1
I am aware that there is some controversy as to whether or not the Ladies have been inhabitants of the Towers for a longer period of time than the Major. In The Wedding Party Basil introduces the Major to Mrs. Peignoir with the qualification that he is “our longest-standing resident.” On the other hand we have Miss Tibbs informing Sybil in the The Kipper and the Corpse that “we (she and Miss Gatsby) are his (Basil’s) oldest residents.” It is possible that this should not be interpreted to mean that they are the hotel’s longest-standing residents, but only the ones most advanced in age. Accepting this hypothesis I am inclined to confer upon the Major the honour of having first discovered and settled in the Towers for good.
2
Ironically, Mr. Whistlebourne’s conversion to decency did not occur quite in the way he had prefigured it. Upon his release from prison, he was immediately contacted by the management of the Tate Gallery, which had recently lost substantial sums of money — and prestige — by first buying inauthentic masterpieces and then trying to track down the forgers themselves. In order to spare the museum these inconveniences in the future, someone had come up with the brilliant idea of hiring Mr. Whistlebourne, the greatest expert of them all, on the techniques of forgery. Mark Whistlebourne accepted the job and soon became so famous that he was also asked by the BBC to do his own series, in which he divulged to the television viewers the secrets of producing hitherto unknown Turner and Monet paintings ...
3
It should be emphasised that the subdivision of Basil’s mind into different categories does not indicate that his behaviour can at any time be regarded as the simple result of one or two identifiable mental disturbances. In reality his psyche represents a tumultuous totality of emotive actions and motifs, constantly changing both its inner and outer appearance, thus ultimately defying any attempt at definition. The following headings and their corresponding analyses should preferably be regarded as light flashes indicating possible access routes to the inner departments of the mysterious tower. Their sum total, however, does not equal the sinuous, swaying, tortuous tower itself.
4
It is well known that John Cleese — perhaps in particular during the years succeeding the Fawlty Towers era, in which he and his therapist Robert Skynner published two books dealing with some of the psychological problems facing modern man — took much interest both in traditional Buddhism and what might loosely be termed modern Christian mysticism, propounded by guru-like figures like Ouspensky and Gurdieff. Against the background of his general culture, as well as his academic training, Cleese was certainly, and from early on, also aware of the alternative interpretations of Christ that existed at the very inception of the Christian era, in order words, of gnosticism. I myself remember hearing Cleese say in an interview that he imagined Christ to be a person whom he would find very easy and natural to talk to, a striking individual, to be sure, but not so much by his apparent holiness, as by the sympathetic simplicity of manners.
5
How she managed to get into her son’s hotel room so quietly, and completcly unnoticed, is problematic, unless we assume that she used the ladder left below the window by Basil the night before.
6
For evolutionary reference, see also Sybil’s not-so-favourable opinion of Irish cock-up-artist O’Reilly in The Builders. Sybil: “Not brilliant? He belongs in a zoo!” Another instance is Basil’s comment to Manuel “I’m going to sell you to a vivisectionist.” (Communication Problems).
7
It is noteworthy that the Ladies remain loyal to him in all circumstances, and of particular interest in this respect is the Major’s exclamation in response to Mr. Johnstone’s allegation that “I think this is probably the worst hotel we’ve ever stayed in.” The Major: “No, I won’t have that. There is a place in Eastbourne ...” In the published script — which claims to be the complete and unexpurgated text of Fawlty Towers — this line is simply missing, depriving the reader of the pleasure of freely associating the Eastbourne hotel with the one in Torquay where John Cleese and Connie Booth originally became acquainted with the Basil prototype.
8
Mr. Walt is incarnated by James Cossins, who in his career as a film actor also appeared as Q’s assistant in the James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun. I find this an extraordinary coincidence since John Cleese recently has been appointed as the new Q (Or is it R? Anyway, it is a commitment for life!) in the Bond films. Maybe Basil, in spite of the catastrophe, really impressed Mr. Walt to the point that the latter, more than twenty years later, recommended him as successor to Q, expert on explosives and other murderous devices in Her Majesty’s Secret Service. If this is true, he couldn’t have made a more excellent choice.
If it was down to me. I’d make Basil head of all the weapons laboratories in the world. If nothing else, that would put an end to them!
9
Human nature is indeed strange. I know of a restaurant in Stockholm called Svedala, where the principal attraction is its owner, who, on the slightest provocation, will not hesitate to correct the manners of his guests, teach them how to handle a knife and fork, etc. The restaurant is always full, and you have to reserve weeks in advance to get a table there.
10
The fact that Audrey here appears as the consoling angel, unaware of Basil’s plans for the evening, clearly indicates that Basil hasn’t invited her to the surprise party commemorating his and Sybil’s fifteen years of marital bliss. Knowing that she really is Sybil’s closest friend he has made sure that she will remain far from the scene of action on this occasion. So, even if Basil had been able to stop Sybil from going away, she would have had an excellent occasion for lashing out at him again. Sybil: “Why didn’t you invite Audrey?” Basil: “But then I would have had to invite George as well, and you wouldn't have liked that, would you?” Etc.
11
Incidentally, the three headed, winged mechanical monster that serves as the vehicle and instrument of vengeance to the King of the Moon in Terry Gilliam's film The Adventures of Baron Münchausen, answers to the name of Sybil ...
12
Like most small-minded shopkeepers, Sybil is meticulous on this point. To her the omission of a breakfast charge to the deceased Mr. Leeman seems an almost frivolous act, and she only decides to go through with it to avoid further attention being brought to the specific circumstances under which Mr. Leeman was found dead (The Kipper and the Corpse).
13
Even today I can’t imagine anyone other than a Monty Python member publicly pulling off the kind of joke that Eric Idle did in connection with the official Monty Python reunion in Aspen, Colorado some years ago. Before a large live and television audience, he related the event when the Monty Pythons, invited to produce a comedy for a German TV channel, were taken sightseeing by their hosts to visit the concentration camp in Dachau (I guess they thought it would put them in a creative mood!). As it was already late afternoon, it was feared that the premises might be closed when they arrived there. Somebody in the group then suggested: “Tell them we’re Jewish.”
By the way, Cleese himself later had to atone for his racial derring-do in Fawlty Towers. In a Western film from 1985, Silverado, with among others Kevin Kline and Kevin Costner in the leading roles, Cleese himself appears in the role of Sheriff Langston. When a bar owner complains that “the nigger destroyed my bar”, the sheriff cuts him short, saying, “I don’t very much like that word, Carter.” After that conversion to terminological decency, John Cleese has been considered kosher even with the Freemasons of Santa Barbara, and can nowadays be seen golfing with the city's leading Rotarians.
14
For psychological illustration in this regard I shall have to refer the reader to the film A Fish called Wanda (1988) where the script allows Archie (John Cleese), initially caught in a similar Victorian strait-jacket, to actually break loose from his dreaded wife and satisfy his heart’s desire.
15
There is indeed
a conspicuous lack of staff in the hotel. In Communication Problems, Sybil asks Polly if she has time to give a hand with the cleaning of the rooms. This suggests that there is someone else doing the rooms normally. Unless we are to assume that this person is Manuel, or even that Basil and Sybil take turns making beds and cleaning bathrooms, this leaves us with the alternatives that the rooms are either mysteriously made by themselves, or that there is in fact some very discreet member of the hotel staff that we never encounter or hear anything about.
16
Not all peers sit in the House of Lords, however. There is also the courtesy-title system, where the son of a peer may use one of his subsidiary titles by courtesy only, which does not entitle him to sit. In fact, since the recent reform of the House, the majority of hereditary peers do not sit.
17
Acording to Jonathan Margolis, in Cleese Encounters, one of the first things John Cleese did, after having been told by Connie Booth in 1977 that he was now free from any matrimonial obligations, was to travel to Hintlesham Hall in Essex to participate in a cookery class led by the said Robert Carrier. I impart this information strictly as an objective point of reference, since it is contrary to my purpose to extend the analyses of the characters of the series to the individuals who created it. Or in Cleese’s own words: “Sir Laurence Olivier didn’t become Hamlet or Lear just because he acted the roles, did he?” That there might still be a lingering suspicion of a ‘guilt by association’ is something for which neither I, nor Cleese himself, can he held responsible.
18
Another name sometimes used for this kind of soothsayer and sorceress is a Python ...
19
As far as the general information above is concerned, I should point out that some of it can be found on various Internet sites. However, most of the Fawlty Towers-related material presented on the Net seems to draw principally on Jonathan Margolis’ 1991 biography, Cleese Encounters (the eighth chapter of the book deals with the time period in which John Cleese wrote and produced Fawlty Towers together with Connie Booth). The facts gathered and the theories propounded in Margolis’ biography are in turn based on numerous media interviews with John Cleese, and on the many newspaper/periodical articles that the subject matter and its creators have generated over time. Another principal and thoroughly updated source of information is the recently published, as well as earlier mentioned, Fawlty Towers Fully Booked by Morris Bright and Robert Ross, which contains lots of valuable background information as well as relevant interview material. I acknowledge my gratitude to all.
20
At the time of writing, Mr. Sinclair, according to the testimony of his wife, has been peacefully dead for many years, although Mrs. Sinclair still feels haunted by the spectre of caricature. Recently she publicly declared that she is intent on suing the authors for a large sum of money in recompense for the disrepute their series brought her once respectable establishment. “Of course, I was running the place,” Mrs. Sinclair candidly replied when asked if there were any similarities whatsoever between her deceased husband and the fictional character of Basil Fawlty, “but he wasn’t as bad as they made him out to be.”
21
Basil's collection of imperial coins seems to have made its one and only appearance in A Touch of Class.
22
One of John Cleese’s early influences in the realm of purely verbal entertainment was the radio series The Goons, which was broadcast in the U.K. during the 1950s. Although accessible to and admired by general audiences, the series nevertheless featured a subtle, not always obvious kind of humour, which made a particular impression on Cleese, who, some eye witnesses claim, used to laugh at jokes that most other people failed to comprehend, or simply did not consider funny at all.
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