  Basil: Women.

  The Major: Oh yes, yes ... I thought you meant the Indians.

  Basil: No, no, no, no ... wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said: ‘They have brains like Swiss cheese?’

  The Major: What do you mean — hard?

  Basil: No, no — full of holes.

  The Major: Really? ... Indians?

  Basil: No, women!

  The Major: Oh.

  The word-play designed for Polly and Basil usually has a different raison d’être, and typically takes the form of intimate codes dictated by a sudden sense of urgency, not to say emergency. Basil: “Oh, I see. Oh, (you have come to collect) Mr. Leeman!” Polly: (knowing that Basil is desperate for time) “We thought you said (that you had come to collect) the linen”. Basil: (happily surprised and a little bit too loudly) “Brilliant!”

  Some of the series’ more banal puns have actually been put in Polly’s mouth in dialogue where they over-saturate the context with associative ‘meaning.’ Mrs. Arrad: (calling Basil) “Excuse me. There’s sugar in the salt-cellar.” Basil: “Anything else?” Mrs. Arrad: “I’ve just put it all over the plaice?” Basil: “What were you doing with it all over the place?” Mrs. Arrad: “All over the plaice.” (Waldorf Salad.) Here the pun should have been cut short, because the point has been made. The script however has Polly go on, “What a sweet plaice.” “Basil: “What?” Polly: (making things even worse) “I’ll have it re-placed.” The pun is now over-extended, and ready to collapse under its own weight.

  Gourmet Night seems to me, and not only because of the above-mentioned blunder, weak in both dialogue and dramatic artifice — it’s the one episode in the whole canon that invariably gives me the creeps. Although the theme in itself has a lot of potential, it permits of surprisingly lame and outdated slapstick. (Colonel Hall: “There’s a hair in my mousse.” Polly: “Well, don’t talk too loud or everybody will want one.”)

  In spite of intermittent well-written scenes, there are other weak points in the dialogue. For instance, Basil: (to Colonel Hall) “How’s that lovely daughter of yours?” Sybil, hissing in his ear “She’s dead.” This rather trite joke that unfortunately colours the rest of the scene. Still, by way of compensation, there’s Basil’s brilliant remark to the very short, but standing Mrs. Hall: “Oh, sorry! Didn’t see you down there. Don’t get up.” Not to speak of the well-found “Two (too!) small and dry.”

  The scene in which Basil is supposed to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Twitchen to the Halls is not dramatically convincing, because the viewer has not been alerted as to why the Twitchens, after almost a minute of unforgiving silence, won’t help Basil out of his dilemma. As it is, Mr. and Mrs. Twitchen are both obliged to act in a very unnatural way,
thus reminding the audience that what they see is not just happening naturally but is the result of a written script.

  In the same way, Polly’s paraphrases (“he's potted the shrimp,” ‘‘soused the herring,” “pickled the onions,” etc.) intended to catch Basil’s attention and inform him of the chef’s lamentable condition without the guests catching on, lack a certain vivacity. A redeeming quality in this scene, however, is her expression when alluding to the fact that the gourmet chef, Kurt, who has developed an unreciprocated passion for Manuel, is lying dead-drunk under the table. But that really has little to do with humour, and so much more to do with, ahem — sex.

  Kurt’s literal puking over the mullet is too gross for me. Cleese’s comparatively long absence from the action in the dining-room also makes it painfully clear that everything in the series hinges on his presence. Finally, Sybil’s role here lacks motivation and consistency, the reason being that the very essence of her relationship with Basil consists of her spitting verbal acid over him whenever he messes things up. In this episode, she’s vehemently on the attack right from the beginning, although ostensibly he’s done nothing to start her off. This point of departure is not particularly valid, especially as Basil is not on this occasion the cause of everything going wrong.

  The action is usually centred on Basil’s and Sybil’s marital problems, which constitute an excellent platform for all sorts of intellectual and ironic play. In this episode the central conflict is minimised to point up a common problem. Sybil cannot give full play to her sarcasm in this context, and Basil in turn is too busy with guests and staff to retaliate.

  So, although there are some incomparable gems in Gourmet Night (Basil’s assault on the car, for example), both the script itself and the overall dramaturgy are relatively poor. I take this as proof that the Ladies and the Major represent very important secondary roles. They do appear in the show, but too briefly, and André, Kurt, and the four dinner quests are all unfamiliar to us. The pre-dominance of new over established characters is disproportional, and deprives the emerging catastrophe of some of its familiar and much-loved attributes.

  However, in pronouncing this critique of Gourmet Night, I do not wish to imply that the Fawlty Towers aficionado should ignore the secret value and meaning of this painful initiation. The episode is an ordeal, but so was the crucifixion of Christ. In the alleged context of twelve unalterable and holy episodes, its function is that of Judas. And without Judas, there is no divine drama, no intense suffering and no final redemption.

  John Cleese himself must have been aware of the crucial importance of this one turkey. He is reported to have said, that of all the scenes from the series, the one that today pleases him the most is the one in which he completely demolishes the trifle in search of the lost bird. Why Cleese should have chosen this particular scene I do not know. But then again — who am I to judge the secret workings of a universal drama whose final curtain falls on Sybil’s sublime, “I’m afraid it’s started to rain again,” (Basil the Rat.)

  But if some of the puns in Gourmet Night are comparatively weak, there are many other episodes in which they positively shine. One example is this piece of word-play from the beginning of The Hotel Inspectors. Sybil has just shown Basil the box on which the word ‘pens’ has been written. Sybil: “Well, when Ben comes, you can give them to him.” The difference between this and Folly’s plays on ‘plaice’ and ‘place’ is that Sybil’s comment is not a simple homonym, but conceals a biting sideswipe at Basil. The verbal proximity of pens and Ben’s is moved forward into a long argument, at the end of which Basil imperiously declares to Mr. Walt that ‘P-off’ (short for ‘piss off’) is an accepted abbreviation of Post Office.

  Puns are not the only impediments to communication. Another much-employed device is the temporary lapse of attention that leads straight to fateful misunderstanding. This is the case in The Psychiatrist, where Basil hears only the second half of the question featuring “holiday” and “how often can you and your wife manage it?” A similar ploy is used in the scene in which the Major is talking to the moose’s head, not realising that the moose’s voice is in reality Manuel’s from below the counter (The Germans). The Major is led to infer that the head has within it some hidden recorder which enables it to speak and to enter into conversation. The Major, visibly shaken by the amount of surprisingly accurate statements from the head, feels compelled to air his stupefaction to Basil: “I say, that’s a remarkable animal, Fawlty. Where did you get it?” Basil: “Sampsons, in the town.” The Major: “Japanese, was it?” Basil: “ ... Canadian, I think.” The Major: “I didn’t know the Canadians were as clever as that.” Which may be taken to show that the Major is indeed about to enter his second childhood, though perhaps not quite in the way Basil imagines it.

  But even scenes saturated with both physical and verbal confusion (for instance, “I was talking to you but looking at her” between Basil, Polly and Hutchison in The Hotel Inspectors) are still subject to a dramatic logic which prevents the shows from losing narrative momentum, and so transform into a mere parade of internally unrelated sketches. This is the case with so many Monty Python jokes, which were necessarily short-lived, not least because it was their prime function not to follow conventional rules of narration or to create drama proper. Fawlty Towers is by contrast set in an everyday environment that has been specifically created to have all the appearance of ‘reality’. There is a facade of normality, of respectability. As opposed to a Monty Python sketch, a typical Towers episode is not crazy and absurd from the word go, but becomes so through the relentless action provoking Basil out of his precariously maintained composure to full-fledged madness. The various ways in which this dramatic tension inexorably mounts and is orchestrated together with the actors, testify to the meticulous organizational work that went into the creation of the series.

  From a dramaturgical point of view, the most atypical of all these crescendi are those featured in The Germans. Where most episodes would centre on one principal theme and outline its ramifications, we see here that there are three quite distinct unities of action. It is structurally the most complex of all the episodes and the final solution (which must not be mentioned!) is the end result of two points of culmination. The first of these is Basil’s farewell to his wife at the hospital (“Quite painful, right?”), the second the “nasty knock” from the fire extinguisher. The relation between the moose head and the closing line, ironically uttered by one of their number — “However did they win?” — shows that the German guests weren’t, after all, completely dumbfounded by Basil’s rambling. They obviously not only knew what he was talking about, but also had their own opinions about what went wrong with the war. Sybil, ‘voodooing’ the moose's head telekinetically, knocks out her husband once and for all, and, as usual, gets the better of him, while the Major and Manuel themselves have no idea what’s going on. The animal’s head has been the subject of Sybil’s hatred from the very beginning (it did snag her cardies, didn’t it?). It is forced to become subservient to her will and is, in fact, the one responsible for running the hotel in her absence.

  Basil’s inability to control his own behaviour was at the root of the conflict in The Germans. Another way of triggering his mania is to have him jumping to conclusions. In many instances there is no initial verbal misunderstanding, but an interpretation, in itself correct, of a given statement, leads to a highly imaginative leap of misapprehension. A spectacular series of such hasty deductions can be found in The Wedding Party. The point of departure for what is to become one of Basil’s wildest, physically as well as mentally exhausting fantasies, is young Alan’s asking Basil if the chemist’s shop (drugstore) is still open. Already prejudiced against them by his impression that the young couple are enjoying each others’ company a little bit too much, and also by his subsequent humiliation at Sybil’s hands, Basil is not very much inclined to help his guest. And when it finally dawns upon him that it was naive to assume that Alan wanted prophylactics — he
in fact needs some batteries — Basil’s imagination runs wild.

  The vigour of his crusade against sexual pleasure has been fully demonstrated elsewhere in this book. Here we are concerned about how, in technical and dramatic terms, the ultimate expression of his phobia is achieved. The apparent point of departure is an erroneous conclusion based on a valid premise (both parties now know that it’s batteries Alan wants). But although Basil is ashamed of his behaviour once he has realised his mistake — he is still unable to check the natural course of his libido. It continues to flow through the breach in the dam.

  Basil’s dialogue with Mrs. Peignoir later in this episode is conspicuously rich in erotic innuendo too. The lady magnifies the sexual explicitness of her part of the conversation by (unintentionally?) making equivocal use of some English words.

  Mrs. Peignoir: You left it (the tape recorder) in my room so that you could come and get it, didn’t you?

  Basil: Ha, ha, ha!

  Mrs. Peignoir: (coquettishly) I’m not having you knocking on my door in the middle of the night! (A line which must be interpreted against the background of Basil’s remark in the earlier bedroom scene — the one in which he is seen reading Jaws. The doorbell rings. Basil, rehearsing his lines, Welcome to Basil Fawlty Knocking Shops Limited.)

  Basil: (hysterically) Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ... I should cocoa!

  Mrs. Peignoir: You naughty man! Good night.

  Which brings us to the grand finale. Mrs. Peignoir’s words have rooted themselves in Basil’s unconscious at such a depth that he cannot even hear the difference between Sybil’s and her voices, though it would take near-deafness not to do so. Throughout the episode Basil has been constant prey to his own erroneous conclusions, conferring motives on other people that they do not in reality have. Taking everything at face value, he is now convinced — maybe not altogether without reason! — that if he had let Mrs. Peignoir have her own way, they might now be together an naturel in the lady’s bed. The final clash of fantasy and reality is Sybil’s sledgehammer wake-up call. And it does not make it any easier for Basil to distinguish between the one and the other when Sybil herself makes the wrong inference from Manuels moaning in the kitchen, and tells Basil that there is a burglar in the basement. “We’ve been to a wedding ...” Curtain!