Fawlty Towers (1975)
- Directed by
- John Howard Davies, Bob Spiers
- Genre
- sitcom
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Length
- 2 seasons, 12 episodes
- Rated
- TV-PG
- Rating
- 8.3 of 10 from 824 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A couple runs a hotel in a seaside English town. The owner is rude and stressed while his wife bosses him around. They deal with guests and a bumbling Spanish waiter leading to chaotic situations.
fast-pacedfarcicaltensesnappywittyabsurdcringe-comedyenergetic
What happens
Fawlty Towers is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a dysfunctional hotel in the English seaside town of Torquay in Devon. The plots centre on the tense, rude and put-upon owner, Basil Fawlty (Cleese), his bossy wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), the sensible chambermaid Polly (Booth), and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs). They show their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests and tradespeople. Fawlty Towers was inspired by the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, where Cleese and the rest of the Monty Python group stayed in 1970. The snobby and eccentric owner, Donald Sinclair, was the inspiration for Basil Fawlty. While some critics initially derided Fawlty Towers, it soon received general acclaim. In 1976 and 1980, it won the British Academy Television Award for Best Scripted Comedy. In 1980, Cleese received the British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. The popularity of Fawlty Towers has endured and it is often re-broadcast. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000. In a 2001 poll conducted by Channel 4, Basil Fawlty was ranked second (to Homer Simpson) on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 2019, it was named the greatest-ever British TV sitcom by a panel of comedy experts compiled by the Radio Times. The BBC profile for the series states that "the British sitcom by which all other British sitcoms must be judged, Fawlty Towers withstands multiple viewings, is eminently quotable ('don't mention the war') and stands up to this day as a jewel in the BBC's comedy crown." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
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The Cuckoo Waltz (1975)
Spaced (1999)
Rising Damp (1974)
The IT Crowd (2006)
The Good Life (1975)
My Son Reuben (1975)
Are You Being Served? (1972)- More like this series, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.