Fawlty Towers Read online

  The Major: Who?

  Basil: Women.

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

  Basil: No, no, no, no — wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said, “They have minds 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.

  A conversation containing direct statements and allusions of this kind would probably be out of the question on any American TV show either in 1975 or the present day. Indeed, it would have a very hard time getting past the censors of today’s BBC as well. In modern American films the word ‘nigger’ is rather like a death sentence put in the mouth of a future victim; anyone denigrating people in this way is destined to come to a very sticky end indeed when justice is finally done.

  But humour is a different genre, in which such taboos can sometimes be broken. The Monty Python crew were the first in the history of entertainment to have the rare privilege of making fun of anything they considered worth making fun of — Scots and Norwegians not excluded. In Fawlty Towers this privilege was accorded to John Cleese personally. By making Basil the ultimate victim of his own prejudices, Cleese was able to get away with quite a few illiberalities, disguised as they were in illustrious slapstick. But the hard core of the shows remains an impressive testimony to the freedom of thought and expression that obtained within the series.13

  Basil doesn’t know the quotation, since he’s never read the book from which it comes, but he would very much find to his liking the French poet Baudelaire’s disenchanted remark: “Woman is natural, thus abominable.” To Basil, a woman is just another kind of savage, capable of domestication perhaps, but impossible to educate. This is why Basil refuses to recognise any value in the intellectual accomplishments (foreign language skills, for example) he sometimes finds among women and other primitive beings (guests).

  Having this generally low opinion of women, Basil fears the savage brutality of female vengeance too. It is only natural that Basil, on account of his strong conscious aversion to women, should be preoccupied with unconscious sexual fantasies of the most disturbing kind. These are those that manifest themselves in his frantic purges among the guests for suspected breaches of Victorian decency. And, as we have seen, although he hardly raises an eyebrow on observing his wife flirting with a guest, he himself is seized by the most powerful agitation as soon as any woman makes the slightest pass at him.

  Toward the end of The Wedding Party, his imagination has become so fevered that he falls prey to phantoms of his own making. The prospect of a Mrs. Peignoir breaking down his bedroom door, wrestling him onto the bed, and trying to “sit on him again”, is so horrifying that he must invent a story about Sybils unexpected return “I think you’ll find it on the second shell, Sybil darling.” (We note that the standard “dear” is replaced here by the desperate and excessively fond “darling.”)

  It would be an exaggeration to say that Basil is constantly in fear of getting caught in flagrante delicto. He is far too inhibited even to flirt with women, let alone try to get into bed with them. He is however desperately afraid of getting caught out in his most secret fantasies, which surely include scenarios in which he is unfaithful to Sybil and ultimately makes her the victim of a fatal accident.14

  This constant wishful plotting against the dragon-wife naturally leaves a sense of guilt. The “Yes, dear”, which so many married men find to be their passport to tranquillity, only partly works in Sybil’s case. She is much too suspicious and stubborn to let him get away with mere phrases. She wants to see things done, and she is very demanding. There is nothing in the series to suggest that Sybil does actually work quite as hard as she would have us believe. As a matter of fact, she is mostly gossiping with someone — preferably with Audrey, and about men — or with guests, as at the beginning of The Kipper and the Corpse, everybody else on the staff is busy serving lunch, while Sybil has all the time in the world to explain to Mr. Libson that, “We all need our privacy.”

  She takes special delight in assigning new tasks to Basil, and more often than not delegates her own work to someone else.15 The cry, “Basil! Basil!! Basil!!!” is a strident alarm signal that reverberates throughout the series. Basil himself has become inured to the mastiff bellowing, and finds nothing exceptional in her normal tone of voice. As long as she hasn’t worked herself up to a real frenzy (as in the closing scene of The Kipper and the Corpse) he keeps teasing her from the other side of the fence. However, whenever Sybil shows the claw, Basil comes running, tail between his legs. It always works. He’s in mortal fear of her tiger’s roar. She really has him under her thumb. It doesn’t make him any more efficient — or a better husband for that matter — but it affords her a vicarious pleasure in the absence of the most vital marital fulfilment.

  Basil himself has no idea of how to change things for the better, and prefers to invent endless compromises, lies and escape routes, which all in the end leave him surrounded, painted into a corner, nailed to the wall. But although Sybil has burned him alive many times, he is always just about able to rise, it seems, like a pitiable phoenix from the ashes of his humiliation. And though he knows in his heart that he will always be found out in the end, yet still he dreams of the day when he’ll outwit her once and for all. What this will entail he doesn’t quite dare to envisage. But we may be certain that if it ever comes to it, his tears at Sybil’s funeral, his woebegone leaning on Polly and his forlorn embracing of Manuel, will have every appearance of sincerity.

  3

  THE SECONDARY CHARACTERS

  We have now at some length discussed the principal and, so to speak, perennial actors in the series. The time has come to take a closer look at the people who come and go in various episodes. Most of these are temporary guests, either staying in the hotel, or coming to lunch or dinner. There are also people who visit the Towers for other reasons — builders, delivery men, inspectors, friends, and the like.

  The great majority of the actors playing these auxiliary roles appear just once during the course of the twelve episodes, meaning that they take part in one episode and so only have one identity. There are three exceptions, however. One of these, and a very interesting one too, is Terence Connolly, who incarnates Mr. Wearing in the first episode of A Touch of Class, and Mr. Johnstone in Waldorf Salad. In both instances he plays probably the most abused and insulted of all the guests at the Towers. It is true that both Lord Melbury and Mr. Hutchison are ultimately more humiliated than he, but in their cases there is some partial justification of Basil’s actions, whereas Mr. Wearing and Mr. Johnstone suffer his extreme discourtesy at the slightest provocation. In A Touch of Class, Mr. Wearing’s sole transgression is his repeated order from inside the bar, “A gin and orange, a lemon squash and a Scotch and water.” In Waldorf Salad he does no more than inform Basil that his wife's prawns were inedible and the charge ought to be deducted from the bill. That’s all he does, but he receives worse treatment than a dog in the street for it.

  An interesting detail is that although Mr. Wearing appears with a well defined bald patch in A Touch of Class, Mr. Johnstone in Waldorf Salad, filmed five years later, has quite a full head of hair! Is this to be attributed to the stunning efficiency of Regain, or are we to assume that his new coiffure is in fact a Robin Hood hairstyle — “take from the rich and give to the poor?” It seems that John Cleese and Terence Connolly got on well with one another in real life, as the latter also had a small part in the 1997 motion picture Fierce Creatures, directed, produced and starred in by John Cleese, in which the action, naturellement, takes place in a zoo ...

  The second person to visit the Towers twice is actress Elizabeth Henson, who makes a rather fierce appearance as the indulgent mother of the spoiled brat who gives Basil a hard time at the beginning of Gourmet Night. She was to return in The Kipper and the Corpse as the more reserved and timid character M
rs. White, who with her husband in vain tries to get into their room while Basil props up the dead body of Mr. Leeman in their wardrobe.

  The only other subsidiary character to appear twice in the series is the delivery man. In The Builders his name is Kerr, and his role in this episode is to deliver the charming garden gnome to 16 Elwood Avenue (“Yeah, with a bath, you dago twit”). In Communication Problems, this actor, Barney Dorman, performs exactly the same function as he does in The Builders, but his name is given as Bennion in the script. Here he brings Mrs. Richards her beautiful oriental vase and the glove with £90 inside — in an euphoric instant capable, as it were, of putting an end to Basil’s lifelong run of bad luck. We may suspect that the same delivery man — whether called Kerr, Bennion or something else — was also responsible for bringing the moose head into Basil’s ambit (The Germans). If so, the shop from which all three items were purchased must by deduction be Samson’s in town.

  All other secondary characters only appear once. Naturally, some of these take roles absolutely indispensable to the episodes in which they appear — for example, Lord Melbury and Danny in A Touch of Class, O’Reilly in The Builders, Mr. Walt and Mr. Hutchison in The Hotel Inspectors, Alan, Jean and Mrs. Peignoir in The Wedding Party, Mrs. Richards in Communication Problems, Mr. Johnson, Miss Miles and the doctors Abbott in The Psychiatrist, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton in Waldorf Salad, Mr. Carnegie in Basil the Rat (his monologue on the inadequacy of the Fawlty kitchen is a marvel!), Dr. Price and, of course, Mr. Leeman (who, paradoxically, acts dead throughout the greater part of his appearance) in The Kipper and the Corpse.

  The remaining secondary roles are of a more transitory character, but are crucial. For instance, in Basil the Rat the action would be weakened without the phlegmatic yet muted sonority of Mr. Taylor’s only line, “One bottle of the Beaujolais, please.” Mrs. Chase, cuddling her lap-dog, nicely sets the tone for The Kipper and the Corpse. Roger’s, “Up yours, Bas!” in The Anniversary is perfectly authentic, as is Mr. Firkins’, “There’s a very nice little filly running at Exeter this afternoon” in Communication Problems. André’s conciliatory, “Oh, there’s always a few” to Basil’s indignant observation, “So much for tonight’s guests. Ignorant rabble.” (Gourmet Night), has the same low-key charm as Mr. Mackintosh’s Scottish frugality in, “Drinks? Me?” (Communication Problems), or Lurphy’s musically intoned, “Thick as a plank,” in reference to Manuel’s hysterical repetition of “orelly men.” (The Builders).

  Of special interest is the brief appearance of actor Charles McKeown, whose connection with the Monty Python circle was through his collaboration with Terry Gilliam and playwright Tom Stoppard on the manuscript of the devastatingly dystopic cult film Brazil. The same Charles McKeown later had a hand in scriptwriting Gilliam’s superb drama comedy The Adventures of Baron Münchausen, and played the part in the film of the Baron’s servant Adolphus, the bespectacled man in the black cape who could hit any target, no matter how distant, with his rifle.

  McKeowns appearance in Fawlty Towers is so brief as to pass practically unnoticed. While Basil and Manuel are frantically trying to hide the body of Mr. Leeman in The Kipper and the Corpse, a certain Mr. Ingrams, waiting at the front desk for Sybil to give him the key to his room, says, “Thank you”. This is his only line. The next time we see him we hardly notice who he is. In a desperate attempt to find a place to hide the body until the undertakers arrive, Polly flings the door open to Room 8, and the whole party — the corpse dangling between Manuel and Basil — is quite surprised to see Mr. Ingrams blowing up his sex-aid doll. But at this point of general excitement, not to say panic, Basil himself hasn’t the time or inclination to embark on another tirade against the licentious mores of his guests — on the contrary, he even apologises for the intrusion.

  The episodes in which the largest number of secondary characters appear must be The Germans, where Basil’s fire-drill obliges every guest in the hotel to assemble in the lobby, and Waldorf Salad, where there is a similar round-up of potentially hostile individuals. However, in both instances the secondary characters have nothing much of dramatic significance to do. They remain mere spectators of Basil’s assumption of superhuman stature as he fills the screen with his presence — “This is exactly how Nazi Germany started ...”

  In connection with our examination of the script itself and of the series as theatre, we observe a return to the old and reliable dramaturgical device of a last act that ends with all the actors on stage. This is notably the case in Waldorf Salad and especially so in The Kipper and the Corpse, where practically everyone who has participated in the episode — and perhaps a few others! — is gathered in the lobby to witness the protagonist’s taking refuge in a laundry basket that is to be loaded into a lorry on its way to its next collection.

  Since in The Worshipper’s Companion many of the auxiliary characters are appropriately referred to at the precise points where they cross the path of the protagonist, I shall not burden the reader with a redundant list of who they are and in what episode they appear. On the other hand, those readers who seek information about a specific guest actors credentials outside the homoncular insulation characteristic of his existence within the Towers, the best standard reference, to my knowledge, is Fawlty Towers Fully Booked, which has devoted a special entry to the official careers of each and every one of these talented, if sometimes only briefly appearing, actors.

  4

  THE BLEEDING UNOBVIOUS

  The Fawlty Towers series contains a good deal of not-so-obvious references to illustrious characters, celebrities of the day, historical events and other social phenomena. In this chapter we shall shed some light upon the allusions that make up such a vital part of Basil’s private musings. These are often ignored or simply not understood by the people around him, and on this account likely on occasion to elude audiences as well.

  Let us begin with Basil’s comment to Sybil as she is about to open the briefcase which Lord Melbury has deposited in their safe (A Touch of Class). “I never thought I would live to see the day when a peer of the realm entrusts to us a case of valuables.” To British viewers a peer of the realm of course represents a perfectly understood social distinction. Viewers in other countries might on the other hand find it useful to know that the phrase usually refers to a person entitled to sit in the House of Lords — the aristocratic body that was a vital part of the British parliamentary system.16

  In The Builders, Basil is determined that someone other than himself must be held responsible for the disastrous ‘renovation’ of the lobby. Polly, on duty on that occasion, has told Manuel to wake her up as soon as O’Reilly’s men arrive. But Manuel, finding her deeply asleep, hasn’t the heart to wake her. He thinks he can handle the situation himself. Soon Basil’s hysterical investigation into the question of responsibility for the mishap reaches critical mass.

  Polly: It wasn’t really his (Manuel’s) fault.

  Basil: Well, whose fault was it then, you cloth-eared bint — Denis Compton’s?

  Cricket fans with a passion for the history of the game will have no problem identifying that one, but for all the rest of us (and I have reason to believe that there are quite a few of us) it is a riddle. Well, then, Denis Charles Scott Compton was one of the greatest of English cricketers, who died in 1997 at the age of 78. The then prime minister, John Major, expressed the nations loss and sorrow with unusual emotive force, and a public obituary stated humouristically: “Compton was noted most especially for the poetry of his batting, allied with a certain schoolboy impishness that accompanied his shot selection.” There was, in other words, something in Denis Compton’s character to suggest that he, given propitious circumstances, could act in the manner of a mischievous child. But to assume some kind of logic at work here on Basil’s part may indeed be a moot point. Denis Compton is probably just an example of utter ‘unrelatedness’ to the scene of the action, that is to say, he is one of the most unlikely persons to have been found present on the premises when
O’Reilly’s men, under Manuel’s supervision, cock everything up. It’s simply another instance of Basil’s inadvertent ‘sledge-hammer’ wit. Nonetheless, it should of course be mentioned that Cleese himself devoted himself to cricket during his college years. Fawlty Towers Fully Booked contains the following entry, utterly cryptic to people who know next to nothing about cricket (like me) but suggestive and, above all, evocative of said Compton: “In Cleese’s last year at college, the team played the mighty MCC and Cleese secured the wicket of the legendary Denis Compton: caught Whitty, bowled Cleese for 22.”

  Amateurs of Pythonesque reference will relish the fact that Denis Comptons name had already been used in a Monty Python show in 1972, featuring a certain Mr. Pither on a bicycle tour of Cornwall. Mr. Pither meets a Mr. Gulliver who turns out to be Lev Bronstein, alias Trotsky, who yearns to return to Russia and resume his role as leader of the Soviet Communist Party. In his inaugural speech at the party rally he soon transmogrifies into Eartha Kitt, singing, “I’m just an old-fashioned girl.” Denis Compton is mentioned earlier as being among the celebrities who have signed the autograph album owned by an elderly French couple (John Cleese and Eric Idle) who are camping out in the French Alpes maritimes.

  In The Germans, after having been thoroughly cross-examined over the telephone by Sybil, Basil sees Manuel re-enter the lobby and exclaims, “Oh, it’s the Admirable Crichton.” This is an ironic reference to a 1902 play of the same name by Sir James Barrie (the author of the world-famous children’s play Peter Pan). The plot is about a marvellously resourceful butler who, when shipwrecked on a desert island with his master and his master’s family, emerges, by virtue of his skills and the power of his personality, as the natural leader of the group.

  Although the Admirable Crichton of the play was an entirely fictional character, there is an historical underpinning to the name. The ‘real’ Admirable Crichton — thus named because of his swift intellect, vast learning, good looks and prowess in disputation and fencing — was of Scottish noble descent. In 1582 he was ambushed and killed in a coup planned by his own pupil, Vicenzo di Gonzaga, son of the duke of Mantua. James Crichton, already a legend, was only twenty-two years old at the time of his death. That Manuel barely resembles either Crichton goes without saying, but the deliberate inappropriateness is telling.