Sprechen Sie Deutsch? I beg your pardon?
Entschuldigung Sie, bitte. Kennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?
I'm sorry. Could you say that again?
You speak German?
Oh, German! I'm sorry, I thought there was something wrong with you.
30 years since it left our TV screens,
Fawlty Towers is still acknowledged as the benchmark by which all other sitcoms are measured.
'Funnily enough, the people who seem to find it hardest to enjoy are the hoteliers.'
and after three minutes they think, "Oh, no,"
cos they can see what's going to happen.
Argh!
Sorry, sorry.
The popularity of Fawlty Towers, I think, today
is a lot to do with John.
This - smack on head.
Also the ordinary situations, because they're something
that our kind of time was, people can relate to these taboo subjects.
Tonight, for the very first time, John Cleese and Connie Booth, the show's writers and co-stars,
are both breaking their silence to share their secrets of how this classic comedy was made...
..including an insight into their strained marriage.
It didn't save our marriage, but I think Fawlty Towers became a kind of refuge for our demons and angels.
..the true cost of Manuel's comedy stunts...
'I thought I was going down, I could hear the angels singing.'
I thought, "Thank heavens it's the last shot of the show, cos I can't get up."
..and how the BBC almost let this comedy crown jewel slip through their fingers.
Head something, light entertainment, "I'm afraid I thought this one
"as dire as its title, which I can't see being anything but a disaster."
Perhaps it's a dream!
No, it's not a dream, we're stuck with it. Right!
There were just 12 half-hour episodes of Fawlty Towers
screened between 1975 and 1979, yet it remains a timeless classic.
'Fawlty Towers survives because it's brilliantly made,'
brilliantly written, immaculately performed precision comedy.
Do try to be agreeable this weekend, Basil. Now, have I got everything?
Handbag? Knuckle-dusters? Flick knife?
It always feels to me as though there were many, many more episodes
and that's because of the richness of the stories and the characters.
Come on, then, give us a smile! That's it!
'It was beautifully written and beautifully directed'
and John, Connie and Andrew are wonderful people to work with
and I'm proud and grateful for that.
Thank you very much, yes.
DISHES SMASH
'It's like falling on a banana skin.'
It's funny if it's not happening to you.
If it does, it can be tragic.
You could describe Fawlty Towers as a tragedy with laughs.
If the good Lord...
Is mentioned once more, I shall move you closer to him. Now, please...
I've been in some of the worst sitcoms - and will again -
ever produced, and from the first moment in Fawlty Towers you thought, "Oh, this is the best."
He's only choking! Don't worry, a bit of cheese went the wrong way!
The best bit about working on Fawlty Towers was the show itself
when it went out, and the reaction from everybody,
and the fact that it's still being shown all over the world and they keep sending us little cheques.
I'm sitting here. Is no lunch till 12...
I'm still having breakfast.
Breakfast kaputt. I'm having sausages.
Is not allowed. Put that back.
Look, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor and I want my sausages!
It's nice to have that in the CV - "I did a Fawlty Towers,"
and I worked with Ralph Richardson, Paul Scofield, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, and John Cleese.
She's hysterical, slap her! Murder! Slap her, slap her. Murder!
Oh, spiffing, absolutely spiffing. Well done.
Two dead, 25 to go.
Quick, Polly! Polly, quick.
John Cleese unleashed the rudest man in sitcom - the daddy of the dysfunctional,
a character so tragic, so flawed, and yet so hilariously funny.
Oh, there it is!
John has created a wonderful comic creation in Basil Fawlty.
He's just one of the classic comic characters of all time.
There's something about Basil which makes him a very good character
for our times, I think, for our hyped-up, anxious sort of rush-around times.
He is the sort of symbol of mania and hysteria.
Basil?!
There's his domineering, acid-tongued wife Sybil,
dependable Polly, the overworked chambermaid,
dotty resident guest the Major, and Manuel,
simply the most famous TV waiter in history, who's from Barcelona, don't you know?
There is too much butter on those trays. Que?
There is too much butter on those trays. No. No, no, senor.
Not "on those trays."
No, sir, "Uno, dos, tres."
After 30 years, the show's original producer has returned to the BBC archives to unearth
the Fawlty Towers production files, and rediscover their dusty details.
Ah, here we have the programme costs.
For the first episode in 1975, it was about £20,000, just over.
John Cleese probably only got about £400 or something like that.
Absolutely amazing how little things cost in those days, but it was a cheap show,
as demonstrated by the flexibility of the scenery.
'That's why it wobbled a bit from time to time, because we
'never had enough money to really structure it so it didn't wobble.'
Thank you and good night!
We've got a drawing here of the original set. There...
And it's instantly recognisable,
even though this was made long before the sets were actually designed.
Apart from being bashed, crashed into and knocked down,
Fawlty's set also once famously flirted with flames.
Huh! Oh, no. No, no, no, please. No, no, no, no. Huh?
No, no...
'The fire sequence - yeah, I was hurt in that.'
That smoke was created with the use of two chemicals on each other
and they create the smoke and you don't feel it through the jacket.
This was the theory.
ALARM RINGS Fire, fire, fire!
No, no! Yes! Si, si!
Look, will you get back in there? Yes, yes! No, no!
'I was getting very warm. I thought, "Well, this can't be right."'
"Can we just take my jacket off?"
Took the jacket off and it was red raw, it had acid burns.
Is fire, is fire, is fire!
It started hurting, so if you ever see that episode, be sympathetic to my pain.
He's always whinging on about that.
I'll let him whinge when he writes me a good part.
Coming up, we reveal the real life inspiration for Basil Fawlty...
"You want ME to ring you at quarter to seven? You want breakfast as well?"
It was exactly that reaction. I thought, "This is odd, he's running a hotel".
He was so gratuitously rude because, like all British hoteliers, he operated on the principle of,
"I could run this hotel properly if it wasn't for the guests."
I think John and I wrote together better than we lived together.
So stay tuned for the grand reopening of Torquay's notorious hotel.
This - Basil. This - smack on head.
30 years on from its departure, Fawlty Towers still retains its
ability to make the British public roar with laughter.
Amongst its many claims to fame, it of course gave us one of the most iconic
comedy characters ever created, the irrepressible Basil Fawlty.
'He's so awful, he's so impossible.'
He's failing to achieve everything he wants,
and although you disapprove of his goals, he's still failing
and he's such a sad character.
Success isn't funny, failure's funny,
and Basil just fails triumphantly every day at some point.
Oh, thank you, God!
Thank you so bloody much!
'I would describe him'
as a ludicrous figure who takes things to extremes.
You know, whatever emotion he has, it's extreme.
Sybil! No, no, no, no, no! You know what it's like, I remembered, Sybil!
HE GIBBERS
Everything all right?
Bit of a bump, just smoothing it out.
He's intelligent, but emotionally he just doesn't function well
because he's operating on a map of the world that just doesn't work,
and he doesn't realise that being reasonably open and friendly to people would make him a lot happier.
Do you ever think of that?!
Of course not! You're too busy sticking your noses into every
corner, poking about for things to complain about, aren't you?!
Well, let me tell you something, this is exactly how Nazi Germany started! A lot of layabouts...
'I think there was something about his height'
plus his passion, you know, his desperation,
I mean, it's all there.
I suppose I don't think anybody could do it except John.
Oh!
Sorry, sorry.
'He played these characters that's rather good at bullying people'
in a kind of authoritarian fashion, putting them down with one or two,
"Oh, shut up," or giving them a quick flick on the side of the head.
This happened in Python, and that was, of course, the relationship he created with Manuel.
'And John could do that very, very well indeed.'
The bottle. Er...Yes. Where is it? Que?
Donde es... Oh, I take it. Oh.
I take it, I take it. Come here.
You're a waste of space. Ooh!
'I could see elements of Basil Fawlty'
in characters that John
played in Python.
'I could see the same kind of thought
'that went into that kind of physical comedy
'that made Silly Walks so successful, went into Fawlty Towers.'
John played one or two characters in Python where sort of rising anger
was sort of the joke.
Kick 'em in the teeth where it hurts!
Kill! Kill, kill!
'Sitting at a table in the garden talking quite reasonably and suddenly'
getting completely berserk about the world and banging the table, and John played this as only John could.
Arrgh!
Tea's ready.
Coming, dear!
It's John's suppressed anger.
I mean, he spent, what, 30 years going to a psychiatrist
because of his anger, he had so much anger in him.
I have a feeling that situations could arise
when I would almost go as berserk as Basil.
Yeah, really. Yes, there's something manic somewhere in me.
People talk to me at parties sometimes, you know, and they really do talk AT me, and I have fantasies
about picking things up, you know, cheese dips and, you know, but I've never had the courage to do it.
And I can do it on stage, you know, Basil Fawlty does the...
Why do they think that I have to be Basil Fawlty in order to write this?
I mean, of course I have that in me, but I've got all the other characters that I play, you know?
You have to have all these emotions available to you and then, when you become...
When you're asked to play a part,
you suppress some of them and enlarge and play much more strongly
You choose this colour and this colour but not the others, you see what I mean?
For a different character you choose different colours.
John encountered the inspiration for his hard-line hotelier
when the Monty Python team checked into a Torquay hotel during filming in May 1971.
We were in Torquay because we were filming all the outdoor,
all the exterior parts of Monty Python
and staying in this hotel.
And the first evening, we decided we'd eat in.
We were all having dinner there and the owner, Mr Donald Sinclair,
was sort of wandering round very grandly, not doing anything
to help, of course, but being very grand, and he walked past the Python table,
which is to cut the meat like that
and then they put the knife down, transfer the fork to this hand
and spear the meat with the right hand,
and he stopped and I remember he just stared...
And then he said to Gilliam, "We don't eat like that in this country."
We were pretty astounded, because it was completely out of the blue.
We were filming the next day
and I said, "Can you give us a call?
"Can we have a call in the morning?"
And he looked a bit, "Yes, what time?" and I said, "Well, about quarter to seven."
"Quarter to seven?!"
I mean, he was just like Basil.
"Quarter to seven? You want ME to ring you at quarter to seven?
"You want breakfast as well?" It was the same reaction.
I thought, "This is really odd. He's running a hotel."
I don't think he actually liked guests, I think he suffered them,
and I don't think he liked working in the hotel either.
I saw him close the bar at just after nine o'clock one night.
He said he was off to bed
and it was time everybody else went to bed, too.
One day, Eric and I were waiting for the car to take us filming
and Eric left his briefcase
by the door, where he'd propped it up while we were just playing catch with a tennis ball,
and when he got back, he went up to the desk and Sinclair saw him coming...
"Excuse me." "What? What is it now?!"
He said, "I left my briefcase."
He said, "Yes, yes", he said, "it's the other side of the wall," and he pointed out of the front door
to a white wall which was the far side of a swimming pool.
And he said, "It's behind the wall,"
and Eric said, "What?"
Eric said, "What?" He said, "What?!"
He said, "It's behind the wall?" He said...
"Yes, yes, I put it behind the wall."
Eric said, "Well, why did you put it..." "What?!"
"Why did you put it behind the wall?" He said,
"We thought it might be a bomb."
And we...
"A bomb?!"
And Sinclair said, "Well, we've had a lot of staff problems recently."
So he really thought someone he'd fired had come by, put a bomb in a briefcase.
I said to Mike, I thought, "Oh, we can't stay here, I really can't stand it."
I didn't see the comic possibilities that John had seen.
John had sort of worked out with Connie the logic of a Sinclair/Basil Fawlty position,
which is basically that it is the people you are making your money from who are causing you trouble
and problems and if they weren't there, life would be much easier. There is a flaw there.
John capitalised on the indelible impression made by Mr Sinclair while
writing for the hugely successful ITV series Doctor At Large.
'One of them was set in a hotel'
and I remembered the original character, Donald Sinclair.
'Timothy Bates did a terrific performance.'
The prototype for Basil Fawlty was ready.
Yes?
Ah, good evening. I believe you have a room.
I...I can't deal with this.
At the end of it, Humphrey Barclay, bless him, said to me, "You know, there's a series in that character."
I thought, "Typical bloody television executive, looking for series all the time."
Thank you, Humphrey!
But Basil was to go on the back burner for another three years, as John continued to conquer
the known world as part of groundbreaking comedy collective Monty Python.
Argh!
And now for something completely different.
Then, after five years of remarkable success,
John suddenly walked out on the Pythons.
We were all very unhappy when John left the series, though it came as no surprise.
John was always planning to leave the Pythons.
He felt he'd had enough of us, I think.
None of the others understood.
I think Eric understood a bit, but I don't think they understood
why I wanted to leave Python. They thought it was great, and I was bored.
We were repeating ourselves and I thought I didn't want to do the third series.
Turning his back on subversive satire,
Cleese joined forces with his 30-year-old wife Connie Booth,
a former New York waitress, to create something completely different - a conventional sitcom.
After I'd finished Monty Python,
I'd always wanted to do something with Connie,
and I was invited out by a lovely man called Jimmy Gilbert and he'd been made Head of Light Entertainment.
He said, "What do you want to do?" and I said I'd like to do something with Connie and he said, "All right.
"Well why don't you just go back home and talk to Connie, give me a call, tell me what you'd like to do."
John wanted to do something based on Donald Sinclair,
so he asked me if I wanted to have a go with him at writing a pilot,
and we'd enjoyed the bit of writing that we'd done together.
I think the fact that we were husband and wife, that,
you know, there aren't many places you can't go, and...
..John really could make me laugh.
I think he'd always said that he would write with
Connie at some point, and I think he was just relieved not to have to write with Graham, quite honestly.
Gray was very cross with me for leaving Monty Python and I'm not
quite sure why, but I think that he felt great security being in a group.
Gray didn't function terribly well on his own.
I know, because John's told me, that Connie was
so important to the writing of those shows and, in fact, generally her contribution has been sort of
rather neglected or downgraded, and John always said she was, you know, very, very important in the way
the ideas were sort of put together. So John needed somebody else there, as I did with Terry Jones.
You need someone to bounce the comedy off and to think
about the ideas, and someone who can tell you, "No, that doesn't work."
We created it together.
I think it was the plot work, but...
You know, John's facility with language is extraordinary,
and it was just wonderful to be working with him.
Production on the pilot began on the 23rd of January 1975, and the first person
to commit himself to the new show was Cleese's former Python director.
When I first read the pilot script of Fawlty Towers
I was, in fact, banned from reading it in bed because I laughed so much,
and even though we lived about half a mile from the nearest house,
we were in great danger of embarrassing the neighbours.
I think it was very exciting in the first series
because it was this little thing we were doing in a back room.
I never thought it would get figures remotely near Python.
Still to come, we look at the method behind the madness...
SYBIL LAUGHS
The laugh was based on Connie's laugh, actually!
Oh, he's a swine to have told that, but it's true, I guess.
Now, Sybil, that's enough!
..and reveal how one of Fawlty's most brutal scenes was created.
When she clouted me and John, we really felt it!
The year is 1975.
Harold Wilson is Prime Minister, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier have a Thrilla in Manila,
while Arthur Ashe becomes the first black tennis player to win Wimbledon.
London is hit by snow in June,
and Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female leader of a political party.
But this isn't why 1975 is a landmark year.
It's the year that Fawlty Towers makes its debut - September the 19th, to be exact.
FAWLTY TOWERS THEME MUSIC
'I don't remember exactly why we wrote the Lord Melbury episode first.
'I don't think it was'
to particularly establish his snobbery,
but then that was there and it was kind of an obvious start.
Would you put both your names, please?
Well, will you give me a date? I only use one.
You don't have a first name?
No, I'm Lord Melbury, so I simply sign "Melbury".
Go away.
I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting, your Lordship.
I do apologise, please do accept my forgiveness.
Now, is there something, anything, that I can do for you? Anything?
'The apparent lord booking into Fawlty Towers was just classical.'
Basil suddenly cringing and obsequious.
It was cartoony, but there was an awful reality about it as well.
With a bath? Oh, naturally, naturally.
Naturellement.
BASIL GUFFAWS
'The lower middle class stuff, there was a little bit of my dad'
in this because he totally bought into the English class system.
If I'd married a duke, he would have...
duke's daughter, I'm sorry - Oh, duke!
But a duke's daughter, he would have creamed his jeans, you know?
He could have gone straight out and shot himself, died a happy man, you know?
I've never been in such a place in my life.
You SNOBS!
You stupid, stuck up, toffee-nosed, half-witted,
upper class piles of...
pus!
'In those days,'
if you were lower middle class, it was quite different from being middle class.
He was lower middle class, aspirational.
Millions of people like that then, at the end of the decade, put Margaret Thatcher into power,
so it had a great sort of force in terms of social history, what was going on then.
'He wants to belong to a professional class,'
but he is a hotel owner, and one of the fascinating things
is the way that Sybil keeps pulling him back to earth.
Cognac for you, Doctor. It's rather fascinating, your both being doctors. Port for you, Doctor.
At one stage I was contemplating becoming a surgeon.
A tree surgeon! Thank you, Sybil.
What's going on? Nothing, my dear. Mrs Fawlty... Now, look... Yes, Polly?
I don't know what she's... BASIL!
'When we started to write Pru,'
we weren't sure how the character was going to be played,
and at the first read-through, after the first day, we left rehearsal,
and Connie and I said, "Well, what do you feel about Pru's performance?"
I thought Sybil was going to be really difficult to cast -
and so we were extremely lucky to get Pru.
Because she's complicated.
She's bright, but she's daft, she's steely, but she's frivolous, she's decent and annihilating.
And by the second day, our worries completely disappeared
because we saw what she was doing and we realised it was better than what we'd had in our minds.
But the interesting thing is - and I'm not even sure that Pru knows this,
and I hope she won't mind - I was not so familiar with her work in those days.
Just before we got into writing it, we went to see a very
funny woman called Bridget Turner and Connie and I said, "We should offer this to Bridget."
And we sent the script off and Bridget wrote a very nice...
Or just sent a message back saying she didn't feel it was right for her and so she passed on it.
So we said to John Howard Davies, "Who do you suggest?" He said "Well, I think you should use Pru Scales."
Hello, dear.
What are you doing? I'm kissing you, dear. Well, don't.
At 43, Prunella Scales was already a veteran of the stage and screen.
Sybil was to become her most infamous and celebrated creation.
Hello, dear. Just going to...
'I was sent along to see John Cleese,'
who was in bed with flu,
and I was shown up to his room
and there he was in bed and he said, "What did you think of the scripts?"
I said, "I think they're absolutely brilliant."
And he said "Oh, good, good, good, any questions?" And I said,
"Yes, why did they get married?"
He said, "Oh, God, I was afraid you'd ask that!"
I wish you'd help a bit. You're always...refurbishing yourself. What? Oh, never mind, never mind!
Don't shout at me, I've had a difficult morning.
Oh, dear, what happened? Did you get entangled in the eiderdown again? Not enough cream in your eclair?
Or did you have to talk to all your friends for so long you didn't have time to perm your ears?
I think it was my idea that perhaps she wasn't as posh as he was,
All I said to her pretty early on was she's the sort of woman
that can make love and paint her nails at the same time.
And her class was self evident -
the shiny tight skirts, the pretensions at golf,
the high heels,
and the complete and utter control of her man.
BASIL! Yes, dear?
Don't you dare, don't you dare give me any more of those pathetic lies! Oh, right.
The heels and the tight-fitting skirts, yes,
that was based on somebody I'd known in the business
as a child, you know, and it was the sort of thing she wore.
So Uncle Ted comes in with his crate of brown ale and...
SHE LAUGHS
The laugh was based on Connie's laugh, actually!
Oh, he's a swine to have told that,
but it's true, I guess.
I remember I had an acting teacher in New York who said, "I really hate your laugh, Connie."
Yeah, what can I say?
She would exhale, then draw her...
I hope she won't mind me saying, but she would laugh...
Because the great thing about Connie is when she laughs, she just busts a gut, you know?
And she would do...
HE WHEEZES NOISILY
SYBIL LAUGHS & WHEEZES
So we incorporated that. Somebody machine gunning a seal!
HE WHEEZES NOISILY
SYBIL LAUGHS & WHEEZES
But as Fawlty Towers began to take shape,
not everyone thought the sitcom was such a great idea.
With Python, I think we'd all been sort of aware
that we were trying to raise the stakes
and have animation as a link and integrate film much more
and be much more experimental
in the form of the way we put the programme together,
and there was nothing experimental in Fawlty Towers.
It seemed very, very traditional.
Do please excuse me one moment.
'I don't remember my friends having any kind of negative reaction, except for a couple of the Pythons.'
I mean, Terry Jones, I remember he called me, I think, a traitor.
I was very surprised when John decided to do, you know,
a straight sitcom.
I mean, it isn't straight, it's funny,
it's a wonderfully funny show, but I was surprised that he decided to go down the sitcom route, really.
The funny thing was how everyone got everything wrong.
I mean, even the guy who at that time was reading scripts for Light Entertainment, he said,
"I'm afraid I thought this one as dire as its title.
"It's a kind of Prince of Denmark of the hotel world, a collection of
"cliches and stock characters which I can't see being anything but a disaster."
Shall I read the guy's name out?
No! No, he'll be retired now, let's let him off.
But it just shows, you see, people have no idea what they're doing.
Surprisingly, the first episode of Fawlty Towers was not an instant hit.
In a time when Britain only had three TV channels,
a disappointingly low 3.7% of the population tuned in.
First show was aired - not very good initial reaction.
I think the Mirror or the Sunday Mirror said, "Long John short on jokes".
What the critics thought was totally irrelevant, and it didn't hurt our feelings.
I think that's what happens, you see?
If you do something that is new, it seems to take longer - certainly did with Python - longer for people
to get it, but when they do get it, they seem to get it more because it took a little time.
I was just finding my feet, working with John, and I think my performance was quite stilted,
but what John was able to help me with, I think, was coming forward and creating ideas.
Once we'd seen them do their performances,
it helped Connie and me enormously to build.
They'd started to put flesh on the bones.
One character that blossomed into the perfect sidekick for Basil was Polly, the low-paid chambermaid.
but at the same time she'd had no experience of working
under the very demanding conditions of a sitcom
where you have five days to rehearse something, which is not a lot,
and then you have one day in the studio and two hours
in front of a studio audience, and that's very demanding.
Lamb? Casserole. Oh, sounds good. Does it come with a smile?
Comes with sprouts or carrots. Oh, a smile's extra, is it?
You'll get one if you eat up all your sprouts.
We deliberately did not give her a major part
because I didn't want her to carry something too difficult at the beginning,
and if you look in the first show that she did,
she's holding her performance in a little bit, and then after that, she flowers.
I mean, she's wonderful, she's really wonderful.
Hello, Fawlty Towers.
Please put the bottle down. What is it? Kurt is drunk.
BOTTLE SMASHES
Under the table...
No!
'I think she's the least defined of all the characters.'
She is a go-between,
between Sybil and Basil, sort of as if they're her surrogate parents.
She's there to keep the peace.
'Polly is really a sympathetic character'
because she is the voice of sanity, the still calm, around which the madness happens.
And yet she does try to get Basil out of holes, you know?
You feel that she's got a very good heart.
Exactly. Are you feeling better? Her arm gets stuck there!
It's always happening to her. He's dead!
It's her husband, she hasn't got over it. Died 30 years ago.
She doesn't mean any ARM! In the cupboard!
No more today! You've had enough! Oh, my God, look at that!
It wasn't in itself a terribly comic character,
but in a way, she was perhaps the sort of straight guy.
Oh, I see, Mr Leeman! Yes!
We thought you said "the linen."
Brilliant! Sorry, sorry, that's it.
He has some wonderful female characters
and all very well defined, and strong women.
It's the women saving the day time and again.
I mean, it's Polly saving Basil from a predicament with Sybil
and Sybil saving Basil from his customers.
It's a perfect dance.
'Basil is sexist but Fawlty Towers is certainly not sexist.'
Oh, just pull yourself together! BASIL WHIMPERS
Come on!
I love the scene where Polly slaps me in the face because I've totally lost it, of course, out of fear for Sybil.
Again!
Harder!
If you actually look at Basil's motivation, apart from the snobbery, what it's really all about
is not letting Sybil get in a tantrum because he just can't handle that.
He's more frightened of that than anything else.
We all make mistakes, dear.
But in the second episode, not even Polly can protect Basil from the full force of Sybil's fury.
He's no bloody good! Oh, Sybil, you do exaggerate. I mean, he's not brilliant...
Not brilliant? He belongs in a zoo!
In The Builders episode, where David Kelly gets beaten with the umbrella,
we'd tried all sorts of things to try and pad the umbrella out.
And to be perfectly honest, Mrs Fawlty, I like a woman with spirit.
Oh, do you? Is that what you like?
I do, I do! Oh, good.
Now Sybil, that's enough.
Come on, then, give us a smile!
'Somebody on the floor said,'
"Look, that umbrella's heavy and the ribs in the umbrella
"may very well crack yours, so I have an idea."
I ended up with the lads on the floor rolling foam into it.
Made the umbrella twice the weight,
and so when she clouted me and John, we really felt it, you know?
I've seen better-organised creatures
running round farmyards with their heads cut off.
Collect your things and get out! Argh!
'As he points out,'
he likes a woman with spirit and, by God...
..Sybil had spirit, you know?
Still to come, how the world's worst waiter became a national treasure...
And the cast recall the intense rehearsal process required to bring
this carefully crafted classic to our screens.
Mr Richards is the gentleman...
Oh, BLEEP!
Performing the series was always difficult. We were under enormous pressure.
If you didn't REALLY know it by Wednesday morning, that was trouble.
The first couple of episodes may have left critics cold,
but by October 1975, Fawlty Towers
was fast becoming compulsive viewing for comedy fans.
Manuel, let me explain.
Ah!
Right? You understand?
And it was the bumbling, bewildered but well-meaning Spaniard
from Barcelona that stole the hearts of the nation -
Que?
The great joy of the series to me, and maybe to everyone,
is Manuel and Andrew Sachs.
Que?
Manuel is sensational,
He's a wonderful character actor,
but I remember he had Manuel right from the beginning in rehearsals,
and I thought he was wonderful.
Everyone wants to hug Manuel and take him home, put him on the mantelpiece.
The man behind this loveable Spaniard was actually born in Berlin.
45-year-old character actor Andrew Sachs was starring
in a successful West End show when he got the call that would change his life.
Manuel Towers, how are you?
Is nice today...
'The way I see Manuel, he's a very happy man.'
Even though he's being abused by everybody in the hotel,
I guess he comes from a big family - 10, 11 people maybe as kids -
and to be noticed there at all in Barcelona, or wherever it was,
you have to get the attention on you - do something naughty and get hit.
Get a clean one.
Is clean now!
Is dirty now.
The British family he was adopted into, that is the Fawltys,
represented his father and mother in a way,
and he knew he was being appreciated because they hit him a lot.
Thank you.
The relationship between Basil and Manuel could have been, again, very...
Just cruel and unpleasant and...heavy.
I no want to work here any more.
Open the basket! No!
Open the basket!
Now, inside.
Not you! I quit! Get out! I on strike!
I'm warning you! I stay here, is nice!
You see this? You're next!
Manuel was based simply on one idea which was that in London in the '70s,
if you went to a restaurant, you were very, very lucky indeed
to get what you ordered, and the reason was that the people who owned restaurants
had discovered that by employing people who spoke no known language, they could save a lot of money.
The wine list. Si.
The w... Vino.
Senor. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.
The list.
There, there, the list.
Look, the list, there! The red... look, there!
There! Ah!
Thank you, Manuel.
He and John played the physical comedy very well.
I mean, John used to whack him over the head or sort of push him through the doors.
I love the violence on Manuel. I invented quite a lot of it.
I invented the spoon thing when he hits on... I invented quite a lot of the violence.
I like violence in comedy. I think it's very good, it makes you laugh. When in doubt, hit somebody.
He must have gone home battered and bruised
on so many occasions and his wife must have said,
"What did he do to you tonight?"
And he said, "Well, he hit me with a spoon."
I grew up loving knockabout comedy, and my attitude to that was, if you do that kind of comedy,
which makes me laugh because it's one of the elements of farce, you're going to get knocked down.
Get on with your meals!
Andrew bore the brunt of it, and there were times...
I mean, certainly, I was trying to hit him with a saucepan once with a glancing blow...
I'm creeping in, he comes up behind me, gets the pan and he goes like that...
but instead of stopping with this critical eighth of an inch, he didn't. He just went.... Oomph!
'Ugh! I went down and I could hear the angels singing.'
I thought, "Thank heavens it's the last shot of the show because I can't get up."
I claim - of course he denies it - that he straightened up as I was...
So I really caught him, and he had a headache for two days.
And thank God it was about the last shot in the show, so he was able to go on.
Que?
'Manuel became dreadfully famous all over the world and it was very pleasant, really,
'that it was so separate from me that I was extremely flattered'
that so much interest should come to it.
..the windows.
Argh!
Unfortunately, Basil's pent-up frustration doesn't end with his staff.
Is there anything else? I can't breathe!
'Where he was attacking me at the table...'
Actors always come up a bit more when the audience is in there.
You rehearse it and you are under control, sort of, and then you get
a slight bit of red mist on the night, you know. It happens,
and we all accept that it happens, so I think I was slightly squashed at one point, you know, like that.
Don't worry, a bit of cheese went the wrong way!
Never mind, he's fainted. Manuel!
But Basil's mistreatment of guests also stretched to the long-term residents -
the senile, bumbling Major and the batty old spinsters Miss Gatsby and Miss Tibbs.
Are you sure you're all right?
Oh, Mr Fawlty... Ah, good morning, ladies.
Ursula and I think you're a very naughty boy, don't we, Ursula?
Oh, God. Oh, really?
Basil isn't as horrible to them as he is to the guests.
They're kind of part of his routine
and they're part of the home so he can control them in a way,
and they want to look after him but he won't allow them.
But he's never really cruel to them or the Major.
Nearly six o'clock, Fawlty. Is it?
Yes, well, when you're ready I might have a fruit juice or something.
I'll open up the moment I've done this, Major.
No immediate hurry.
Drunken old sod.
When Connie and I wrote the Major in the first episode,
I don't think we had any thought of repeating the character, but when you see something
and you think, "Oh, that's good," and we think, "He could be a regular."
How are you, sir?
I can speak English.
He really grew on us and I loved, you know,
the scene with the moose's head.
Ah, hello, Major, how are you today?
Oh, I-I-I'm fine, thank you.
You also got a different quality from John, I think, with the Major, because you felt he liked the Major.
I rather fell in love with Ballard Berkeley.
I just thought he was the finest kind of English gentleman,
of a slightly bygone era.
There was a sweetness to him, and a kindness that was very, very touching.
As a former matinee idol and much loved television actor,
Ballard Berkeley brought over 40 years' experience to the part.
when he started doing Fawlty Towers.
I mean, he was, you know, he was nearly... Well, late 70s, I suppose, when he finished it
and people forget, you know, that he had a career of 60 years before that.
We were never nervous about Dad being the Major because it was so much him -
a great character for him to play, because it was so like him except he wasn't dippy like that. No, no.
He was just affable and charming and got away with lots of stuff. And gentle.
Dad's always thought of as a sort of military man,
so when it comes to his war service, I think most people really think
he must have been in the Army, but of course, as we know,
he was in the police and he got a beat just off Piccadilly, in Vine Street.
Yes, West End Central, wasn't it?
It was ideal. He loved the West End - the theatre and his friends were there.
India?
At the Oval.
He was a mad cricket fan and I remember once
I was rehearsing a scene with Sybil
and we were doing the dialogue and I glanced over and there was Ballard...
Meaning the third Australian wicket was down. Couldn't even wait till the end of the scene!
My daughter still almost inevitably will introduce herself and say, "My grandfather..."
because she loves talking about him, and because she gets such a good reaction as well.
As well as stars of the silver screen, the hotel environment also
You knew that you were being invited to be on something very special
and so it was a great privilege, and one felt blooming lucky.
John and Connie wrote a script that is unbelievably fine.
They're gifted, truly gifted writers.
Now, look. It's finish.
Give those to me.
Come on, come on.
'I think what John and Connie wrote was very tight and very complete, far more than most shows.'
There wasn't a lot of room for improvement.
These sitcom veterans were enticed onto the show
by the gag-packed scripts that are now regarded
as a masterclass in sitcom writing.
Oh, sorry! Sorry, coming in like that.
Connie and I used to spend six weeks figuring out each script
and something like two and a half weeks before we wrote a line of dialogue.
John had a small study and a very big desk.
The desk faced the wall.
He just started to play.
I used to type onto an old-fashioned typewriter, but we just sat there
and talked to each other and, you know, might write a word down or say,
"What was that thing that happened?"
has got the tarry handprint on her boob?
Well, we'd had that idea and we were writing, weeks later,
Connie said, "What was that idea we had about...
"That would work here." And I said, "Yes, yes".
What's that on your hand, Basil?
What? Oh, that's some stuff in the cupboard, dear. Something I knocked over.
John is highly instinctive and I think he knew
that he wanted to be monitored in some way, and that's why he wanted me on board.
Basil...
Hello, dear, just checking the doors.
I think that the women were very, very well written in Fawlty Towers, and that was basically Connie,
cos I remember suggesting a line early on
and Connie saying, "A woman would never say that line."
I'd say, "What, really? Wouldn't she? Well, why?," you know?
So it was a tremendous learning process,
and although at the beginning I was writing most of Basil and Manuel
and she was writing much more of Basil.
Come on, give it to me.
But this fast-paced farce presented huge problems when it came to production.
'Fawlty Towers differed from'
a lot of the sitcoms that were current at that time
by virtue of the volume of the script.
The average sitcom script was somewhere between 60 and 70 pages.
These scripts ran 120, 130 pages.
Most of the episodes were too long,
so Connie and John had to go off and rewrite them, and in fact I think they're still too long,
longer than the normal. I mean, it's not 29 minutes 30 seconds, it's 35 minutes, all that sort of thing.
In fact, none of the 12 Fawlty Towers episodes
a feat unheard of in modern sitcom making.
I always believe that you cannot do comedy fast enough and I always
optimistically hoped that it would run to time. It never did.
Performing of the series was always difficult.
We were under enormous pressure with the rehearsal, and because it was a farce
and the timing was so important and it was physically a very demanding show.
I think it was tough on everybody.
Mr Thurston is the gentleman I'm dealing with at the moment. WHAT?!
Mr Richards is the gentleman...
Oh BLEEP!
It was the first sitcom I ever did where you rehearsed all day and you got the thing right.
John's huge involvement and desire for perfection
and to get it absolutely right... And it's there in the end product.
We got Monday off.
If you didn't REALLY know it by Wednesday morning, that was trouble.
Yes, it was disciplined. It had to be.
We had to get through a lot of script.
Not in my case because, actually, if you analyse my part, it's not big.
That's a rat! No, no, no, is hamster.
It's a rat, of course it's a rat!
You have rats in Spain, don't you, or did Franco have them all shot?
Is pigeon. It's a rat!
It's not a pigeon, it's a hamster.
It was a feat of learning and I used to go back and lie down.
I had a library, and I used to lie on the floor, I would record all the other lines onto a tape recorder,
and I'd lie flat on the floor and I would have it by my ear and I would be doing my lines
in the lines that I'd recorded. It was the only way to get it done.
I couldn't do it now. I could do one show,
but I couldn't be there at 10 o'clock in the morning
just starting the second one, because the pressure was relentless.
And people said to me, "Did you enjoy it?"
and I used to say to them, "I didn't have time."
Although most of the filming was confined to the BBC studios,
the team did venture out on the odd occasion,
with one of the show's most memorable scenes shot on location in a sleepy suburban street in Harrow.
Start, you vicious bastard. Come on!
ENGINE COUGHS
Oh, my God! I'm warning you, if you don't start...
When we were working on The Gourmet Night and the car breaks down,
and John was improvising because we hadn't got into the dialogue, he...
He started losing it with the car and swearing at it.
That's it! I've had enough!
You've tried it on just once too often!
I said, "Now he's got to hit the car, he's got to attack it."
I'm going give you a damn good thrashing!
Everyone says that beating the car is so funny,
but when we were out filming, we had the car but I had to find the branch.
Part of my duties was ordering up props.
and before we turned over, before we rehearsed anything, really, John had a trial period with branches.
The first branch that I tried to hit it with was too rigid.
It was just like a rod and it just wasn't funny, wasn't remotely funny.
Then I went and got a sort of wispy willowy bit and started to swat the car with it, and that wasn't funny,
and it was only when I got the third piece and felt that, and went back and then it was funny,
but I didn't know until I had physically done it, and then I thought, "That feels right."
Coming up, Basil improves foreign relations...
It's a kind of Tourette thing, you know, whatever you shouldn't say comes out.
I'll just get your hors d'oeuvres. Hors d'oeuvres,
which must be obeyed at all times without question!
..and the writers' relationship breaks down.
There was a huge gap between the two series because Connie and I, as far as I remember, got divorced.
Brilliant. Oh! Brilliant! Ugh! Right.
Despite impeccable storylines
that would become etched into the nation's consciousness,
Fawlty Towers was more of a slow burner than an instant hit.
But by the end of its first series,
the sitcom had almost doubled its viewing figures,
with nearly 3.5 million viewers tuning in
to watch the final episode, entitled simply The Germans.
The veal chop is done with rosemary -
that's funny, I thought she'd gone to Canada -
and is delicious and nutritious.
Veally good?
'The whole German episode is quite brilliant.'
It's a kind of Tourette thing, you know,
whatever you shouldn't say comes out,
All in the market together, old differences forgotten
and no need at all to mention the war. Sorry, sorry!
He can't help it.
He is a fairly prejudiced English snob,
and no matter how he tries to cover it up,
as he must try to do in administering this place, he can't.
I'll just get your hors d'oeuvres.
Hors d'oeuvres which must be obeyed at all times without question! Sorry, sorry.
'Basil is vile to the Germans'
who emerge as extremely courteous.
They're not portrayed as humourless and aggressive or anything.
deliberately writing Basil as being, you know, utterly vile to these nice people.
Will you stop talking about the war? Me? You started it.
We did not start it.
Yes, you did. You invaded Poland.
When this huge, tall man starts to goose-step and then puts his finger up like that, you know,
I mean, there's no halfways about it - this is very heavy, very, very heavy rudeness.
When he said, "I'll do the walk",
swung his leg out and goose-stepped out, people were screaming.
It was just an incredible moment.
Watch. Who's this, then?
HE SHOUTS IN PRETEND GERMAN
I'll do the funny walk.
'I've always had a mixed personal reaction
to the Germans episode
because people go on about it so much,
and I sometimes wonder, a little bit like Alf Garnett
and the problem that Johnny Speight used to have,
when the whole point of that from the very, very beginning
was to make fun of people still hanging on to those antediluvian attitudes.
And it bothers me. And what I notice about the Germans is how they love it.
Stop it!
I'm trying to cheer her up, you stupid kraut!
The Germans episode obviously upset us very much.
Otherwise it would be only half as much fun, wouldn't it?
No, but to be serious,
it was taken very well by the broad majority of the German audiences.
In Hamburg, and suddenly as I was chatting to the concierge,
a big, jolly German businessman sort of, "Hey John!"
and shouted across the lobby, and I turned round, and he said, "Don't mention ze war, huh?"
And the entire lobby roars with laughter.
I thought that was a wonderful moment.
I thought that was great, now we can get on with it.
You have absolutely no sense of humour, do you? This is not funny!
Who won the bloody war, anyway?
Fawlty Towers is very much a period piece in terms of relations
with Irish people, foreigners of any kind.
There is plenty, absolutely plenty, of xenophobia and racism
in Fawlty Towers but because it's a character thing.
It's who Basil Fawlty is -
we're laughing more at his prejudice than we are anything else.
Ah, Mr Fawlty, you're so charming. Well, one does one's best.
Written more than 30 years ago,
Despite doing little to improve foreign relations,
Fawlty became a hit around the world.
'It's always been a mystery to me why certain shows work abroad.'
My only answer is - I think it may apply to Python too -
that I think we may have hit what they call archetypes.
There were certain...
types of people represented by the characters, that people from different cultures could recognise.
DUBBED IN SPANISH
Shown in more than 60 countries, it is one of Britain's most successful
TV exports, even turning up in the most unlikely of places.
'At one point, a German company'
wanted to do a version where they dub it into German.
'This German company understood that I come from Germany, it's my first language,'
and would I come over and play Manuel in German with a Spanish accent?
Mrs Fawlty, Mrs Fawlty. Mr Fawlty.
Was ist?
MANUEL SHOUTS IN GERMAN
I would have a line like "I love you Mr Fawlty, I love you Mr Fawlty",
but the German version would be "Oh, Herr Fawlty, Ich liebe Dich, Ich liebe Dich".
Attempts have also been made
to re-make this bastion of British comedy.
IN URDU
When people have tried to remake it, it's never worked, considerably to my disappointment.
I mean, when the Germans re-did it, they did it superbly.
Chef?
IN GERMAN
'The network just thought it was too expensive, I think.'
There is only this unique character of Basil Fawlty, and the one and only John Cleese
as well with another personality, another hotel in another setting.
'It was extraordinary
Whispering Pines presents to you Pacific Ocean Duck.
Argh!
What is this? Some kind of joke?
Yes. Ha, ha, ha.
The really bizarre one was when I met someone at a weekend house party
and they said, "Oh, we have the rights for Fawlty Towers
"and we're going to remake it."
I was delighted, I said "Great, I hope we can make it work this time."
I said, "But there's one or two problems.
"Are Americans familiar with these little family hotels?"
"Oh, yes, it's not a problem", they said.
I said, "Are you going to make any changes?"
They said, "We're just making one change, really. We're going to write Basil out".
And I remember thinking, "Did he say that?" And Bea Arthur did it.
and gave them all to Bea Arthur, when all the motivation for the funny lines no longer existed.
As proved, there can only be one Basil Fawlty.
The first series ended in spectacular style in the autumn of 1975...
However did they win?
..by bagging two awards for best sitcom and best comedy performance by Cleese.
But of all the people who helped me this year, I should most of all
like to thank me, without whom, quite honestly, I could never have hoped to win this fairly great honour.
So thank you me, thank you very much indeed.
Although I can't be with you, I have arranged for the award to be collected,
so if we could close the door now because it's getting a little cold. Thank you so much.
A second series was swiftly commissioned,
but the writing went on hold as John rejoined his Python pals
for a sell-out tour and to shoot their latest film, Life Of Brian.
It would take a staggering four years for Fawlty to return.
There was a huge gap between the two series and also Connie and I, as far as I remember, got divorced.
The work went on in spite of us and in spite of what was going on.
It didn't save our marriage, but I think
Fawlty Towers became a kind of refuge for our demons and angels and that that, maybe,
was why we were able to go on to write the second series.
We had been having our doubts about the marriage in '74
and we finally split up in '76.
And it was one of those relationships where there was an enormous amount of love and affection, and still is,
but we just found it difficult to live together, so I moved out, moved back in, moved out, moved back in.
And having finally moved out the middle of '76, I think we started
writing the next series about a year later, because there was no ill will.
For us it was a release because somehow I think, too,
in the relationship of Sybil and Basil, we were able
to get out our frustrations with each other through those characters.
It was quite civil and we got down to the work.
I remember we'd get stuck, we'd take walks sometimes and not talk,
and there were other times when John would take off
like a racehorse in the work and just go. He was on his own track.
Oh, here, use this one.
John and Connie had split and we had no idea.
John would arrive and then Connie would arrive later and
you just thought "Well, she's come in a different cab," or something.
We had no idea, they kept it so, not particularly secret, but we just carried on as we carried on.
I certainly don't remember it being a problem of any kind.
They worked together beautifully and, you know, it was a happy unit.
Manager, manager!
Yes? Testing, testing.
There. I've never met such insolence in my life.
I come down here to get lavatory paper and she starts asking me
the most insulting, personal things I've ever heard in my life!
I thought you wanted writing paper.
I'm talking to you, Watt.
Connie and I didn't enjoy the second series as much as the first, because we felt this pressure to be as good.
I did feel, yes, under pressure, but not to the degree on the second series,
I think that John did, with his history.
He had more at stake, and I could trust him to do the worrying, which I did.
But it took off in a way that I don't think either of us had ever expected it would.
It wasn't like the first series when you're sort of playing and discovering and having fun.
It was kind of delivering the goods - and that wasn't as much fun.
Coming up, problems mount on the second series
as a punch-up in BBC corridors puts production under threat.
They said, "Well, we can't record tomorrow, we're on strike."
And we reveal how those infamous Fawlty signposts were created.
Possibly the most shocking thing was actually the anagrams at the beginning.
Was it not Flowery BLEEP one week?
This is Fawlty Towers, the hotel that guests hate to stay at, but viewers can't stay away from.
When I pay for a view, I expect something more interesting than that.
But that is Torquay, madam.
Well, it's not good enough.
Sydney Opera House, perhaps?
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon?
The dreadful Torquay hotel is instantly recognisable by its infamous black and white exterior.
Although fans may be surprised to learn that this legendary landmark
was actually based in leafy Buckinghamshire.
This is the actual hotel,
exactly halfway between my house and the BBC.
I went to see it quite by chance.
It was a country club, but it was absolutely perfect because it's up this steep slope.
I was worried about its whiteness.
It didn't look quite like Torquay, but yet it had a kind of seaside feel about it.
burning to the ground in 1991.
Possibly the most shocking thing was actually the anagrams at the beginning.
Was it not Flowery BLEEP one week?
The motivation for that was the newspaper boy who was always being smacked by Basil,
and when he left the hotel, he always rearranged the lettering.
In fact, it was Iain McLean,
the assistant floor manager, who was the only person who could do it.
We were on location
at the hotel, having lunch, and John said,
"You do crosswords - work out some anagrams of Fawlty Towers."
So I set to work and I found only one that is a true anagram -
there may be others, I haven't gone back to it -
And I said, "But you can't use it because it's a little vulgar."
And...
Despite its smutty signposts, Fawlty was now regarded as the jewel in the BBC's comedy crown.
And on 19th February 1979, four years after the first series ended,
Basil was back with a record-breaking audience
of almost 13 million viewers.
PHONE RINGS Hello, Fawlty Towers.
I was worried about the second series because by that time,
I'd gone onto an administrative job.
Bye, Mrs Fawlty.
Goodbye, Mr Perkins.
A satisfied customer - we should have him stuffed.
I asked Bob Spiers to do the second series and it worked quite well.
I don't think you could see the joins.
It was in some ways more polished, but...
I'm only saying this because I directed the first series,
and I thought the first series by and large was funnier.
John would probably disagree.
The second series was different - we knew the first series was very good,
and people remembered it, as they often do, as better than it was.
So even if it was there, people remembered as being there,
so we realised that the new shows had got to be there.
And by and large I think the second series' programmes ARE better than the first.
With this new series came a new face, a cheerful Cockney chef
called Terry, played by Brian Hall.
Mr Fawlty, take it easy.
Now look, get one thing clear,
all right? You don't tell me to take it easy. Well, I...
I don't pay you to tell me to take it easy, I pay you to take it ea...
I think that Connie and I felt
that after six episodes, somehow we needed a new element on the staff.
Mr Leeman dead.
Well, that would explain a lot.
No, Mr Fawlty. Really, Poll just said so.
What are you on about? I just took him his kippers!
Oh, my God!
He was cocky and sturdier than Manuel, wasn't he?
And a little bit slippery.
Brian was an absolute sweetie. He said, "You gave me the key to this character," and I said "Did I?"
And he said, "Don't you remember?
I came up and I asked you at the very beginning of the first episode, "What's the key to Terry?"
And you said, "The police are after him."
And once he had that, he knew how to play it and he just fitted in so beautifully.
That's our new chef just left, just popped out for a quick prayer, I expect. Ha-ha!
As well as fresh faces, the second series gave a greater insight into its characters.
Excuse me, I do apologise but I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to...
Especially Basil and his very stuffed-shirt approach to sex.
Very nice.
Oh, thank you.
Your thing.
I mean your charm, your charm, in the middle. Yes, I know.
Basil has a tremendous problem with sex because he's not getting it.
You see, I don't think Basil and Sybil have actually had it
for, oh, quite a considerable time.
And the dead giveaway, to me, is that they are in twin beds.
I suppose the oddest thing about them is the bedroom.
I mean, even Morecambe and Wise slept in the same bed.
The primary emotion is that the poor fellow is unloved,
and he feels unloved
and therefore he is constantly in a state of irritation.
You are aware of our rule about visitors, are you? Hmm?
No visitors in guests' rooms after 10 o'clock.
Oh. Of the opposite...sex.
No, I wasn't. Ah!
But I am now. So you'll send up the champagne, will you? What?
You're drinking it on your own, are you? I guess I'll have to.
Very well. One bottle of champagne - for one.
Thank you. And one glass.
That's all I need, unless you care to join me? Not when I'm on the job.
That's when I enjoy it the most.
Basil has a bee in his bonnet with Mr Johnson, because Mr Johnson is obviously sexually successful
and Basil is jealous.
Basil is jealous and wants to bring him down.
This, er...bit of crumpet's your old mummy, is she?
Oh, this is rich. Oh, old Mother Johnson popped up for a quickie, did she? May I meet her?
Certainly.
Mother Johnson! Mother Johnson! Come out, come out wherever you are.
How do you do? Are you enjoying your stay?
I thought The Psychiatrists episode was wonderful.
And you, Doctor? Are you... I'm a psychiatrist.
Very nice, too. Well, cheers.
We were both in group therapy at that time, family,
marital group therapy and whether,
again, indirectly, the whole idea of having a psychiatrist
in that episode, and what it would do to Basil
and all the sexual difficulties, that was just very funny.
There was the extraordinary encounter
with the psychiatrist,
where he thinks he's asking about how often he has sex.
Now, the sort of sophisticated angle there is that Basil Fawlty
is actually obsessed by sex, which he would be, because he can't
actually manage it in real life.
We were just speculating how people in your profession arrange their holidays. How often you can get away.
Hmm? How often do you manage it?
Beg your pardon?
How often can you and your wife manage it?
If you don't mind my asking.
About average, since you ask.
Average? Mm-hm.
What would be "average"?
Well, you tell me.
Well, a couple of times a year.
What?
Once a year?
Well, we knew it must be difficult.
My wife didn't see how you could manage it at all, you know.
Well, as you've asked, two or three times a week, actually!
A week?
Yes, pretty normal, isn't it? We're quite normal here in Torquay.
The vision of the two of them having sex is quite a nerve-wracking idea.
The state of Sybil and Basil's marriage was explored further in The Anniversary,
although viewers would have to wait a little longer than expected to see this slice of insanity.
Is everything all right, dear? You seem just a little bit...
It was going very well and the most extraordinary thing happened.
There was a strike at the BBC because a rigger punched a BBC executive,
and immediately it was all out.
Production staff downed tools and walked out for seven days.
They came back, they said, "It's been settled, we'll be recording again next week."
The character eventually played by Ken Campbell was being played by a lovely actor called Julian Holloway.
But Julian Holloway said, "I can't do it next week, I've got another job, I can't get out of it."
We said, "Well, we have to recast,"
so we brought Ken Campbell in, who was wonderful.
Yes, I'll just get a brush. A Basil Brush.
That wonderful character of Ken Campbell, you know.
He's needling Basil. And the way it builds,
everyone's so concerned about Sybil, they've got to see Sybil
and oh, it's excruciating, the way it mounts,
the nuts and the wine - oh, it just...
I think it's wonderful.
I don't know if you've seen the moulding...
Oh! It's all right, it's all right, don't worry, I'll clean it up.
What time's the main feature?
The nice thing was, we had two weeks to rehearse it.
You see, Ken was able to come in. The rest of us knew the part.
And it was the one time that we really began to get relaxed because we'd done the lines enough times
to really relax and I think it has some of the best performing we ever did in that particular show.
Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary.
Oh, you poor dear.
How are you feeling, dear? Ahhh! It's a shame.
'The Anniversary is my least favourite episode,'
because I'm in it, and I can't bear looking at anything that I'm in.
But also, I can see I was nervous, because it is quite nerve-racking
being a guest on something, especially something as great as that.
She won't mind me seeing. Oh, she would, I think she would.
Oh, but it's her anniversary. She's up there all on her own!
Ahhh! Ah!
Old leg, bit of gyp, oh!
There's an extraordinarily
sad moment when you see Sybil's vulnerability.
I came back for my clubs, Basil, I'm not staying.
Oh, aren't you? OK.
You don't even want me to, do you? Um...
Oh, what's that?
'I think the scene I look back on with great fondness'
is when they've had a fight and she's sort of trying to make it up,
and you realise that actually she is emotionally quite dependent on him.
I'm going now, Basil. I think it's best, don't you?
She's trying to establish connection with Basil,
but Basil is in the thralls of extreme embarrassment
and only has one thought in mind, which is to get her out of the hotel
before all the guests discover that she's not upstairs in bed at all,
and that must be someone else.
Bye, Basil.
Cheerio, dear.
'I certainly sometimes found myself thinking,'
"What is this woman doing with this man? Why did she stick it out?"
Obviously there is a deep-rooted affection that they have for each other.
I mean, he knows his place, you know, he needs a woman like that - they work so well together.
I'm sure there's many marriages like that.
Do you remember when we were first manacled together,
we used to laugh quite a lot.
Yes, but not at the same time, Basil.
It sounds terrible, probably, but I think
I have to say that Basil and Sybil's marriage is like most marriages that I have observed in my 70 years.
We all make mistakes, dear.
They work together, they can never escape from each other.
You never, ever learn!
How on earth did the two of us ever get together?
Black magic, my mother says.
Well, she'd know, wouldn't she?
The second series was due to come to the end of its illustrious run on 2nd April, 1979.
Great fun.
But another strike threw production into jeopardy once more.
From tonight, the recording of drama and light entertainment will have to be suspended.
As a result, some comedy shows have had to be cancelled,
including the final episode of Fawlty Towers which will now never be made.
Thankfully, this over-zealous reporter got it wrong.
The final episode was made, but it would take a full six months before Basil the Rat went to air.
Coming up, problems of a furry kind cause havoc on set.
Do you mind?
Que?
Why this iconic sitcom stopped after just two series.
They offered John everything to do another series and he said, "No".
And we go in search of the legendary lost episode.
It took up just six hours of TV time, 12 perfect half-hour episodes.
And even though it's been 30 years since it left our screens, this multi-award-winning sitcom
is still regarded as the finest comedy ever written.
PHONE RINGS
Not you.
Could I get my hat?
Your hat?
Yes. It's just there. Yes, I'll have it sent on.
It's fitting that the best was saved till last.
Although, owing to more strikes at the BBC, it would be
a full six months before the final episode, Basil The Rat, aired.
Basil!
'We had a sort of recap rehearsal,'
went into the studio on the Saturday, which we never, ever did,
and because we had the rat, it was the only scene that was ever pre-recorded, just in case
there was somebody in the audience, or the crew, who had a real phobia about it.
Don't move.
I was told on the first day that I would be going into a studio
and it would be a real rat that I'd be working with.
I thought, "Oh, that's going to be interesting".
So that's one pate and one Windsor...
SQUEAKS: Soup!
Pssst.
John would go to great lengths to make sure that all members
of the crew, and particularly the cast, were comfortable.
And John just got himself in her eyeline and basically mugged at her
to take her mind off the fact
that there was a small furry rodent running around her feet.
I mean, how many people get John Cleese to themselves
for a whole evening and just listening to funny stories?
So it was a fantastic deterrent to the fear of the rat.
What ARE you doing?
What? He had his hand in my bag.
What? No, I... You know something?
You're getting my dander up, you grotty little man.
You're asking for a bunch of fives!
Bomb scare!
What?!
There's been a bomb scare.
A bomb scare? Yes.
Yes, that's why he was in your bag. He didn't want to alarm you.
Yes, may I? Well, I... Thank you.
We had a call, you see.
Shouldn't you get everybody out?
That's why we were looking under your table... Argh!
The rat popping up in the biscuit box is one of my favourite bits.
I know it doesn't look like a real rat, and that's part of its charm.
Biscuits?
Would you care for a rat, or...?
When we recorded the last episode, we knew it was the end.
"Oh, don't worry, we'll be back in four years, we'll do series three in four years, it'll be fine."
Fawlty Towers shut its doors for the last time on Thursday 25th October, 1979.
and best comedy performance by Cleese,
and Basil duly handed over the comedy baton to his successors.
Now, listen, I am not going to do it this week.
You must have something - what about edited Motocross highlights or...
Horse Of The Year Show, or inter-counties basket weaving or something?
Well, how about a cheap, tatty revue?
All right, if that suits you.
Cheap tatty revue then. Stand by and...
Cue!
They offered John everything to do another series and he said,
"No. We had two series of six and if you do a third series
"and it's not as good as the other two, you then devalue the currency of the first two."
Although only a dozen shows were ever aired, rumours persist
of legendary lost episode lurking in a dusty BBC building somewhere.
I have it at home and, for a small fee, can be...
..persuaded to send it to you by mail order.
No, no. Lovely idea.
A 13th episode.
Unless it was made by an entirely different team, there is no 13th episode.
then Connie and I looked at each other and we thought we'd done it.
We didn't want that pressure to be as good again. We would have failed.
People would have said it was very funny but it wasn't as good
as the first two series, so what was the point?
I said, "Would you ever think of writing some more?"
He said "Yes, I suppose I could."
I said, key question, "Would you do it without Connie?"
He said "No. No."
And I think her contribution was much bigger than people believe.
I think it was absolutely right, true, that we, covering the taboo subjects, we'd done it
and it felt like there were three sort of situations within
each half hour, so it felt like a lot more than 12 episodes I think.
I don't think by then John and I could have gone on working together.
I think...
30 years after this hopeless hotel closed up for good, Fawlty Towers
retains an affectionate place in the hearts of the British nation.
And in 2008, fans were treated to a reunion of Basil and Manuel,
CHEERING
Well, I'm fond of Andrew, and somebody suggested it would be good,
in view of what had happened with Jonathan Ross and the other guy.
The audience would like to see us together or something, and it worked very well emotionally.
What is the 11th letter of the English alphabet?
Que? LAUGHTER
John rang me up, said would I come on, just do a brief entry as Manuel.
I can't very well say no to John, because he's so much bigger than me.
Now run for it, you stupid...
I thought the outflowing of love that evening was so wonderful, and you could tell it with him as well.
And I said to him afterwards, I said, "That was the old John, wasn't it?"
He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "You should be back here, mate."
He always feels that Michael Palin's
become a national institution and he would have done if he'd stayed.
Not that he's jealous of Michael, they're still great friends.
Tantalising though it was to have Basil back, what the public craves
is for Fawlty Towers to open its doors once more for another series.
"Is John going to write some more?"
My only sadness is that they didn't go on to write another, at least another 12,
then we could have had 24 to watch and watch and watch.
The only idea that Connie and I ever had for an extension of Basil
was that Manuel has left and set up
an establishment in Spain, and Sybil and Basil
decide that they're going to go and visit him.
Which I think would be fun.
And I thought that what would happen was,
Basil has the usual appalling experience at Heathrow
or some other terminal, where a hijacker...
..tries to hijack the flight, and Basil becomes so furious
that he actually overcomes the hijacker, becomes a hero.
HE LAUGHS
'I've been 52, 53 years on stage and yet Fawlty Towers,'
that full nine minutes in one episode of The Builders,
makes me recognised anywhere in the world.
A number of episodes in Fawlty Towers, I think,
were pretty close to perfection in comedy
and I've never, ever got that myself.
That's why I said, "I'll never get that, I'll give up."
I was delighted to have been part of Fawlty Towers.
It was a lovely job.
I think I did my very best with it, and it was a bloody good episode.
I just think it was absolutely the best of its kind
You know, it stands out from practically everything else going on at the time.
Knowing that you're going to go to work and laugh and laugh and laugh
and laugh, even though you'd seen the joke many times before,
and to say, "Oh, I'm going to work today, I shall be drained
"of stomach muscles by midday," that's a terrific feeling.
Well, what Connie and I tried to do in comedy is make people laugh as much as possible. That's what I love.
I love the intensity, because that brings the biggest laugh.
I suppose it felt kind of like a freak event in our lives.
Yes, I'm incredibly proud to have been associated with it.
But I think the main quality it had, it was so bloody good.
Out! Everybody out! Go on upstairs, pack your bags, adios, out!
Subtitles by Ericsson