Fawlty Towers Page 6

  THE RACIAL PHOBIA

  It is axiomatic in Basil’s mind that God, if not altogether perfect, pretty well qualifies to be an Englishman. Nothing in his experience has ever suggested that English is not synonymous with civilisation — “Thank God we English can laugh at each other, eh?” Neither would it occur to him to question the intrinsic value of a civilisation that gave to the world free trade, democratic institutions and tea with buttered scones.

  In Basil’s mind it follows that other nations are barbarians to a higher or lower degree. Ireland and Scotland are the spoiled and ungrateful children of Britannia. Their claims to independence are ridiculous and almost incomprehensible considering that they owe everything to England and have nothing to offer in return other than whisky, Guinness, ceilidh music and kilts. Inevitably to Basil’s way of thinking, therefore is, that the worst builder in England — O’Reilly — should be Irish.

  The rest of Europe, with the exception of Germany, is just peculiar. The French have a strange language which they articulate through their noses. Their manners are licentious, and lascivious too — “Try to control yourself. Where do you think you are — Paris?” (Basil addressing the presumed Mrs. Peignoir on the other side of his bedroom door in The Wedding Party). The Spanish are all brothers of Manuel and consequently useless idiots — “God knows how they ever got an Armada together.” Americans are vulgar, ignorant, greedy, aggressive, loud and bragging (Waldorf Salad). The Greeks are probably all homosexuals (like the chef Kurt in Gourmet Night). And the Germans are unreconstructed Nazis — every last one of them — “Bad eggs.” Basil has never regarded Polly’s ambition to brush up her foreign languages as anything but a waste of time. If Germans don’t understand English, well, that’s their problem.

  The truth is of course that Basil, profoundly uninterested in other nations and their peoples, finds it humiliating not to be able to dominate the situations in which he comes into contact with them. The prospect of having to listen and learn fills him with vague feelings of disgust. Polly, belonging to a species of a more gentle kind, does not attach the same importance to verbal domination over others.

  But as far as Basil is concerned, even English people are foreigners of a kind inasmuch as they are guests (see also next chapter). Anyone making demands on Basil’s time and attention is by definition a nuisance and an intruder, a member of an inferior race, most conveniently described as riff-raff.

  Basil’s character derives from an actual encounter with a Torquay hotel-owner (see Chapter 6), who must have been the worst-suited person imaginable to this metier — and Basil’s character remains in many ways true to that of his prototype. However, even if Basil is at heart uninterested in attending to the needs of his guests, he still sometimes tries to accommodate foreign visitors, and in the case of Mrs. Peignoir even beyond the call of duty. But Mrs. Peignoir is at least French, and French phrases in Basil’s mouth always indicate that he is trying to be polite, even charming. When it comes to Germans it is impossible for him to restrain his real affective impulses.

  Racism comes quite naturally to Basil. I can imagine that his spiritual father, John Cleese, at some early stage even played with the idea of characterising Manuel as an Indian or a Pakistani. Circumstantial evidence in support of this association can be found in Basil the Rat, when Basil tries to explain to Manuel that two pigeons have to be removed from the water tank (Basil: “Not pigs, pigeons — like your English!”) This is a reference to pidgin, a word which, although originally only denoting the English vernacular in places such as West Africa, and Papua New Guinea, is nevertheless commonly understood as the English spoken by indigenous elements of the Indian subcontinent.

  Another piece of evidence innocently positing Manuel’s Indian origins can be gathered from a dining-room scene in The Kipper and the Corpse.

  Manuel: He bite me!

  Mrs. Chase: You frightened him (her lap dog).

  Manuel: Qué?

  Mrs. Chase: You make sudden movements like that, of course he’s going to bite. Don’t you have dogs in Calcutta?

  It would in a sense have made Manuel socially more plausible, had he been Indian. But it would also have entangled the creators of the comedy in an act of political provocation which may have subtracted rather than added to the universality of the concept. In addition, many jokes based on verbal misunderstanding would have been much weaker, if not completely meaningless, with a Hindi-speaking waiter — an essential feature of the show is in fact Basil’s conviction that he knows how to speak Spanish, whereas Manuel doesn’t! (“I learnt classical Spanish, not the strange dialect he seems to have picked up” (A Touch of Class). Nevertheless, even Basil at one point lets out a sigh of despair over Manuel with a subtle allusion to India: “Oh, Buddha” (The Germans).

  Conversely, the invention of a good-hearted but half-witted European character who simply can’t learn English was a stroke of genius insofar as it still permits Basil to give free rein to his sense of racial, social and intellectual superiority. In the case of Manuel, the problem evoked in Kipling’s and colonial Britain’s notion of The White Man’s Burden is brought back to life. How does one communicate with a savage? Or, rather: how does one educate him so that he can both understand an order and carry it out correctly?

  Apart from these obvious racial distinctions, the Spanish connotation also had the advantage of offering a literary archetype to the subliminal perception of the viewer. Already in terms of their physical statures, Basil and Manuel correspond perfectly to the famous couple in Cervantes’ novel: the gallant, lankily tall picaro Don Quixote, famously attacking the wind-mills for the sake of winning nearer to his ever illusive Dulcinea, and his amazed, bewildered, simple minded, conspicuously short yet loyal squire Sancho Panza. The parallel is actually so obvious that it is easily overlooked. It is likewise obvious that it doesn’t hold good in all respects, quite especially in this, that the great historical couple have a relationship based on the reassuring fact that both master and servant speak Spanish.

  It doesn’t take long to realise that Basil primarily uses Manuel as a surrogate whenever he’d rather smack his wife (or someone else, for that matter). By virtue of his poor English and modest intelligence, Manuel is the perfect scapegoat. Basil isn’t quite sure where to place him on the evolutionary scale. Defining him as the missing link would conveniently place him somewhere mid-way between an ape and Dr. Livingstone. To judge from the very first episode, A Touch of Class, Sybil actually puts him at an even lower stage of evolution. It was she who provided Basil with one of his favourite outbursts “It’d be quicker to train a monkey.”

  A variation on the theme of Manuel’s evolutionary status can be found in Basil the Rat. Sybil: (speaking to Basil about Manuel’s hamster) “Perhaps it would be simplest to have him put to S-L-E-E-P.” Basil: “Who, him or the rat? We might get a discount if we had ’em both done.”6

  To the Major, Manuel might just as well be a poor kid from Bangladesh. The question is, does the Major actually see him as one? While leading monkey-walking Manuel away to show him how to get to the dining room via the back door of the kitchen, he is searching his memory in vain to recall what the staff used to call him (The Builders).

  Speaking of apes and missing links, it is worth noticing that Basil in general favours a Darwinian, that is, a biological, view of society. His preoccupation with the idea that some people are more monkey-like than others extends, as we have seen, to include Mr. Johnson in The Psychiatrist, as well as Mr. Brown, alias Danny (the disguised cockney-speaking police agent in A Touch of Class). Although no explicit reference to the simian behaviour of the latter is made, we may readily imagine what Basil thinks. He is perfectly capable of being explicit, on the other hand. We remember his telling Manuel in The Builders to tell “man with beard” (Murphy), that “You are a hideous orang-utang.” Basil (over the phone) says, “Well done, Manuel. Thank you very much.”

  Similarity, Mr. Johnson in The Psychiatrist is at one point referred to a
s “the bravest orang-outang” in Britain.

  Further proof of Basil’s evolutionary preoccupation can be found right at the opening of Basil the Rat. Sybil has complained that he always has a reason against her meeting someone — “any other members of the human race,” in fact. Almost inaudible to television viewers but clearly indicated in the script, Basil murmurs, “Yes, well, I wouldn’t call the Sherrins members of the human race, dear.”

  Ideologically speaking, post-war social Darwinism appears in a variety of guises. Freed from its connection with eugenics and Nazism, it has come to be identified as one of the driving forces and principles of the free market. But Basil is far from seeing the social success of the simple money-maker as an example of the survival of the fittest. In his view one should be born to money. This, as he understands it, is the birthright of the English gentry. Basil, decidedly right-wing, perhaps a Thatcherite, has modernised his romantic affinity with lords and manors to encompass an ongoing struggle between any individual with aristocratic aspirations (himself) and “the much too many” (almost everybody else).

  When in Waldorf Salad the snare begins to tighten around him, he is at first unable to realise the precariousness of his situation. In order to subdue mounting dissatisfaction with the service — once it has been brought to general attention by Mr. Hamilton — he tries to foist on his native guests a lot of sentimental rubbish, citing the nobility and idealism of the British soul. Handing over the money he earlier received from Mr. Hamilton to make the chef stay, he says, “I know how important it (money) is to you Americans. But you must remember that here in Britain there are things that we value more, things that perhaps in America you have rather forgotten, but that are, here in Britain far, far more important.”

  Mr. Johnstone: I'm not satisfied ...

  When Basil sees that the dreaded guests have completely surrounded him and that his back is to the wall, he attempts a single-leap solution.

  Basil: Let me tell you something (his eyes gleam dangerously). This is exactly how Nazi Germany started. A lot of lay abouts with nothing better to do than to cause trouble!

  Now, if that is not playing for sky-high stakes I don’t know what is!7

  Another peculiar instance of Basil’s ‘racism’ is his readiness to assume that the Major’s latest pink elephant is in fact a German one (Basil the Rat). From the corner of his eye, and at first unwilling to believe what he’s seeing, Basil observes the Major, shotgun in hand, proceed to the bar. When the Major explains that he has seen some vermin on the premises, Basil, without a second’s hesitation, misinterprets this to mean that the Major thought he saw a German sitting on the table. The ensuing dialogue is worth quoting in its entirety.

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

  The Major: Going to shoot him, Fawlty.

  Basil: Yes, Major.

  The Major: Mmm?

  Basil: Not — not legal, actually, any more — murder ...

  The Major: (in obvious astonishment) But they are animals, Fawlty!

  Basil: (understanding and surprisingly lenient) Oh, yes, yes. Still, forgive and forget, eh, Major? (he takes the gun).

  The Major: Forgive ’em?

  Basil: Well, pretend we do.

  The Major: But they spread disease, Fawlty — he was sitting there on that table, eating the nuts if you please.

  Basil: (to himself) He’s really gone this time.

  In other words, Basil sees nothing directly appalling in what he believes to be the Major’s instinctive reaction upon finding a German in the bar. The oddity is that there are no German guests present in the hotel, and that the Major’s impression therefore must be interpreted as a delusion caused by a combination of alcohol and senile dementia in general. When the situation is finally cleared up, the fact that the hamster is loose is accepted with the same insouciance as the German on the table.

  The Major: About that size. That with the tail.

  Basil: What did you say it was?

  The Major: Vermin ... a dirty rat!

  In the episode that does feature Germans, Basil doesn't really comport himself very well before his foreign guests. There are extenuating circumstances, however. Previously, having suffered the blow on the head from Manuel’s frying pan, Basil had almost gone through the roof when unexpectedly meeting the coloured doctor who has come to treat Sybil’s ingrowing toenail. To be black and a medical doctor is a contradiction in terms in Basil’s universe. Even when he has overcome the first shock, he is still unable to rid himself of the suspicion that Dr. Finn is in reality a voodoo practising medicine man from the West Indies. He even pretends to fall asleep, as if under a spell, to the mystical head rotations Dr. Finn performs on him to keep him in bed. In this way Basil counters superstition with superstition: he believes he has outsmarted both Unkulunkulu and Sybil.

  The episode The Germans consists of three distinctly separate actions. First, there is the hilarious farewell scene at the hospital (“Oh, no. No dogs allowed here”). Secondly, the fire drill, where once again, a big woman of somewhat mixed genetic background incarnates the kind of inquisitiveness which Basil invariably finds repulsive. Thirdly, there is the actual arrival of the Germans, presaging Basil’s final breakdown. His Hitler impression at the end has a tendency to stay longest in the memory. It is however an obvious loan from the Monty Python sketch The Department of Silly Walks. Otherwise careful to avoid associating Fawlty Towers with typical Python gags, Cleese here succumbed to temptation. The big audience will always love him for it, but for the connoisseur this last scene has an arrière gout of playing to the gallery, which somewhat eclipses the brilliance of both acting and script in the previous scenes.

  The important factor binding these three scenes together is actually the moose head, the one responsible for snagging Sybil’s cardigans and, ultimately, for Basil’s downfall. “It will lend the lobby a certain ambience, Sybil. It has a touch of style about it.” But Basil will once again when animals, Germans and generally brutish guests conspire to bring him down live to regret his attempt to turn his modest hotel into a more up-market residence.

  As a final, charming, reminder of the racial prejudice permeating the episode, I should cite both Manuel’s, “Hello, I am English” from within the moose head, and the Major’s assumption that the speaking moose surely must be of Japanese origin.

  Basil: (bewildered) Canadian, I think, Major.

  The Major (candidly) I didn’t know the Canadians were as clever as that.

  It is symbolic that it was during the shooting of The Germans that Manuel’s suffering as the underdog paradoxically became economically profitable to the actor playing the role. It is almost as if he had been granted some compensation for injuries contracted during wartime persecution, then, at this point we should remind ourselves that Andrew Sachs, like Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Jerry Seinfeld, and many other first-class comedians, is of course Jewish.

  THE XENOPHOBIA

  We conclude from the previous chapter that Basil is not very fond of strangers in general. We remember that the word xenophobia — irrational fear of strangers — derives from the Greek word xenos, signifying both stranger and guest. Imagine then Basil’s frustration when suddenly a stranger announces himself as the unavoidable and very, very demanding guest ...

  In addition to making outrageous demands (“Do you hire television sets!”) Mr. Hutchison, the spoon salesman in The Hotel Inspectors, affects a convoluted English and a lordly, yet excessively pedantic manner which betrays him as a small man of modest background trying to be more important than he actually is. Basil, extremely sensitive to the nuances of class migration, wants to prick the balloon of Mr. Hutchisons pretensions right away.

  Basil: It is not possible to reserve the BBC 2 channel from the commencement of this televisional feast until the moment of the termination of its ending. Thank you so much.

  Hutchison: Well, in that case, may I suggest you introduce such a schem
e.

  Basil: No.

  Hutchison: I’d just like to tell you that I have a wide experience of hotels and many of those of my acquaintance have had the foresight to introduce this facility for the benefit of their guests.

  Basil: (unimpressed) Oh, I see, you have had a wide experience of hotels, have you?

  Hutchison: Yes, in my professional activities I am in constant contact with them.

  The scene is set. Basil, seeing a possible link between the odious Hutchison and the likely presence of a hotel inspector in town, is obliged to make a 180° turn. At once his behaviour changes. He senses the sword of Damocles hanging over him. He must succeed with the impossible: to be nice, polite, obliging, even amiable, to the most irritating, inquisitive know-it-all he has ever had in his hotel. In normal circumstances, Basil would at this point already have finished Hutchison off by suggesting he move to a hotel with private television in the bathroom, a fridge full of ginger beer, medically sterilised use-and-throw telephones and a folding ping-pong table in the wardrobe.

  But now certain that this is the man he must convince of the hotel’s impeccable service and facilities, he makes use of the real gentleman, Mr. Walt, as a butt for his sarcasm and rudeness. Needless to add, of course Manuel, as usual, gets his daily dose of corrective therapy.

  Bernard Cribbins, who plays the part of Mr. Hutchison, is one of Britain’s finest comedians. His and Cleese’s performances in The Hotel Inspectors complement each other as in a perfect piece of chamber music. Two virtuosi in the realm of humour here meet and play together. The result is stunning. We can imagine that they both enjoyed playing opposite someone of comparable stature.

  There is special glee in Hutcliison's twinkling eye when he responds to Basil’s initial, “Are yon all right?" with, "Oh, yes, I find the air here most invigorating.” A secret sign, as it were, signifying: here we go! The crescendo is masterfully orchestrated, from the moment when Hutchison at the reception desk waves his finger obnoxiously to obtain Basil’s attention, until the moment he falls unconscious into the cheese salad.