Meaning of gag me with a spoon9/3/2023 ![]() ![]() You can't do the whole thing in the hotel." Whereas, of course, it's in the hotel that the whole pressure cooker builds up. At a 30th anniversary event honouring the show, Cleese said,Ĭonnie and I wrote that first episode and we sent it in to Jimmy Gilbert,, whose job it was to assess the quality of the writing, said, (and I can quote fairly accurately,) "This is full of clichéd situations and stereotypical characters and I cannot see it as being anything other than a disaster." And Jimmy himself said, "You're going to have to get them out of the hotel, John. Ĭleese said in 2008 that the first Fawlty Towers script he and Booth wrote was rejected by the BBC. In this edition, the main character checks into a small-town hotel, his very presence seemingly winding up the aggressive and incompetent manager (played by Timothy Bateson) with a domineering wife. An early prototype of the character that became known as Basil Fawlty was developed in an episode ("No Ill Feeling") of the third Doctor series (titled Doctor at Large). Ĭleese was a writer on the 1970s British TV sitcom Doctor in the House for London Weekend Television. Demolished in 2015, the building was replaced by a new retirement home named Sachs Lodge in memory of Andrew Sachs who played Manuel in the sitcom and who died in 2016. "It was as if he didn't want the guests to be there." Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming, furthering their research of its owner. Rosemary Harrison, a waitress at the Gleneagles under Sinclair, described him as "bonkers" and lacking in hospitality, deeming him wholly unsuitable for a hotel proprietor. Michael Palin states Sinclair "seemed to view us as a colossal inconvenience". Asked why anyone would want to bomb the hotel, Sinclair replied, "We've had a lot of staff problems". Among such behaviour by Sinclair was his criticism of Terry Gilliam's "too American" table etiquette and tossing Eric Idle's briefcase out of a window "in case it contained a bomb". John Cleese was fascinated with the behaviour of the owner, Donald Sinclair, later describing him as "the rudest man I've ever come across in my life". In May 1970, the Monty Python comedy group stayed at the now demolished Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon while filming on location in Paignton. Cleese stayed at the hotel with the Monty Python team in 1970, and was inspired to write the series by the eccentric behaviour of the hotel's owner Donald Sinclair. Origins Gleneagles Hotel, Torquay in 2009. Cleese subsequently confirmed to GB News that the sequel series, unlike the original series, would not be broadcast on the BBC. The BBC profile for the series states that "the British sitcom by which all other British sitcoms must be judged, Fawlty Towers withstands multiple viewings, is eminently quotable (' don't mention the war') and stands up to this day as a jewel in the BBC's comedy crown." Ī sequel series starring Cleese and his daughter Camilla is in development as of February 2023. The popularity of Fawlty Towers has endured, and it is often re-broadcast. In 1980, Cleese received the British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance, and, in a 2001 poll conducted by Channel 4, Basil Fawlty was ranked second on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 19, Fawlty Towers won the British Academy Television Award for Best Scripted Comedy. Sinclair was the inspiration for Cleese's character Basil Fawlty. Stuffy and snobbish, Sinclair treated guests as though they were a hindrance to his running of the hotel (a waitress who worked for him stated "it was as if he didn't want the guests to be there"). The idea of the show came from Cleese after he stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon, in 1970 (along with the rest of the Monty Python troupe), where he encountered the eccentric hotel owner Donald Sinclair. ![]() ![]() They show their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests and tradespeople. The plots centre on the tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty (Cleese), his bossy wife Sybil ( Prunella Scales), the sensible chambermaid Polly (Booth) who often is the peacemaker and voice of reason, and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel ( Andrew Sachs). The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay on the English Riviera. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 and, in 2019, it was named the greatest ever British TV sitcom by a panel of comedy experts compiled by the Radio Times. Two series of six episodes each were made. 19 September 1975 ( ) – 25 October 1979 ( )įawlty Towers is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 19. ![]()
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