Abigoliah: Hello everyone, welcome to All British Comedy Explained, the podcast where I finally learn about all the British comedy shows I’ve been missing out on. I am stand-up comedian Abigoliah, and to guide me through this comedy labyrinth is writer Tom Salinsky.
Tom: Hello there. Good to be back.
Abigoliah: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the show. And if I can make a quick plug, over Christmas I released a comedy special on my actual YouTube called Legally Cheeky. So listeners at home, if you want to watch some of my own stand-up, check out my YouTube, Legally Cheeky. And yeah, we’re back. Season two. Series two. What? What are we going with? Are we going seasons or series? Because I keep slashing it because I’m American. But let’s just decide. Is the podcast in series or seasons?
Tom: Long answer or short answer?
Abigoliah: I mean, are you capable of a short answer?
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Okay. What are we doing?
Tom: Season.
Abigoliah: Okay. Season two. There we go. Now, the long answer. Why?
Tom: So people sometimes have strong views about what terms should be applied to what things and where. It is definitely true that in the UK, series is used more frequently, and in the USA, season is used more frequently. But this is not absolute. In the 80s, for example, Doctor Who was always referred to by the production team as running in seasons, and that did create a useful shorthand when it came back in 2005 and the new production team referred to series. So what that meant is that you could distinguish between series four and season four, depending on whether you were talking about something that went out in the 60s or something that went out in the 2000s.
Abigoliah: That is boggling.
Tom: Yeah, I have a very slight preference for season because it is more precise, because we use series to mean lots of different things. But distinguishing between, for example, a season finale and a series finale, I think is useful.
Abigoliah: Oh, that’s a very big difference.
Tom: Yes. So when I started making notes about this, I wrote down season one, and I’ve always called it season one. All right, so anyone who thinks that I’m being infected by an American way of speaking is welcome to unsubscribe.
Abigoliah: Fair enough.
Tom: Yeah, if that’s the basis on which you’re making decisions about what to listen to.
Abigoliah: And if it makes you so mad, share it with an American friend of yours so they can learn about British comedy like me.
Tom: This is my tiny, pedantic version of rage bait.
Abigoliah: This is, it’s as controversial as you get. You’re like, I am saying season.
Tom: On this British podcast, I am saying season.
Abigoliah: You live in your power, Tom. You live in your power. So bit of an update for our listeners. First of all, thanks for coming back and joining us. We deeply appreciate it. We’re going to start a Patreon.
Tom: Yeah. Why not?
Abigoliah: Yeah, we’re going to start.
Tom: We have literally dozens of listeners.
Abigoliah: Yeah, we have more than dozens. We have more than dozens. But do you want me to tell them or?
Tom: Sure.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Why don’t you tell them what’s going to be on the Patreon and how much it costs?
Tom: So for £3 a month, you can get uninterrupted ad-free listening. For £5 a month, you get uninterrupted ad-free listening, and you get special bonus mini episodes, such as the one which we will record after our conversation today, which will be on: is dialect humour of the kind evinced by Manuel in Fawlty Towers – because that’s what we’re watching – is dialect humour necessarily racist, or is there a meaningful distinction we can draw? So we’ll be having that conversation after we’ve recorded the main episode.
Abigoliah: So log on to Patreon.com/BritishComedyPod and £3 a month, ad-free listening to all of our episodes. And for £5 you get all of the episodes ad-free, plus mini episodes that will only be released on the £5 tier.
Tom: And you get the Patreon community and voting in polls and all that good stuff.
Abigoliah: Yeah. And well, this is our first start into Patreon. We’re gonna play with it. We have some other ideas to add to it, but we’re just going to see how this goes first. And yeah. And if you decide not to sign up for the Patreon, just thanks for listening. And what are we covering today?
Tom: Fawlty Towers.
Abigoliah: Yes!
Tom: Now, this always comes up when people start talking about British comedy. It’s most often cited as the best sitcom of all time, the funniest thing that’s ever been on British television. Maybe it’s starting to erode its position very, very slightly now, but it still casts an enormously long shadow over the British comedy landscape.
Abigoliah: On our social media, it is one of the ones that everyone’s like, why aren’t you covering Fawlty Towers? Cover Fawlty Towers. What about Fawlty Towers? It is here. We’re doing it.
Tom: And just like with alternative comedy, I felt I had a choice between Not the Nine O’Clock News and The Young Ones. I definitely wanted to do something with John Cleese, and it was a choice between Fawlty Towers and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. And for good or for ill, I went with Monty Python.
Abigoliah: I think you did an excellent job.
Tom: So you have heard of Fawlty Towers?
Abigoliah: Yes, I’ve seen Fawlty Towers. I don’t remember specifics. It’s one of those where my New York roommate had the DVD of the seasons. I’m – let me guess, two? Oh, yeah, I know this. Two seasons because there’s only two seasons of The Young Ones.
Tom: That’s right.
Abigoliah: Because there were only two seasons of Fawlty Towers. And I remember John Cleese is in it, of course, and I remember the episode where the Germans come to stay at the hotel and John Cleese keeps being like, don’t mention the war.
Tom: Exactly so.
Abigoliah: And that’s the running joke of that one. That’s what I remember about it.
Tom: All right. It first went out in 1975. This is the year that Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party.
Abigoliah: Boo! Hiss!
Tom: It’s the year of the Thrilla in Manila where Muhammad Ali beat Joe Frazier.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Cool.
Tom: The rock opera Tommy was in cinemas.
Abigoliah: Yeah, that is a terrifying film.
Tom: And so was Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, terrifying in a different way.
Abigoliah: Wow. Just really taking big swings in cinema.
Tom: Yeah, and Jaws kind of created the idea of the summer blockbuster.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: So very big film. But our story begins in 1971, and it begins with John Cleese.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So in 1971, Cleese was feeling a bit sort of restless. He’d done two series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and wasn’t sure if he wanted to do a third, so he was able to put it off for a year while he made up his mind. But what that meant was he was out of work. Now, before Python, he’d written the pilot episode of an ITV comedy series called Doctor in the House.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And so he approached the producers to say, can I do some more work for you? So Doctor in the House has morphed into a spin-off series, Doctor at Large, and they say yes. How many scripts do you want? Why don’t we say six? And now he has to have six new comedy ideas from somewhere.
Abigoliah: Okay. So he just had a vague idea and was out of work. And as all comedians do, when they’re out of work, they just call a big television production company and go, hey, could I maybe just do a thing? And they said, yes, because it was the 70s, and at the time there were only three shows on television and apparently only two comedians writing for them.
Tom: Precisely. So where are these comedy ideas going to come from? Well, his thoughts started turning to an extraordinary hotel in Devon where, when they were filming Monty Python on location, he and the other Pythons and his new wife, Connie Booth, had all stayed there. And what was extraordinary about it was the owner was, John Cleese says, the rudest man he has ever met in his entire life. He appeared to have no interest at all in the guests or any of their needs. And so when he was thinking, I’ve got to come up with six ideas for Doctor at Large, he thought, well, maybe they can check into a hotel that’s a bit like that.
Abigoliah: Okay. Yeah, I once stayed in a hotel like that in Ireland.
Tom: Oh, yes. Yes. Any stories?
Abigoliah: I mean, it was just weird. It was one of those, like, hotel, Airbnb – or not Airbnb, but B&B – where you get breakfast. But like, I showed up and they were like, they were like, you’re here. And I was like, yeah, I’m checking in. And they’re like, okay, you’re never allowed to eat in your room. And I was like, that’s a weird rule, but okay. And then I remember they told me when breakfast was and they’re like, what time do you think you’ll be down? And I was like, I don’t know, ten. And I remember when I went down for breakfast, they looked upset that I was there and they were like, what do you want? No, no, like, hi, how are you? It was just like, here. And then I remember they said because my flight was out late, so I could leave my bag there and walk around town for a bit and come back and get it and then get on my flight back to the UK. And so I asked them if I could leave my bag there, and he said yes, as he had said before. And when I came back to get my bag, he looked at me and went, your bag’s still here. And I was like, because you told me I could leave it here.
Tom: Better than what happened to Eric Idle.
Abigoliah: What happened?
Tom: So he left his bag, and when he came back, there was no sign of it. And the owner said, it’s on the other side of that wall. We thought it might be a bomb.
Abigoliah: Whoa! That did not happen to me in Ireland.
Tom: He also stalked over to Terry Gilliam and told him off for eating his food the American way. He said, we don’t eat like that in this country.
Abigoliah: Wow. Wow.
Tom: So in the episode of Doctor at Large, guests at the Bella Vista Hotel are persecuted by one Mr. Clifford, played by veteran actor Timothy Bateson.
Tom: Although, actually, when I watched that episode, he’s not the chief antagonist. There’s another guest character played by Roy Kinnear, a comedy legend whose son is now a very experienced and talented actor, Rory Kinnear.
Abigoliah: Okay. Isn’t there a Greg Kinnear?
Tom: There’s also a Greg Kinnear, but he’s an American actor, and as far as I know….
Abigoliah: No, they’re not related. Okay.
Tom: And so Cleese delivers his six scripts, returns to his day job, as it were, and turns out another…
Abigoliah: What was his day job?
Tom: Monty Python. He turns out another 13 episodes of Monty Python.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But then they asked him to do a fourth series and he declines. Which means, once again, unemployment beckons.
Abigoliah: So he goes back to the doctor show?
Tom: No.
Abigoliah: No, he has another idea.
Tom: Well, by this stage, the BBC want to hang on to him.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: those three series of Monty Python have made him quite a bankable star. So they say, well, what is it you want to do if you don’t want to do more Monty Python? And he says, I’d like to write something with Connie.
Abigoliah: Connie, his wife?
Tom: His wife.
Abigoliah: Aw…
Tom: And they start thinking about this hotel. The Gleneagles Hotel, it was called, and its extraordinary owner. And they began thinking a hotel makes a really good setting for a sitcom. So first of all, everyone’s stayed in hotels. It’s not a rarefied, extraordinary environment. Everyone knows what hotels are like, how they work, and so on. But equally, there’s a front of house and a back of house in a hotel. And what that means is that secrets might be kept from guests, and that’s just the kind of thing that might drive the sort of farcical plots that John Cleese was beginning to get enthusiastic about.
Abigoliah: And you get people coming in each episode.
Tom: That’s right, any guest character. Any guest character you might need can just check into the hotel. So you don’t need any exposition or explanation. Guest character is just a guest and you’re done.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Oh. That’s clever.
Tom: They named their hotelier Basil Fawlty in a tradition – we’ll also see next time – of contriving a pun for the title of the show out of the name of the lead character.
Abigoliah: Because he’s a faulty owner?
Tom: Yes. Yeah. The hotel is faulty. He’s faulty. Yeah. Nothing works quite right. The real hotelier was called Donald Sinclair, and he operated the business with his wife, Beatrice, who was rather more welcoming to guests. So they gave Basil a wife to run the hotel with him, Sybil. And fleshing out the cast further, they thought he needed a confidante and there needed to be a role for Connie. So that gave rise to waitress and general hotel factotum Polly. And they were also inspired by the rise of presumably very cheap European waiting staff at various London restaurants. So they created the inept Spanish waiter Manuel.
Abigoliah: Okay, and who plays Manuel?
Tom: Andrew Sachs.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So…
Abigoliah: I’m guessing Andrew Sachs isn’t Spanish.
Tom: No. Well, actually, when he was first approached about the role, he wasn’t at all sure if he could pull off a Spanish accent, but he’d been born in Berlin, and German was his first language, so he asked, could Manuel be German instead?
Abigoliah: Yeah. And they were like, no.
Tom: Yeah, exactly. John Cleese was like, no, he’s got to be Spanish. But Andrew Sachs ended up dubbing Manuel when the series was shown in Germany.
Abigoliah: Really?
Tom: And he had to figure out, how do I do German language but Spanish accent?
Abigoliah: Oh, that’s tricky.
Tom: Yes. Very tricky. So let’s talk about the rest of the casting. By this stage, a producer has come on board and this was somebody that Cleese selected because he is somebody who has a pretty low tolerance of any kind of incompetence. And he’d never been particularly impressed with how the Monty Python television shows had been directed.
Abigoliah: Oh, really?
Tom: But the first four were directed by somebody different. He didn’t like Ian MacNaughton, who directed the majority of them, but the first four were directed by somebody called John Howard Davies.
Abigoliah: Three-named man. Let me guess, did he go to Cambridge or Oxford?
Tom: I don’t know, but he did begin his career as a child actor.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: He’s in a couple of David Lean films.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And his name is associated with an enormous number of British comedy classics. The Goodies, Only Fools and Horses, Steptoe and Son, and Fawlty Towers.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So Cleese’s first idea for Sybil is an actress called Bridget Turner. But she turned it down, and it was John Howard Davies who suggested that they take a look at Prunella Scales.
Abigoliah: That does not sound like a real name. I am sorry, if you told me Prunella Scales was a character, I’d be like, of course, but someone’s name is Prunella Scales…
Tom: Yeah, and…
Abigoliah: That is a ridiculous name. And my name is Abigoliah Schamaun. Prunella Scales. It’s the Scales. What is – was her mother a music director? What is it?
Tom: Yeah. Or turtle, I don’t know.
Abigoliah: Or a…
Tom: Turtle? But she was already a, well, she was, she had a big hit in the 60s. She was in a show called Marriage Lines.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Opposite Richard Briers, who we’ll be meeting next time. And she’s now incredibly associated with playing Sybil in Fawlty Towers. But first, Cleese wasn’t convinced because he thought that the real Prunella Scales was too refined and he wanted – this is all about class, so many things in British comedy – he wanted the Fawltys and Sybil in particular to be more sort of social climbing.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And Prunella Scales wasn’t convinced.
Abigoliah: Now wait a minute. Back up. What is social climbing mean to British people? Like, like, you said, not middle class. Are we talking a working-class person who’s trying to be middle class?
Tom: Well, you see, you are labouring under the misapprehension, Abigoliah, that there are only three classes.
Abigoliah: Oh, dearest me.
Tom: But of course, it’s not just a question of being working class, middle class, or upper class, because there’s also lower middle class and upper middle class.
Abigoliah: Okay. And then the aristocracy.
Tom: Yes. Well, that’s, that’s the, yeah. The upper class. The ruling class. Yes.
Abigoliah: But isn’t the upper class, isn’t there the upper class and then…
Tom: You’re thinking of upper middle class.
Abigoliah: How can we have a diagram?
Tom: Upper middle class is professionals. It’s doctors. It’s bankers. It’s people like that.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And lower middle class, so maybe the person who works in the bank but isn’t the bank manager.
Abigoliah: So as an actor, comedian, writer, I’m lower middle class.
Tom: Oh, almost certainly. Okay. But the point is that this is something which is your birthright, but plenty of lower middle class people who made a bit of money wanted to be accepted by the middle class or the upper middle class. And that’s what social climbing is.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Try to be invited to the right dinner parties, serve the right cocktail snacks, and so on and so on.
Abigoliah: Because the lower middle class might have worked their way up by success of their job and their career and their financial gain.
Tom: The upper class and the upper middle class have always…
Abigoliah: Known.
Tom: Where you came from.
Abigoliah: So you could be very poor in the upper class. As history has shown.
Tom: Yes, old money, got no money.
Abigoliah: Yeah, you have no money, but you’re still…
Tom: You still have breeding, a duke. Yeah, yeah.
Abigoliah: Breeding like a dog. Like a dog. That’s what they are, the aristocracy.
Tom: But Prunella Scales thought she could pull that aspect of it off. But what she didn’t understand was why Basil and Sybil had got married in the first place. And John Cleese said, that’s the one question I hope nobody was going to ask. But they also said, think about your married friends. Do you really understand what’s keeping any of them together?
Abigoliah: Yeah, and back in the day, people used to just get married.
Tom: It’s true.
Abigoliah: I know that sounds stupid, but like, because it was expected of you. Yes. If Basil met Sybil and Sybil was like, he has a job, he can afford me the lifestyle I want. And maybe she wasn’t working or, you know, do they both want kids? Like it was more, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about this,
Tom: No, I don’t think so.
Abigoliah: But it feels like even in the 70s and stuff, it was, it was about love, but it was also about being able to have the lifestyle you wanted.
Tom: So we’re going to come back to this in a couple of future episodes. But I also want to mention a company called Video Arts. So the other thing which John Cleese is doing to keep the wolf from the door is he’s formed a company that makes corporate training videos using him and all of his comedy mates. And this company made a fortune. It made an absolute packet, because most corporate training videos of the time were incredibly dull. But he could recruit Ronnie Barker and Graham Chapman and all of his other comedy chums and be in them himself. So these were very funny.
Abigoliah: When was he doing this?
Tom: This is the early 70s. They were very funny. And they had recognizable names off the telly, as well as just other funny people. So Cleese had done a short film with Connie Booth called Romance with a Double Bass, and Andrew Sachs had a small part in that. He asked him to do some Video Arts films, and that’s how he came to ask him to do Manuel.
Abigoliah: My partner worked with a friend of his who’s a director/writer on corporate videos, and they made them funny. Yeah. And I don’t think they knew John Cleese did this in the 70s.
Tom: I really think the company is still in existence.
Abigoliah: Maybe it was for that company, I wonder. Okay, interesting, because when they said they were making funny corporate videos, I was like, what a brilliant idea. No one thought about it. John Cleese ahead of the game.
Tom: So they recorded a pilot in December of 1974 and it went very, very well. And the BBC immediately ordered another five. But John Cleese and Connie Booth weren’t in a hurry. Most television sitcoms…
Abigoliah: Because they had so much of that Monty Python money.
Tom: Well, the Video Arts money, much more than the Monty Python money.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: Most sitcom episodes take 5 to 10 days to write. On Fawlty Towers, it was more like 5 or 6 weeks per episode.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow. They really did take their time.
Tom: And they would sometimes have several episodes on the go at once, and they could kind of jump from one script to another if they were getting stuck. But almost all of that time was used for constructing plots. Following which they found the dialogue came very easily. They would have huge rolls of paper and be trying to set up intersecting plots and subplots, and try to get these basically 30-minute farces that they could shoot. Connie Booth does give a lot of credit for the one-liners to John Cleese, which maybe isn’t surprising, but Cleese gives a lot of credit to his wife for making the female characters believable and funny, because you don’t see very many female characters in Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Abigoliah: No. And when they show up, they’re a, they’re a tool. They’re not a, like, driving force.
Tom: Or if they are a driving force, they’re a kind of grotesque played by one of the men.
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom: Another tactic they used was if they knew they were setting something up, which was going to be important later, they would really bend over backwards to make the setup as funny as it could be, because if you’re laughing, you’re remembering. But you also don’t feel like, oh, that’s being planted for me to remember later.
Abigoliah: I don’t think I’ve ever, like, considered that so clearly, but it is something you do. I don’t know, I feel like I just got a really good piece of advice right there.
Tom: And then when you sit and watch a story of any kind, you’re always anticipating what might be going to come next. And good writing is about making use of that. So giving you what you want so you feel, oh, I know how this story works, it’s making sense. And then subverting your expectations at exactly the right time to throw you off.
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom: But if you can be reminded of something that was planted earlier, then you feel…
Abigoliah: Clever.
Tom: Yeah, exactly. That’s what you do when you create callbacks in your stand-up. Exactly the same principle is at work, but you can’t afford to have the setup for your callback be 30 seconds of no laughs.
Abigoliah: Of course. Yeah, because then no one remembers. Yeah.
Tom: And also these scripts were long, like about twice the number of pages of an average BBC sitcom of the time.
Abigoliah: An average sitcom length was, was it 30 minutes or was it like BBC…
Tom: You’d be expected to deliver 29.5. On ITV it’d be more like 24.5, because of ads. None of these Fawlty Towers episodes are 29.5 minutes. Most of them are 30-31. One is more than 36 minutes long.
Abigoliah: Wow.
Tom: And that’s despite the fact that John Cleese coached the cast to play through the laughs, because normally…
Abigoliah: So it could get done in 29.5 minutes.
Tom: Yup, normally the temptation, if you say a line and the audience laughs is you wait for the laughter to begin to die down, then you come up with the next line. But he knew because everyone is miked, they can adjust the level in the edit and they can make sure the line is heard even if you’re not waiting for the audience. So he was like, don’t wait. Keep the pace going. You want that manic energy.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: Which the story needs. And also he had to get like 130 pages into 30 minutes, or at least something approximating it, when typically a BBC sitcom script would be 70 pages. So I’m actually going to pause the story there.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And we’re going to go and watch some of these. And then I’ll talk about it going out and the second series and so on. But what are you expecting?
Abigoliah: I am expecting a bad Spanish accent. I’m expecting right away we’re going to see the tensions of class, and I don’t think they did this in the 70s, so I’m not expecting it. But what they would do now is, are any of the guests who visit, is it stunt casting? Is it like a star of some sort playing a character?
Tom: That’s a really interesting question, particularly given the two episodes I’ve decided to show you.
Abigoliah: And okay, if it’s not a star, if it’s not like a famous person wanting, on of the Monty Python show up, that’s my guess. That’s something that could happen. But I don’t know if they do stunt casting now. I’m thinking maybe they do.
Tom: All right, so for listeners, we’re going to watch series one, episode four, and series two, episode four. This was a really hard decision, by the way. I had so many different versions of which of these 12 episodes, which two I was going to show you?
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And I’ll explain my reasoning maybe after we watch them. But I have finally settled on, those are the two we’re going to watch. I’m not going to give you the titles. The titles, by the way, were made up after the fact. They don’t appear on screen when they’re put out on BBC Video. I think somebody said we have to have titles and they superimposed the titles onto the action, and then they could put them on the box. So they all have titles which were made up for them in the 80s. And now those are what those episodes are called everywhere.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But they’re not real.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And I think these two in particular, especially the second of the two we’re going to watch, a little bit spoilery. So I’m going to actually get you to look away when I call these episodes up. So you don’t see this tiny spoiler by mistake.
Abigoliah: Okay, cool. I just realized. Something. If they do have, like, a very special guest or like a famous person as a cameo. What’s going to be great is I’m not going to know who the hell they are.
Tom: We’ll see. All right. All right, let’s go watch it.
Tom: All right. What did you think of Fawlty Towers?
Abigoliah: I loved it. I thought it was so fun. It was so slapstick. Also. Okay, so here’s the thing. Nowadays, it costs a bazillion dollars to make anything. And in that, you could see the set wiggle. I don’t think that was a comic choice.
Tom: You could also see boom shadows on actors and on the set multiple times.
Abigoliah: And the fight choreography in the first episode we watched just reeked of like, am-dram and high school plays. And that being said, all of that, like…
Tom: None of that matters.
Abigoliah: None of it matters. It was so good. It was so good.
Tom: On the DVD audio commentary, Cleese is often quite critical of some of the physical stuff, and he’ll say, for example, there’s in an early episode in season one, Prunella Scales has to hit an Irish builder with her umbrella. And he said, we padded it all up, but Prue never hit him hard enough, and he was like, it’s not like we’re doing this eight shows a week in the West End. You have to do it once. And so it’s interesting to compare and contrast how Andrew Sachs talks about the physical stuff with how Cleese talks about it. Cleese is always like, I have to hit him. He has to hit me. We’re both fine. And Andrew Sachs is like, I went through hell on that show.
Abigoliah: Let’s also look at the physicality of the two. Like, freaking John Cleese is like six-foot-plus. And Andrew Sachs. I mean, how tall is he? He’s five foot…
Tom: He was quite elderly when I met him, but yeah, he’s a bit shorter than me, so he’s maybe five-five.
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah. I’m sure getting pummelled by John Cleese is a lot more intense than the other way around.
Tom: Yes, exactly.
Abigoliah: By the way, the character of Manuel did steal my heart. I thought he was fabulous.
Tom: Everyone loves Manuel.
Abigoliah: Oh, I loved Manuel. “I quit, I quit, I go on strike.” He hides in the basket. I’m like, yes, Manuel, stand up for yourself. You can do it. Okay, here’s my first question. I didn’t take that many notes because I was just, like, enjoying it. Hutchinson was Bernard Cribbins.
Tom: Bernard Cribbins.
Abigoliah: Bernard Cribbins. Who’s Bernard Cribbins, and how do I know him?
Tom: A couple of people I want to single out. So why don’t we start with Bernard Cribbins? He is known to generations of British children as the voice of the Wombles.
Abigoliah: Okay, that means nothing to me.
Tom: He also starred in the 1966 movie version of Doctor Who, starring Peter Cushing as the Doctor, and much later he appeared in ten episodes of the revived television series opposite David Tennant. So is it possible you’ve seen him in that?
Abigoliah: No, none of those.
Tom: He’s also been in any number of things. Any classic TV series. He’s in The Avengers. He’s in Worzel Gummidge. He used to read stories for Jackanory. He’s in The Railway Children with Jenny Agutter. He’s in the 1967 spoof Casino Royale. His 1962 novelty single “Right Said Fred” was the inspiration for the one-hit-wonder British band of the 90s of the same name.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So he’s just been a part of the comedy landscape forever. That part was written with Richard Briers in mind.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: We’ll be meeting him next time.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: He turned it down. It was then offered to Leonard Rossiter, who we’ll be meeting in 3 or 4 weeks’ time, and then Bernard Cribbins took it. And again on the commentary, John Cleese clearly had such a wonderful time working with Cribbins, and he keeps going on about how quickly he comes in on the cues and how fast everything is, and what a pleasure it is to play opposite him.
Abigoliah: Yeah, it was great. He was great in it. The doctor, is he someone?
Tom: So he’s the other one? Yes. So these are the two guest stars I wanted to single out for special attention.
Abigoliah: The doctor. Now, in my head, I was like, this could be him, but it could not be. Is he still working today?
Tom: No. Both Cribbins and Geoffrey Palmer died quite recently. They were both 93 when they died. Bernard Cribbins died in 2022, and Geoffrey Palmer died in 2020.
Abigoliah: Because he looks like an actor working today who you see just spotted in stuff, whose name I do not know. But in my head I was like, it could be him older, but if it is, that means he was really young when he played the doctor, but he doesn’t look young. But also in the 70s, everyone looked 47.
Tom: Geoffrey Palmer is British sitcom royalty. He got his first big break – again, we’re going to be watching this later, but I don’t actually think he’s in the episodes we’ll be watching. But he is part of the supporting cast of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: that was a big break for him. Now, as you’ll see when we watch it, that is a big cast surrounding one star performer. And most of the people in that big ensemble cast are most famous now for being in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But immediately after doing that show, he joined the cast of another landmark sitcom, Carla Lane’s Butterflies. And being in both Butterflies and Reginald Perrin made him an established name, so he was also in a very long-running sitcom called As Time Goes By, opposite Judi Dench. He was the voice of commercials, like he does so many voiceovers for adverts in the 70s and 80s. He makes a special guest appearance in the last episode of Blackadder. He’s in Whoops Apocalypse. He’s just, he’s all over the place.
Abigoliah: Just everywhere.
Tom: Yeah, everywhere.
Abigoliah: Yeah, he’s an actor.
Tom: He would have been a good get. If there was a special guest appearance by credit, he would definitely have earned it on Fawlty Towers.
Abigoliah: Now, when we watched the credits specifically for Cribbins, it didn’t say, and special guest. No, that wasn’t a thing.
Tom: But what might have…
Abigoliah: Happened were…
Tom: I don’t know if they did this in American television. But if, for example, somebody was in like a West End show, as the credits rolled, the announcer would say, “Bernard Cribbins can currently be seen in Run for Your Wife at the Adelphi.”
Abigoliah: Oh, cool. Oh. That’s nice.
Tom: Yeah. Yes.
Abigoliah: Like a little plug at the end.
Tom: So. Yes. Two guest appearances. Not every episode of Fawlty Towers has people who are well-remembered for being other things. A lot of people you see in Fawlty Towers are best remembered for being in Fawlty Towers. But those two stood out, and that was a bit of a coincidence.
Abigoliah: I mean.
Tom: It did solidify my choices as I was weighing up which of the 12 to show you.
Abigoliah: Of the two we watched, like, I don’t have a favourite between those two. I’m not like, oh, the hotel inspector was better than, like, the dead guy, dead guy in hotel room one. They were both super strong, super slapsticky. Are they all that strong?
Tom: Pretty much.
Abigoliah: Because they took so long to write them.
Tom: Exactly. People have favourites and people have ones that they dislike. One of the ones I like least is John Cleese’s favourite. So make of that what you will.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: The Anniversary Party is not one I particularly like. I think it’s almost like too painful.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But basically they are all incredibly strong. They’re all somewhere between good and absolutely fantastic.
Abigoliah: And like, obviously it’s, as it goes on because it’s like a farce, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. But also the small comedy like in the very first one, just like the thing of her being on the phone, lighting her own cigarette, him not finding matches, him going to get the matches, her being like, no, you get one. It’s such a small little thing about their relationship in a funny little moment that isn’t like blown out for big laughs, but I just love that. Also, in my head I was like, oh, that would never be a thing now because one, no one smokes in shows, but two, matches and cigarettes, you’d just be passing vape oil around and it’s not nearly as special.
Tom: And just a refresher, because you probably know this, but the way these shows would have been made is any location filming that was needed, a couple of shots outside the hotel, which would have been filmed on location, they’re shot on 16mm film, probably in a block before the rest of the filming starts. And then there would be a week of rehearsals, typically at what used to be called the Acton Hilton, which was this sort of tower block of purpose-built rehearsal rooms that the BBC owned in Acton. And so things like that could potentially have been worked out during that rehearsal week. And then they’d come into the studio, they’d block it for the cameras, they’d do a dress rehearsal effectively, they’d have supper, then the audience would be brought in, and then they’d have probably two hours to shoot the entire thing in front of the audience.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And if they didn’t get it done by 10:00, the electricians’ union would turn the lights off.
Abigoliah: Really? Yeah. Yeah. So there’s no going over and, yeah. So did they, you know, do they like doing it in front of a live studio audience?
Tom: Oh, definitely. They had, they would draw lots of energy from doing that, I’m pretty sure. I think, you know, everything we’re watching this season is filmed essentially like that, taped in front of a live studio audience. I don’t think there are any exceptions. And actually, in a couple of cases, that’s a really important part of the backstory.
Abigoliah: Interesting. And regarding Andrew Sachs’ Spanish accent. Now, I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know a lot about, you know what I mean? Like, I was like, oh, that’s fine. It’ll be interesting to talk about it in our Patreon episode. So I don’t want to go too much into, like, his accent, but in my head I was like, oh, is this going to be a really offensive version of a Spanish person? But I do like how it was like, he’s from Barcelona.
Tom: He’s, he’s from a little, a little catchphrase.
Abigoliah: Yeah. I was wondering if that comes up throughout the whole thing, as if to explain everything about him.
Tom: So sorry. He’s from Barcelona.
Abigoliah: He’s from Barcelona. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I didn’t. Oh, the eye contact sketch.
Tom: Oh, yes.
Abigoliah: That thing was so cute and clever. I love that, and that’s an example of, like, a really small back and forth.
Tom: Again, think how much rehearsal that would take. Yeah. How could you do that? The way that things are shot today when you don’t have that luxury of a week of rehearsal?
Abigoliah: Yeah, that’s a good point. It did feel like kind of watching a play. Yeah. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. I don’t know why anyone would think it is, but it did feel like, yeah, it felt like watching a piece of theatre as opposed to what I guess a modern-day sitcom is.
Tom: And there’s, especially in the first one, there are almost no gaps. Once lunch starts in the first one, that basically plays out in real time.
Abigoliah: Yeah everything is…
Tom: There’s a couple of fades to black in the second one, but they’re really, really condensed and contained. In fact, after they shot the pilot, John Howard Davies, the producer, was thrilled. Thought it was fantastic. But he had a quiet word with John Cleese and basically said, yeah, we’re going to be doing more of these. He said, you’re going to have to get them out of the hotel.
Abigoliah: Oh, really?
Tom: And no show has more than a few minutes outside the hotel, if that. I think in series one, there are a couple of sequences outside the hotel, one famous one where Basil’s car breaks down and he beats it with a branch in order to try and get it going again. But in series two, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing that isn’t either in the hotel or in the grounds.
Abigoliah: Because they have to change the way they film it when they go outside. I find it kind of jarring.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: The sound, the sound quality changes. Obviously the, because it’s on a different type of film, it changes. I don’t like it.
Tom: It doesn’t seem coherent.
Abigoliah: It doesn’t. It does seem like it was shot out of, out of sequence.
Tom: That’s what Geoff Posner was talking about. Do you remember he talked to us about shooting Victoria Wood’s series of half-hour comedies, and he said, I want to do it all on video so that we don’t have that shift between studio and location, and Victoria Wood said, well, the first one I’ve written is about people hiking up a mountain.
Abigoliah: But in a sketch show that feels more like you can get away with it.
Tom: These were half-hour self-contained stories.
Abigoliah: Oh. In a story. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Never mind. Then what was I going to say about it? Oh, so when they shot it on set, maybe you don’t know this, but because the dining room and the reception area are side by side, were they open so they could do it as one shot?
Tom: Yeah. So effectively, you’re in the audience. You’re looking at what looks a little bit like a stage play set.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: But it’s sort of carved up into sections. So you’d see maybe the reception central, and then you’d see the kitchen off to one side and the bar off the other side, and then maybe behind or maybe even further across, you’d see one of the bedrooms that’s supposed to be upstairs.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: Which is, of course, it’s all on the same level.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And you just do what you can with the size and shape of studio you’ve got to fit everything in. Essentially, you’re going to be looking at all of the sets. And if the set does have to be built around the back, then you look at the monitors when you’re in the audience and you can see what the cameras are seeing.
Abigoliah: But I guess what I’m trying to ask is between specifically the dining room and the reception, was it shot as almost…
Tom: A one shot? Yeah, yeah.
Abigoliah: So that was one piece.
Tom: So the cameras are gliding around on casters, and it’s the job of the vision mixer to choose which of those cameras’ output is being recorded to the master tape. Yeah. So there you have probably five cameras. You’re only getting the output of one at any one time.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: For your edit. So you can go back and do pickups and then edit things together. But you try not to do too much editing because editing in those days has moved on from what it was in the early 60s, when it was literally cutting the videotape with a razor blade.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: Now, which is very difficult, much more difficult than film because you can’t see what’s on the videotape. So you have to make a mark with a pencil and then cut the mark and hope you’ve got it right. Whereas what you’re doing now is you’re essentially copying the bits from the master tape onto the final tape that you want, and getting them in the right order, in the right length. But every time you do that, you lose a generation. So you try not to do that more than twice if you can avoid it.
Abigoliah: Because it’ll affect the quality of the video and the audio.
Tom: You can always go back to the master tape and do it all again. But who wants to do that?
Abigoliah: Yeah. That’s exhausting. Interesting. Yeah, I don’t have too much else other than, like, I just really enjoyed it. Like, I thought it was super fun and silly. And it’s interesting because it was, it was high energy and it was super slapstick. I did find it somehow more relaxing than watching The Young Ones, maybe just because The Young Ones jerks you so much in two different directions because like, we’re with the guys and then it’s like we’re doing a scene with a tomato. So maybe that’s why. But yeah, I, I did I mean, I liked it more than Monty Python.
Tom: Let’s talk about control of tone. Because one of the other insights, I think this really shows just how thoughtful John Cleese was about this kind of thing. John Cleese points out that Basil is incredibly rude to Sybil, but it’s really important that Sybil never seems hurt or wounded by any of his sarcastic barbs. Provided they’re water off a duck’s back to her, we can still laugh. If she looked genuinely offended, then it wouldn’t be funny anymore. Yeah, when he came to beat that car with the branch, I know you haven’t seen that bit, but he spent ages trying to find a branch that was the right degree of stiff or flexible, because if you beat a car with a floppy branch, it looks pathetic. If you beat a car with a rigid branch, it looks terrifying.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: So you have to find one which is just the right amount of flexible. And he experimented for, I think almost an hour before he found one that would suit him.
Abigoliah: Wow.
Tom: And so when it came to that final moment, Cleese and Connie Booth had an idea for the ending of The Kipper and the Corpse, which is that the dead man has a twin brother. And when the twin turns up, Basil goes absolutely ape. Because how dare he play such an absurd practical joke. And he’s a sick man. And what does he think he’s playing at? And the reason you can’t do that is because the scene that has to come next is the scene where Basil finds out, and then it has to be explained to the brother that his brother is dead. And that would just drain all the humour out of it. You come very, very close to that because his three colleagues have to be told that he’s dead, but they’re colleagues and the explanation can happen off-screen because it isn’t right on the spine of the story.
Abigoliah: Of course..
Tom: All that stuff is so carefully worked out.
Abigoliah: Yeah, because it was when they were like, you know, it’s like, look in the basket, look in the basket and he’s not there. Because. They take the wrong basket to the laundry. But in my head I was like, are we going to watch these people like…
Tom: See their colleague? Exactly.
Abigoliah: And then it is quite brilliant because Sybil takes them in. We don’t see the conversation, but it’s clear that it’s like, I’m sorry your friend died during the night, blah, blah, blah…
Tom: And I’ll tell you the story of how that episode came about, because after the first series went out, anyone who met John Cleese, who was anything to do with the hospitality industry, was full of stories for him. And so he had this idea, he and his friend Andrew Leeman had this idea that they should open a restaurant called Basil’s because they thought they’d make a fortune and they didn’t do it. But the reason he was talking to this guy, Andrew Leeman, is because Andrew Leeman used to work at, I think it was the Savoy.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And so Cleese said to him, what was the biggest problem you had at the Savoy? And he said, oh, getting rid of the stiffs.
Abigoliah: Really?
Tom: And as soon as he heard that, for John Cleese, it was like the sound of angels singing, it’s like, oh, what a beautiful gift. Is that at the Savoy, it’s very discreet. And so someone who is rather elderly and tired of life would check into the Savoy and take some pills, knowing that the staff would be able to deal with it discreetly.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow. So people would, like…
Tom: Plan it.
Abigoliah: Wow.
Tom: Yes. But yeah, getting rid of the stiffs. So this conversation is commemorated by the fact that the dead man is called Mr. Leeman.
Abigoliah: Oh, that’s so funny. Fun fact: when I was for a brief moment working on cruises, one of the people who works on them all the time as, like, a host told me that in their training, one of the things they do is after a show, like after a show in the theatre, they have to do body checks.
Tom: Because.
Abigoliah: Because. Cruises, people are very old and some people go into, like, watch the entertainment for the night and fall asleep and never wake up.
Tom: Wow.
Abigoliah: So yeah. That’s still a thing. Today.
Tom: Shall I tell you the rest of the Fawlty Towers story?
Abigoliah: Yes. Please do.
Tom: So. Some early reviews were pretty withering.
Abigoliah: Really?
Tom: Yeah. Cleese particularly disliked Richard Littlejohn, whose early review began with the headline, Richard Littlejohn. Yeah.
Abigoliah: No, not Little Richard. Not Little John.
Tom: Littlejohn. Long John short on jokes. Richard Littlejohn is commemorated by the fact that although it’s never spoken on-screen, you can see it in the credits, the name of the guest into whose room Cleese, and I think it’s Manuel blunder with the body, who’s blowing up an inflatable woman, who’s credited as Mr. Littlejohn.
Abigoliah: That’s great.
Tom: But it built up a pretty loyal and enthusiastic audience over the course of autumn 1975. All six episodes were repeated in early 1976 and then again in autumn 1976, this time on BBC One instead of BBC Two, by which time it had won Best Scripted Comedy at the BAFTAs. So everybody wanted to know, when are we getting more Fawlty Towers? And there were several problems with this.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Why? Why didn’t he decide to make more?
Tom: So firstly, John Cleese and Connie Booth were very busy getting divorced.
Abigoliah: I had a feeling that was going to happen.
Tom: They did remain good friends, but getting divorced takes up time. Secondly, John Cleese was very busy with other projects, not least Monty Python’s Life of Brian. And thirdly, both of them were aware they had a lot to live up to because the first series had been such a smash and they knew in people’s memories it was going to be even better than it actually was. So it wasn’t going to be good enough for six new shows to be as good as the first six. They had to be better just for people to think they were as good as the first lot.
Abigoliah: Wait, is this between series one and two?
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Yes, because they have 13 episodes total. 12 episodes total. Okay.
Tom: Yeah. So six and six.
Abigoliah: Okay. But they were debating coming back for season three. That’s what you’re talking about?
Tom: No, this is season two.
Abigoliah: Okay. All right. Okay, so I’m confused. So they got divorced between season one and season two. Okay. I thought we were talking about season three and why that didn’t happen. Okay. Okay, so they’re getting.
Tom: There’s a big delay between season one and season two.
Abigoliah: That’s so interesting.
Tom: And one consequence of this delay is that John Howard Davies, who produced it, who’d been so brilliant with the casting, who was the one man that John Cleese really trusted to get this produced and directed – he had been promoted. He was now the BBC’s Head of Comedy. Wasn’t available to direct anymore. Bob Spiers took over.
Abigoliah: Did Cleese like Bob Spiers?
Tom: I think he did, actually.
Abigoliah: Okay, good, good.
Tom: But he was much less experienced. He was a young BBC staff director. He’d gone along to this producer’s board and they’d said, what comedy shows do you like? And he said how much he admired the first series of Fawlty Towers. And then two weeks later, he was assigned to direct it, and he was given a more experienced producer, Douglas Argent, to help him out. So the role which had been done by one person is now being done by two.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So everybody finally, after almost four years, returned to shoot more exteriors at Wooburn Grange Country Club. And but then in the middle of shooting the second series, strike action interrupted. So Cleese is going on about car strikes. But this was a very real, this was a very real live debate during the 70s. Things were being disrupted by strikes all the time. And so…
Abigoliah: I’ve seen Billy Elliot.
Tom: There you go. That’s a bit later. That’s the miners’ strike. Oh, the more frequent industrial strikes.
Abigoliah: But that was a Thatcher thing, right?
Tom: No, this is all pre-Thatcher.
Abigoliah: I thought you said Fawlty Towers came out when Thatcher was Prime Minister. Nope.
Tom: I said she became leader of the Conservative Party.
Abigoliah: That is a big difference.
Tom: She was in…
Abigoliah: Opposition. A difference. There’s a difference. I apologize.
Tom: So, yeah, the strikes would take like the whole of ITV off the air for two weeks from time to time in the 70s. This is the winter of discontent. This is…
Abigoliah: And this isn’t writer strikes. This is…
Tom: This is technician strikes, union strikes.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So strike action delayed the filming of episode five. So episode five had to move back a week into the slot reserved for episode six. And then episode six wasn’t recorded until two months later.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow.
Tom: And was eventually shown seven months after the other five as a Fawlty Towers special.
Abigoliah: Like a Christmas special…?
Tom: It wasn’t a Christmas special, no. It was towards the end of the year. But that was, so you got six, four years later, you got another five, and then seven months after that you got the 12th and last.
Abigoliah: I, you know, and we watch one from season one and season two, I didn’t see…
Tom: No, they looked the same.
Abigoliah: They look the exact same. Okay.
Tom: They’re very lucky to get Ballard Berkeley as the Major and the two old ladies back and so on.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: They did make one change to the cast, which is they added a permanent chef. There are various mentions of chefs in series one and one episode, Gourmet Night, features a chef who, as part of the plot, is only in that one episode, but the chef Terry, is in all the episodes of series two.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I was wondering when we saw him, I was like, oh, does he play a bigger role? Does he get to do more?
Tom: He’s about that much?
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But he was very unsure how to play the part. And eventually John Cleese said to him, he’s wanted by the police. Oh. And that was all he needed.
Abigoliah: I love that.
Tom: But these 12 episodes were shown again and again and again. They were always being repeated when I was growing up. They were on digital channels like UK Gold when that became a thing. They were sold all over the world, even to Spain, where they redubbed Manuel and made him Portuguese.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: they were on VHS, they were on DVD. Two script books were published and four LPs featuring the television soundtrack and linking narration from Andrew Sachs. And this is so often cited as the best sitcom of all time. Stephen Fry called it a masterclass in comic timing. John Lithgow said the physical comedy in Fawlty Towers rivals Chaplin. Tina Fey referred to Basil’s breakdowns as pure comedy truth.
Abigoliah: Oh.
Tom: And there have been at least four attempts to remake Fawlty Towers, three in America and one in Germany. So let me introduce you to Chateau Snavely with Harvey Korman, which was piloted in 1978 but got no further. Amanda’s starring Bea Arthur in the Basil Fawlty role, which ran for ten episodes.
Abigoliah: I think I’ve heard of this, yes.
Tom: And they thought what Fawlty Towers lacks is real heart and emotion and human feeling. No. So they made sure their version had lots of that.
Abigoliah: And then they ruined it.
Tom: And then Payne, starring John Larroquette, lasted eight episodes in 1999.
Abigoliah: I’m very curious about that.
Tom: You can see clips of all of these on YouTube.
Abigoliah: Okay, I’ve got to check this out
Tom: John Cleese actually visited the set of Zum letzten Kliff in 2001 as they remade the second episode of Fawlty Towers, The Builders, for German television, but it wasn’t picked up.
Abigoliah: Okay. And the Bea Arthur one with heart. Did it just kind of ruin the vibe?
Tom: Oh, totally. Yes. It’s ridiculous. Tthe pieces don’t mesh. You can do a perfectly good sitcom about a middle-aged female hotelier who has lots of personal and emotional problems. But your template ought not to be any of the episodes of Fawlty Towers.
Abigoliah: I mean, the whole thing doesn’t work for me. Like Bea Arthur, who is an amazing actress and comedian. I guess because John Cleese is so over the top, where I feel like she’s quite dry.
Tom: You can imagine her being sort of biting and sarcastic.
Abigoliah: Oh yeah
Tom: It’s not the worstidea I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s just that the whole idea of remaking Fawlty Towers for the American market doesn’t work because it’s so rooted in class.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: Not that America doesn’t have a class system. It’s just based on different things. The episode I nearly showed you is the one that’s usually called Waldorf Salad. But when they were writing it, they just called it “American”, which is when an American couple checks into the hotel and they ask for things like a screwdriver or a Waldorf Salad…
Abigoliah: Salad.
Tom: That Basil’s never heard of.
Abigoliah: And now people don’t know what a Waldorf salad is. I don’t think I’m even saying it right. And ambrosia, that’s a classic.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Now I’m just like, this is so great. I’ve got to see this Bea Arthur version.
Tom: I don’t think you do.
Abigoliah: No.
Tom: But the chateau, this cast, like I said, is extremely long. So one of the things I remember growing up is Basil Fawlty was a gift to impressionists. So the likes of Mike Yarwood, Les Dennis, Freddie Starr, Bobby Davro, Michael Barrymore would be constantly parading their ersatz versions of this character, and Cleese was often called upon to evoke Basil Fawlty in adverts and corporate videos. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a film called Clockwise from the 80s written by Michael Frayn, which is another kind of frenetic farce. After some debate, he ended up saying, well, I may as well keep my hair and my moustache the same way I was when I played Basil Fawlty, because everyone’s going to think it’s Basil anyway, so I may as well, even though in terms of construction, they’re quite similar, but actually the characterisation couldn’t be more different because the point of Clockwise is it’s about a headmaster who runs things according to a very tight schedule and takes enormous pride and pleasure in everything being exactly right. And then his life falls apart because he can’t get to an event on time.
Abigoliah: Okay. Did John Cleese grow the moustache for Basil Fawlty?
Tom: I don’t think so. I think he’d already, there’s certainly shots of him in Tunisia, I think location scouting or writing stuff for Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where he has the moustache. And then in the 80s, he more often had a full beard.
Abigoliah: Oh. Did he? Because whenever I think of John Cleese, I think of, like, a moustache.
Tom: Like that’s his most frequent mode of facial hair arrangement. Yeah, yeah.
Abigoliah: Fair enough.
Tom: And he carried on working with the other Pythons, there are three Python feature films altogether. He wrote and starred in his own feature films, including the Oscar-winning A Fish Called Wanda. And it’s funny you should say this looks like a stage show because he did his own Fawlty Towers stage show. He had discovered after years, by the way, that an Australian company had been making an absolute fortune from a dinner theatre show called The Faulty Towers Dining Experience.
Abigoliah: Which exists, in which…
Tom: You may have seen in Edinburgh. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Abigoliah: I’ve never, I’ve never done it.
Tom: But like, it tried to sue them, I think unsuccessfully. Oh really. And then eventually he said, well if they’re making money out of this, maybe so can I. And so they did a version of the Fawlty Towers stage show in Australia, brought it to the West End, and pretty sure it’s now on tour. And that’s three episodes of the TV series mashed together, including The Hotel Inspectors.
Abigoliah: Oh, so he didn’t write a new script. He just was like, here’s the hits. That’s cheeky.
Tom: Yeah, and interestingly, when they talk about the writing process. John Cleese and Connie Booth are usually very generous to each other, but I couldn’t help noticing that that script for that stage show, which is three of the episodes of the television show mashed together, is advertised as “John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers”, which seems to be giving Connie Booth short shrift.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I mean, that’s just being a woman in a writing duo.
Tom: I guess. So let me briefly tell you about the rest of the cast. The evocatively named Prunella Scales.
Abigoliah: I mean, it just sounds like a fake name. Sybil Fawlty. Real name Prunella Scales. Not a real name.
Tom: She continued acting, most notably in the generational sitcom After Henry by Simon Brett, which is first radio and then a TV show. She died late last year. Andrew Sachs never really escaped the shadow of Manuel. He recorded pop singles in character. He presented documentaries as Manuel, but he did continue acting, especially doing voice work. Oddly, his real voice is rather sort of very English, rather studied, quite gravelly, especially as he got older. So he’s really pitching it up to be Manuel. He died in 2016. Connie Booth retired from acting in the 1990s and became a psychotherapist.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow.
Tom: So she doesn’t, she’s never written anything else other than Fawlty Towers.
Abigoliah: One great thing. And then. And then she continued acting.
Tom: She continued acting for a while, and then she gave it up to become a psychotherapist.
Abigoliah: Is she still around?
Tom: She is still around. Yes. So, I mean, we can try and get her on the podcast, but I don’t really like our chances. We can ask.
Abigoliah: If she’s left the business of show.
Tom: Yeah.
Abigoliah: That’s a tricky one.
Tom: Basically, everyone else involved is dead. It’s really only Cleese and Booth who are still alive.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I was gonna say Cleese is still around.
Tom: Yeah.
Abigoliah: What I think is so interesting, though, is like the long shadow the show has. Like, again, the Fawlty Towers dining experience. There’s now Fawlty Towers television show. Like, even if you’ve never seen it, it exists in the lexicon.
Tom: And when people try and come up with new sitcoms, they’re either saying, what can we learn from Fawlty Towers? Or how can we avoid copying Fawlty Towers?
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: It just seems like sketch shows after Monty Python. Everything now is either a copy of Fawlty Towers or a reaction against Fawlty Towers.
Abigoliah: Yeah, well, The Office is a reaction.
Tom: Yes, exactly.
Abigoliah: And that’s why I think the next wave of sitcoms are going to be studio-based. I really think we’re going to go back to like the Fawlty Towers version of stuff.
Tom: But in terms of characterisation, and we said this to, I said this to Emma Manton, but maybe you’ve got a clear idea now what I mean, the Basil Fawlty and the David Brent characters are two different versions of the same archetype.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: The little man who is in a position of authority but doesn’t have the character really to carry it off. And is constantly striving for something greater. What they want is different and their tone is different, but there’s an archetype there that we will see again and again and again as we start watching British sitcoms together.
Abigoliah: Okay. Yeah, it makes sense.
Tom: What are your predictions? You’ve seen one-sixth of the available episodes. What do you think happens in the other ten?
Abigoliah: I think. There is a version where because Basil Fawlty is always like, Sybil doesn’t do anything. She just sits on the phone. I think there is a version where she goes away like she goes on a trip, or she’s out of the show and he thinks he’ll be able to handle everything by himself, and it falls apart because she’s such an integral part of running the hotel. And I’m not quite sure how, but…
Tom: You are dead on the money with that one.
Abigoliah: Yes?!
Tom: That is basically what happens in the most famous episode of all, The Germans.
Abigoliah: Oh, is that what happens in The Germans?
Tom: That starts with Sybil is in hospital having an ingrowing toenail removed. Basil has to organise the fire drill in her absence. It’s the fire drill completely falling apart that ends with Basil concussed. And it’s because Basil is concussed that he’s not able to stop himself from continually bringing up the war.
Abigoliah: Okay, I’ve said I’ve seen that one, but I swear I don’t remember that. Of course I swear I don’t. And then you mentioned there was one with some Americans who come to visit. So in here are probably not in the 70s. But you were saying how, the food and everything is different and the Americans visit. Do they have, do they have a joke about them always wearing trainers? No, I doubt that happened in the 70s, but that’s one thing that people always say about American tourists is we are always wearing trainers. But yeah, that was my guess. Was Sybil’s gone and everything falls apart. Is there one that, like, features Manuel a little bit more? Like we see a day in the life of…?
Tom: Not really. He’s, he’s usually a little bit tertiary. It’s usually, I mean, the credits give it away. It’s Fawlty Towers, written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, starring John Cleese and Prunella Scales. They’re usually at the centre of things. Manuel usually has a role to play. I guess the one that features him most strongly is probably, again, the titles of these are giveaways, but as you can see these anyway, the final episode is called Basil the Rat, in which it turns out that Manuel’s hamster, which we have heard about in previous episodes, he’s been sold by some shyster, and is actually a rat. Oh, and then, of course, he gets loose in the hotel on the same day that there is a public health inspector.
Abigoliah: Oh of course, yeah, of course. I will say the one good thing about several seasons of a show is you do get to explore that thing. Like thinking about, it’s not a comedy, per se, but House starring Hugh Laurie. There’s an episode where they do like the day in the life of Cuddy, and they follow her around the hospital. And you just see, like, Hugh Laurie and his team coming in and saying something ridiculous, but you never get that part of it. It would be fun to see, like, a day in the life of Manuel and see what he does and have Basil coming in and out. But if you only have 12 episodes, you don’t go that far in the what do we do next?
Tom: And Cleese did have an idea for a Fawlty Towers feature film.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: This was many, many years after the series. Of people keep asking, will you do more? Will you do more? And as we said, you were kind of right about this because you felt they just about managed to clear the bar of the second series has to be 20 or 30% funnier than the first series in order for people to imagine it was just the same. They knew they couldn’t exceed expectations again, so they didn’t do any more, at least partly for that reason. But they did have this vague idea for a feature film in which Manuel, they’re flying home to meet Manuel’s family, so they’re all flying to Spain for a wedding or something like that. And then, as happened a lot in the 70s and 80s, the plane gets hijacked. And Basil, just by being irritated with everybody, manages to overcome the hijackers.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow.
Tom: And then the punchline, or the kind of the final sequence, is the plane is turning around to fly back to Heathrow so the police can come on board. And Basil is suddenly like, we are going to Barcelona. That’s the only place this plane is going. And the pilots are like, we have to turn around and go back to Heathrow. And then he has one of the weapons from the terrorists. He’s like, take this plane to its scheduled destination. There’s a brilliant interview with Cleese describing this, and you can see his face beaming as he imagines what it would be, how funny it would be, and how well it would work. And he goes, but I don’t want to do it.
Abigoliah: And then after 2001, you know what? You can’t do it anymore.
Tom: Absolutely not. No. 100%. No.
Abigoliah: Oh, gosh. That’s, I mean, that’s great. I think it does belong on the Shelf of Fame. Are we there yet?
Tom: We absolutely are.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Yeah. I think it does. Now hold on. Let me have a think.
Tom: You’ve got Morecambe and Wise now bringing up the rear at seven. So you have three slots available, so we don’t have to throw anything off yet. But you might have to move some things around.
Abigoliah: I feel like I’m playing poker, making a decision. You know what I mean? I’m like, do I? Go on? So I think we’re going to put Fawlty Towers at number four and we are going to move down, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, The Office and The Young Ones. So to recap, for those who don’t remember from the previous season of this podcast, it’s Victoria Wood, The Day Today, Not Only… But Also, now Fawlty Towers, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, The Office and The Young Ones.
Tom: And then Morecambe and Wise.
Abigoliah: Oh, and then Morecambe and Wise at number seven.
Tom: And you can see the Shelf of Fame in its current version on our website. If you want to go back and check.
Abigoliah: All British Comedy Explained podcast. What is our website?
Tom: AllBritishComedy.com.
Abigoliah: AllBritishComedy.com. Cool. And listeners, if you want to follow us on social media, please do. We are on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. You can watch the podcast in video form there if you want. Three ways you can support the podcast: one, rate and review it on your podcatcher app; two, tell a friend; or three, sign up for our very new Patreon.
Tom: That’s right. For just £3 a month, you get uninterrupted ad-free listening, and for £5 a month you get special bonus mini episodes like the one we are about to record, where we’ll tackle the question: is dialect humour necessarily racist?
Abigoliah: All right, I can’t wait, as two white people, to wade into those waters. Till next time, guys.
Tom: I’m Abigoliah and I’m Tom Salinsky. Cheerio.
Abigoliah: Bye-bye.