Basil Fawlty

Basil Fawlty is the major character in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers, played by John Cleese. The character is often thought of as an iconic British comedy character, and has been deemed unforgettable despite only a dozen half-hour episodes ever being made. Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. ... Cleese redirects here. ...

Personality

Basil is a snobbish, miserly, xenophobic and sexually repressed paranoiac misanthrope who is desperate to belong to a higher social class. He sees the successful running of the hotel as a means of achieving this ("turn it into an establishment of class..."), yet his job forces him to be pleasant to people he despises or aspires to be above socially. His unstoppable wife Sybil will often get in the way of Basil's treatment towards the guests, often trying to bridge the peace, or pick up the pieces, to quite limited avail. For the 1960s British Rock band, see The Snobs. ... For Molières play, see The Miser. ... For other senses of this word, see paranoia (disambiguation). ... Misanthrope redirects here. ... The toxic midget herself: Sybil Fawlty Sybil Fawlty is a fictional character from the hit BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ...

While he is terrified of his wife's sharp tongue, he wishes to stand up to her and his plans often conflict with her wishes. She is often verbally abusive towards him (describing him as "an ageing, brilliantined stick insect") and though he is much taller than Sybil, he often finds himself on the receiving end of Sybil's temper, expressed verbally or physically. Basil usually turns to Manuel or Polly to help him with whatever scheme he has planned, while trying his best to prevent Sybil from finding out, and as such he gained a reputation as an unabashed prevaricator. Andrew Sachs as Barcelonas infamous waiter Manuel is a fictional character from the hit BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... Connie Booth as Polly from Fawlty Towers. ...

Basil takes many of his frustrations out on the hapless Manuel, physically abusing him in a variety of ways. On occasions he also assaults others, such as strangling the guest Mr. Hutchinson in "The Hotel Inspectors", kneeing Major Gowen in "Basil the Rat", and even—most famously—striking his "vicious bastard" of a car in "Gourmet Night" with a tree branch when it refuses to move. Andrew Sachs as Barcelonas infamous waiter Manuel is a fictional character from the hit BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... The Hotel Inspectors is the fourth episode of the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... Major Gowen was a fictional character played by veteran actor Ballard Berkeley in the hit BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... Basil the Rat is the sixth and final episode of the second series of the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers and the final episode of the programme as a whole. ... Gourmet Night is the fifth episode in the first series of the BBC TV sitcom Fawlty Towers. ...

Another eccentricity affecting Basil is that of occasionally swapping words around in a sentence while propounding a falsehood, for instance in "The Anniversary" when he announces to the party guests that it's "perfectly Sybil! Simple's not well. She's lost her throat and her voice hurts", and – less obviously – reassuring himself as much as his wife in "The Wedding Party" that the sound of knocking on his bedroom door was "probably some key who forgot the guest for their door". He also has difficulty disconnecting his thought-process from an unrelated incident, as in "The Wedding Party", when he is looking through life-drawing pictures and answers the telephone with, "Hello, Fawlty Titties?" or in The Psychiatrist, where, after inadvertently staining the chest area of a female guest with paint, he realises that Sybil has noticed, but then in confusion puts his hands all over the woman's breasts as a means of stopping her from seeing it. List of Fawlty Towers episodes The Anniversary is the fifth episode of the second series of BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... List of Fawlty Towers episodes The Wedding Party is the third episode of the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... List of Fawlty Towers episodes The Wedding Party is the third episode of the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... The Psychiatrist is the second episode of the second series of BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ...

Basil served in the Catering Corps of the British Army, possibly as part of his National Service, but makes it seem as if he had been a soldier. He claims: "I fought in the Korean War, you know, I killed four men" to which his wife jokingly replies to the threat, "he was in the Catering Corps; he used to poison them". He is often seen wearing a military tie and a military-type moustache. Fawlty also claims to have sustained a shrapnel injury to his leg in the Korean War, which has a tendency to flare up at convenient moments - usually when Sybil asks him an awkward question. The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... Belligerents United Nations: Republic of Korea Australia Belgium Canada Colombia Ethiopia France Greece Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Philippines South Africa Thailand Turkey United Kingdom United States Medical staff: Denmark Italy Norway India Sweden Communist: Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Peoples Republic of China Soviet Union Commanders Syngman Rhee...

John Cleese himself described Basil as thinking that he could run a first-rate hotel if he didn't have all the guests getting in the way. He has also made the point that on account of Basil's inner need to conflict with his wife's wishes, "Basil couldn't be Basil if he didn't have Sybil."

He has a slight soft spot for doctors, having aspired to be one himself (however Sybil says that he couldn't even be a tree surgeon: couldn't stand the sight of sap). Basil is constantly maniacally depressed, intimidating towards guests, and liable to pick up a tail-end of a situation and turning it into a farcical misunderstanding. Basil is known for his tight-fisted mannerisms, employing cowboy builder O'Reilly in The Builders because he was a cheaper alternative, and more importantly Manuel, who was in a similar boat. The Builders is the second episode in the first series of the BBC TV sitcom Fawlty Towers. ...

Basil has been married to Sybil for fifteen years, as stated in the episode The Anniversary. He very rarely shows any signs of real love for his long-suffering wife ("my little piranha-fish" is one of the kindest epithets he bestows on her), and vice-versa. Sybil's friend Audrey will often be the only support she gets. Ironically, The Anniversary was one of the few episodes in which Basil was the one trying to be nice, and Sybil was the one who had misread the situation (i.e., thinking he had forgotten what day it was). List of Fawlty Towers episodes The Anniversary is the fifth episode of the second series of BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... For other uses, see Piranha (disambiguation). ...

John Cleese reprised the role of Basil in the song Don't Mention the War, based on the situation in the episode The Germans, for the 2006 Germany FIFA World Cup. The Germans is the sixth episode of the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... Qualifying countries The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th staging of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international association football world championship tournament. ...

This same phrase, Don't Mention the War, was used as the title of the first episode of a 5-part BBC documentary series When Rover Met BMW. When Rover Met BMW is a 5-part documentary series produced by the BBC in 1996. ...

Origins

Fawlty Towers was inspired by the Monty Python team's stay in the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. Cleese and Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming for the Python show had finished. The owner, Mr. Donald Sinclair, was very rude, throwing a bus timetable at a guest who asked when the next bus to town would arrive and placing Eric Idle's suitcase behind a wall in the garden in case it contained a bomb (actually it contained a ticking alarm clock). He also criticised the American-born Terry Gilliam's table manners for being too American (he had the fork in the "wrong" hand while eating), and it is reasonable to assume that his treatment of Gilliam partially inspired Basil's treatment of an American visitor in the episode Waldorf Salad. Cleese used the name, Donald Sinclair for his character in the 2001 film Rat Race. Monty Python, or The Pythons,[2][3] is the collective name of the creators of Monty Pythons Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. ... This article is about the English town. ... Donald Sinclair (died 1981) was the owner of the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, which he had acquired after an extensive career in the British Navy. ... Eric Idle (born March 29, 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author and composer of comedic songs. ... Terrence Vance Gilliam (born November 22, 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, animator, and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. ... Waldorf Salad is the third episode of the second series of BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. ... Rat Race is a 2001 comedy film (not to be confused with The Rat Race of 1960) directed by Jerry Zucker. ...

Libel case

In 1989, Cleese successfully sued the Daily Mirror for libel when it described him becoming like his character Basil Fawlty.^[1] Year 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar). ... Alternate newspaper: The Daily Mirror (Australia) The Daily Mirror is a popular British tabloid daily newspaper. ... In English and American law, and systems based on them, libel and slander are two forms of defamation (or defamation of character), which is the tort or delict of making a false statement of fact that injures someones reputation. ...

References