Fawlty Towers
- TV sitcom
- BBC Two
- 1975 - 1979
- 12 episodes (2 series)
Comedy about a hotel and its owner, a man of infinite rudeness with a rabid dislike of almost all guests. Stars John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs, Connie Booth, Ballard Berkeley and more.
Press clippings Page 12
Greatest TV shows to watch now - the British comedies
20 great British comedies available on demand, from Peep Show and The Thick of It to Fawlty Towers.
James Gill, Radio Times, 13th January 2015Rare photos capture Fawlty Towers birth 40 years ago
Enjoy an exclusive look at what happened when RT went on set for the birth of the classic comedy in 1974.
Patrick Mulkern, Radio Times, 23rd December 2014Radio Times review
Assuming you haven't got the VHS, the DVD or seen it seven times on G.O.L.D., The Psychiatrist (series 2 episode 2: "Watery Fowls") looks as zingy and agonising as it did in 1979.
Sybil flirts with an open-shirted guest (or "Piltdown ponce") while Basil fawns on a couple who are both doctors - until he learns one is a psychiatrist. There's so much to love in the way that from there his spasms of overreaction build to disaster on the first-floor landing, not least the insults exchanged by the "brilliantine stick insect" and the "coiffured old sow".
David Butcher, Radio Times, 31st May 2014Fawlty Towers: 7 facts and anecdotes
Did you know how tough Manuel actor Andrew Sachs was or why Major Gowen was censored?
Jack Hardy, The Mirror, 31st May 2014Andrew Sachs remembers filming Fawlty Towers in 1975
This is a scene from 'The Builders', the second episode of Fawlty Towers, in which Basil Fawlty [John Cleese] carries me to the hotel dining-room windows in an attempt to explain that he would like them cleaned. I wasn't hurt, but there were instances when I wasn't so lucky.
Andrew Sachs, The Telegraph, 14th March 2014Andrew Sachs: 'John Cleese once hit me so hard'
The actor on Sachsgate, fleeing the Nazis and being thumped by Basil Fawlty.
Tim Lewis, The Observer, 21st February 2014Letters of note: Fawlty Towers rejection in 1974
In a note to the head of comedy and light entertainment, Ian Main turns down one of Britain's most famous sitcoms.
The Guardian, 12th October 2013Why can't we laugh at the old jokes any more?
A 'racist' joke in Fawlty Towers has been cut because it might offend. Well, it might - if you didn't get the joke.
Michael Deacon, The Telegraph, 25th January 2013Fawlty Towers isn't racist. Major Gowen is
The BBC's cutting of racial insults from a repeat of The Germans has brought the integrity of the hit comedy show into question. But the words are clearly used to satirise English upper-class bigotry.
Mark Lawson, The Guardian, 23rd January 2013BBC cuts the Major's 'racist' lines from Fawlty Towers
In one scene one of the hotel's permanent residents, Major Gowen, uses derogatory terms to describe black people. It was included in the episode's first airing in October 1975, but this time around the major's words were edited out.
Laura Cox, Daily Mail, 23rd January 2013