Mum's Monday: Fawlty Towers

Recently I have seen an advert which uses an iconic and popular scene from Fawlty Towers with Basil Fawlty (John Cleese). His car has broken down; he tries to get it to start but to no avail. As Basil Fawlty becomes mad, we then see him run off and come back with a tree branch, and starts hitting a car with it. This scene from the programme works well and for the advert, it is cleverly used.

Before I talk about my personal favourite scene, which is not the most iconic, but is funny to me, first I will give a bit off back ground. Basil and Sybil (Prunella Scales) Fawlty run a hotel badly. Basil is by far the worst character you would like to see run a hotel. He is rude to guests and is quick-tempered. This is based on an actual hotel John Cleese stayed in with his other Monty Python mates. He sees potential to turn his experience into comedy gold with the help of other hotel staff members Polly (Connie Booth) and Manuel (Andrew Sachs). Manuel is from Barcelona and has limited understanding of the English language, which is at the core of my favourite scene.

A female guest has asked Polly for some toilet roll for her room, as replenishing supplies was over looked. Polly turns to Manuel and pointing to the guest says “22” meaning the guests room number and “toilet roll” indicating what is required. He seems to understand, but only after a bit more communication between Polly and Manuel.

The next time we see Manuel he is carrying 22 rolls of toilet roll, heading up to the stairs to the guest’s room, only to be stopped just in time by Polly. I found this extremely funny, as I could imagine, if Manuel had placed the rolls in the guest’s bathroom, she would have opened her door, to see that ‘she wanted toilet roll, she had got toilet roll’. Because of this, the scene had depth and was hilarious for me, just by using my imagination.  

Fawlty Towers ran for 12 episodes and with many well-known scenes and well used catch phrases, I felt, when I found out about the short run that it was longer than just the 12 episodes. It just goes to show it is not always the quantity but the quality of what you do. Despite the shortness Fawlty Towers has gone down in comedy history, with scenes so popular and well done, that they, as we have seen, have a use today.

Long may it still be popular.