Fawlty Towers Page 8

  Basil: He won’t be there on a Sunday.

  Sybil: Well, then I’ll call him at home.

  (Basil is suddenly racked by a spasm of pain from his old war wound.)

  The battle is lost, but Polly refuses to deliver the dying emperor to the enemy, knowing that he has to win or she’ll go down with him. Sybil catches her in the middle of her Mickey Mouse impression like a fat cat, just reaching its paw out to kill its prey.

  Polly: So you see, we couldn’t possibly manage it for at least three weeks, so if you want it done straight away, you’d better try someone like ... oh, what’s his name?

  Sybil: (overhearing Polly’s impersonation in the office) O’Reilly.

  Basil: (refusing to face the bitter facts) Is that somebody there trying to pretend that they’re from Mr. Stubbs’ Company? What sort of game do you think you are playing? I mean, really! (slams down phone, and, to Sybil), Would you believe what some of these people will do, Sybil?

  Just imagine the kind of madness which could have resulted from Sybil’s allowing him to stray into that particular jungle! But she doesn’t. He’s dead.

  Sybil: I am going to make you regret this for the rest of your life, Basil.

  And she will. Still, Basil refuses to realise that he is defeated. After Waterloo, Napoleon was tempted to rally the remains of his troops and march against the Prussian army outside Paris, but he capitulated after having calculated the odds. Basil doesn’t calculate odds, and it is a sinister pleasure to imagine what he would have had to say for himself upon re-entering the dragon’s den, carrying the garden gnome, now stained with blood, in his arms.

  *

  Communication Problems is another one of those legendary episodes in which Basil tries everything possible to have things his own way while simultaneously keeping the truth from Sybil. The absolute necessity of keeping his gambling secret is the result of Sybil’s threat to cut off his private parts on the spot if she ever again catches him squandering their money on the horses.

  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 name of the winning horse, Dragonfly, doesn’t have dragon in it for nothing. It did win all right but in the end Basil only got the flying part. I hope I’m not exaggerating the crudeness of the scene in which Polly tries to guess the horse’s name from Basil’s charade behind Sybil’s back, by pointing out that the first word that comes to Polly’s mind as Basil points to his fly, is ‘small’.

  The whole episode is actually centred on the notion (and reality) of dragons. To everyone concerned the presence of Mrs. Richards equals that of some kind of fire-breathing monster. Add to this the scene preceding Basil’s introduction. To clarify this transition and all the symbolic points, we would do well to remind ourselves of the entire sequence.

  The Major: Going to have a flutter, Fawlty?

  Basil: No-o, no, no ...

  Sybil: No, Basil doesn’t bet any more, Major. Do you, dear?

  Basil: No dear, I don’t. No, that particular avenue of pleasure has been closed off.

  Sybil: (quietish) And we don’t want it opened again, do we Basil? (she goes into the office)

  Basil: No, you don’t, dear, no. The Great Warning-Off of May 8th. Yes. Good old St. George, eh, Major?

  The Major: Hmmm?

  Basil: He killed a hideous fire-breathing dragon, didn’t he, Polly?

  Polly: (possibly thinking of Mrs. Richards) Ran it through with a lance, I believe.

  Manuel: (running in) Mr. Fawlty, Mr. Fawlty. Is Mrs. Er... Room no like ... She want to speak to you... Is problem.

  Basil: (moving off) Ever see my wife making toast, Polly? (He mimes breathing on both sides of a piece of bread.)

  The Major: Why did he kill it anyway, Fawlty?

  Basil: I don’t know, Major. Better than marrying it. (He follows Manuel upstairs.)

  The Major: (with disarming candour) Marrying it? But he didn’t have to kill it though, did he? I mean, he could have just not turned up at the church. (If only Basil had got that advice fifteen years ago!)

  Now Basil finds himself face to face with yet another fire-breathing dragon, which will join Sybil in her effort to count him out for the rest of his life.11 The final irony of it all is that the beautiful oriental vase, the breaking of which mercilessly signals the end of Basil’s dream of success, was of course lavishly decorated with Chinese dragons. The dragonfly, on the other hand, symbol of freedom and beauty, is a strange and surprising being. It is able to fly without flying, as if suspended in mid-air. Its irregular movements are conducive to dreamy, irrational moods, and it is, alas, short-lived. Sometimes its life spans less than a day — “Say goodbye to the folks, Gracie ...”

  In the matter of those of his lies in which Sybil is more or less his accomplice, Basil, knowing his back is covered, acts with a good deal of self-confidence. For instance, on discovering that members of his staff have been deceiving him (Basil the Rat), he says, “Well, let’s have a little Basil hunt, shall we? And then we’ll deal with the sackings later!”

  The Kipper and the Corpse and Gourmet Night represent other instances of joint efforts to conceal the truth. Waldorf Salad can to some extent be included in the same category. When Sybil finds out the truth behind the missing ingredients of the famous salad, she starts helping Basil instead of making a fuss (well, she does just a little, but that goes without saying, doesn’t it?). But we must remember that she hasn’t realised that Terry did not threaten to leave, as Basil claims he did. He, Terry, merely wanted a fair share of the £20 Mr. Hamilton gave to Basil to make sure the kitchen stayed open.

  The facts of that transaction are not revealed in the course of this episode, but it may be surmised that Sybil would have asked Terry the day after why he didn’t stay and prepare dinner for two late guests, especially as they paid £20 for the favour. As soon as Terry told her the truth — and there is no reason to suspect that he would conceal the matter of the Finnish blonde from Mrs. Fawlty — Basil’s head would no longer rest safely on his shoulders.

  But then again, we don’t know the limit of Sybil’s own greed. Had she been able to force Basil to hand over the £20, she might have settled for a compromise, paid some money to Terry and kept the rest for herself. It is also possible, perhaps probable, that she would have forced Basil to reimburse the Hamiltons as they were on their way out to their waiting taxi — though, to be sure, not before she had deducted the cost of the meal.12

  Most of Basil’s other lies serve the general purpose of supporting a previous lie which is about to be exposed as such and thus destroy its creator. As often happens when we try to set right a mistake, the damage gets worse. In most cases, the best thing to do is to let errors and insults heal by themselves, unless, of course we are able to make amends right away. Basil can’t do that. He gets himself caught in a net, and the more he tries to free himself the more he is enmeshed: the net tightens and tightens until he simply has no room at all for manoeuvre.

  The portrayal of the maladroit person, unable to solve practical problems rationally, or contriving far too elaborate solutions (one of Rowan Atkinson’s specialities as Mr. Bean) is a classic feature of comedy, and at bottom a clown’s routine. Basil, or rather John Cleese, is just such a clown, but the special ingenuity of his act lies in the fact that falling off ladders, getting hit by moose heads and saucepans, and aiming blows at imaginary enemies, represent only the visible aspect of a much more complex, invisible and mental problem. This is what makes the humour of the series so much more sophisticated and intellectual than most other comedies based on one or two elementary factors. To see Manuel and Basil messing things up and hitting each other in various ways is enjoyable even for children — although children may not register the subtleties underlying this incredible universe in which, as in a dream, even seemingly solid cliché becomes unfathomable complication.

  In other words, Fawlty Towers, like ev
ery genuine piece of art, is enjoyable on many different levels. The development of a simultaneous perception of these levels enhances the viewing pleasure. Take for example the ultimate scene in The Hotel Inspectors. Superficially the pie-in-the-face act is as old as Methuselah (no, no, no Meth-u-se-lah, the Biblical figure, never mind ... I’ll explain later) and an ideal entertainment for five-year-old kids. But when Basil does it, it isn’t at all the same as when Laurel and Hardy do it. It has its own symbolism, — “And what can I do for you three gentlemen?” — there really are black holes in the universe ...

  THE MONEY AND GAMBLING OBSESSION

  The principal theme of A Touch of Class is Basil’s attempt to attract not just a better kind but specifically a higher social class of clientele to the Towers. But although he may want to exclude common people, and with them all things vulgar, it does not strike him as incongruous that there’s still a Las Vegas-type one-arm bandit in the hotel lounge. Unless Sybil is to blame for this offence against a better class of taste, this calls for an explanation.

  The gaming machine, though it’s unable to provide financial gain for Basil, reminds him how in the old days he used to thrill to the challenge of a wager of any kind. The machine is much like a religious relic to him, a reminder of the golden days when he could win a small fortune at the races in the afternoon and lose it all at poker in the evening.

  Soon after they were married, Sybil began to suspect that the drain on her purse had some connection with Basil’s many dubious investments, the majority of which failed to generate any kind of profit. One day she caught him in the act of rifling through her handbag. He tried to explain this away, pretending that he was looking for a tissue on which to blow his stuffed nose, but Sybil forced him to open the hand where the handkerchief supposedly was, and found a £10 note.

  So when Lord Melhury asks Basil to cash him a cheque for £200, Basil is at first overwhelmed by tho size of the sum, but then quickly slips into his old habit of regarding large sums of money as coming and going at will. The £40 spent on the advertisement in Country Life is in the same way a mere trifle, whereas paying a few pounds extra to have Stubbs replace the doors in the lobby seems outrageous, because he would actually get something material in return for the money invested.

  It is only when the sums are small that Basil dismounts from his high horse. He interrogates Mr. Macintosh at great length before he allows 32 pence, wrongly charged in the first place, to be deducted from his bill, whereas the offer of £87.000 made to Mrs. Richards for her house in Brighton just makes him yawn (Communication Problems). Polly’s request for a loan of £100 to make up the money she needs to buy a car almost causes a stab of pain. The extra £20 he makes in Waldorf Salad is manna from heaven to him, but doesn’t stop him delivering his speech on the idealism of the English, as if it were in fact he who had given Mr. Hamilton the money to stay in the dining-room after chef had left, and not vice versa.

  Having to replace a corked bottle of the Corton for a guest who doesn’t have a title (“Didn’t you see, I just uncorked it?” “No, no, the wine has reacted with the cork, and gone bad.”) brings out the Scrooge in Basil, “All right, then, but it’ll cost me.” When he and Sybil are about to leave for their round of golf in Paignton (The Builders), Basil starts removing note after note from the cash box, to be interrupted by his wife who takes the whole lot from him, returning a single fiver. The irony of Basil’s tacit acceptance of her actions (she takes the box away from him, locks it, takes out the key and places it under the reception counter) is best appreciated as we remember his penchant for throwing money around like confetti.

  Like so many women who fall in love with gamblers, Sybil thought that the strength of her love would be able to cure him of his vice. She had to pay dearly for this naiveté. Tranquillity would not be forthcoming until she made up her mind about which course of action to take. To curb this evil she must crush the serpent under her heel.

  Basil, however, keeps on trying to deceive her. The power of his gambling obsession is in fact equal to that of his fear of being found out by the old trouble and strife. As we have seen, this is also the reason why his defeat in Communication Problems is so devastating and final, just when, for once, he had decided to save his winnings, even to bank them. Which brings us to the last and most crucial of Basil Fawlty’s mental hangups.

  THE SYBILOPHOBIA, OR JUST: SYBILIS

  Basil has all the reason in the world to fear his wife. But he is also indebted to her for still being alive. It is certain that he would have been a ruined man on the very brink of suicide had not Sybil put an end to his gambling habit. As it is, Basil is constantly on the brink of a complete mental breakdown. Maybe he recognises, deep down, that he is his own worst enemy, and that the only person capable of saving him from himself is Sybil. This of course doesn’t prevent him from wanting her out of the way, yet he always finds himself up against her frightening omnipresence.

  The bedroom scene of the married couple in The Wedding Party is a case in point. Sybil, her hair in curlers and dressed in a fluorescent purple negligée that matches her nail varnish and clashes violently with the lemon-yellow bedspread, is lying in bed (we note that Sybil and Basil don’t share a double bed). She is simultaneously reading a comic strip (I swear, take a close look!), eating chocolates from a large box and smoking a cigarette, while from time to time emitting her characteristic, seal-like bark of enjoyment. Whenever the chocolate centre proves to be a kind she doesn’t care for — nut or cherry — she takes the offending piece out of her mouth and places it in the ashtray on the night-table between the beds. Basil, reading Jaws (not the one by Shakespeare) watches her in disgust. The horror of the scene becomes complete when Audrey telephones. Sybil’s sibilant “Yes, I know,” repeated ad infinitum and, “He doesn’t deserve you. He really doesn’t”, consummate the Basilean hell. He tries to escape it by clasping his hands over his ears. In vain. Sybil is so perfectly herself, and so much ‘at home’, that Basil feels compelled to get up and leave the bedroom.

  I would like to ask the male reader: How would you react ifyou had to endure the same shameless and vulgar banality? Would you lie there trying to take an interest in the conversation? Would you search for earplugs? Or would you, as Basil does, intervene and try to put an end to the torture by asking the ‘bleeding obvious,’ “If you know, why is she telling you then?”

  Let’s assess the situation. In this scene and context Sybil is a perfect horror. In an identical situation, I personally would be sorely tempted to strangle her with my bare hands. I can hardly imagine anything more dreadful than having to share this sort of intimacy with any person, let alone the woman of my choice. Basil’s reading Jaws is a pertinent illustration of his terrible dilemma — he can’t get rid of Sybil, only dream of fatal accidents — and his fantasies constantly run along these lines. We have already heard, in this episode’s opening scene, his rhetorical question (to Major Gowen and Mrs. Peignoir), “Did you ever see that film How to Murder your Wife? ... Awfully good, I saw it six times.”

  Of course, Basil knows that he is quite unable to do away with Sybil, and that, just supposing that he succeeded in doing so, he knows also that he will forever be haunted by her. English law is another deterrent, as is his fatalistic conformity to his marriage vows. So there he is — stuck. The only course open to him, once he has accepted the inevitability of his situation, is to try to keep his opponent unaware of his secret ways of getting through the day. This continuous deception naturally gives rise to a corresponding fear of being found out and punished by this implacable instrument of the forces of darkness.

  So, hand in hand with Basil’s racism, snobbery and sexual repression, goes his misogyny. Although sometimes in its outward aspect apparently benevolent (he sometimes can be amiable toward women), it in the end always betrays itself in his conviction that the female sex and intelligence are mutually exclusive — a contradiction in terms, in fact. The Wedding Party is rich in deprecatory remarks that form a c
ontinuous counterpoint to the theme of Basils obsession with what he believes to be the inconceivably perverted activities going on in his hotel. We have for instance his apology to the Lloyd family, “I’m sorry but my wife has made a mistake ... you know what women are like, they’ve only got one brain between the lot of them.”

  Or take the dialogue between the Major and Basil occasioned by Sybil’s leaving to visit Audrey.

  The Major: You don’t like Audrey very much, do you?

  Basil: Oh, dreadful woman. Dreadful.

  The Major: Well, I think it is very decent of your wife to go round there and listen to all that rubbish.

  Basil: Couldn’t do without it, Major.

  The Major: She’s a fine woman — Mrs. Fawlty.

  Basil: No, no, I wouldn’t say that.

  The Major: No, nor would I...

  In The Germans, Basil and the Major have another conversation in which a tendency to confound women with ‘inferior’ races in general emerges. As we relish this scene, we must remember that to the Major the word ‘nigger’ simply describes a person from the continent of Africa, whereas to Basil the term is less unequivocal. However, Basil is in no way intimidated by the Major’s clear-cut racial distinctions. We enter the dialogue just after the Major has explained that he once took an attractive woman to see a cricket match at the Oval.

  The Major: And the strange thing was ... throughout the morning she kept referring to the Indians as ‘niggers’. “No, no, no,” I said, “The niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs.” “No, no,” she said, “All cricketers are niggers. ”

  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. She’s still got my wallet.

  Basil: As I was saying, no capacity for logical thought.