The cast:
The scripts were written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, who were married at the time of the first series, 1975. By 1979 (second series), Cleese and Booth had divorced after ten years of marriage, 1968-78. The plots are as intricate and farcical as those of Feydeau, involving coincidences, misunderstandings, cross purposes, accidental meetings and missed meetings. The sexual element of the bedroom farce is present, but it is Basil Fawlty's eccentricity, not lust, that energizes the plots.
The programmes were produced and directed by John Howard Davies, Douglas Argent and/or Bob Spiers.
Much of the comedy revolves around the following key facts:
Even before this programme existed English seaside boarding houses and their proprietors had something of a reputation for firmness and intransigence, possibly stemming from the days when soldiers were billeted in small hotels during wartime or national service. Cleese had also parodied the contrast between organisational dogma and sensitive customer service in many personnel training videotapes issued with a serious purpose by his company Video Arts. Basil Fawlty's behaviour can often be taken to represent macho management at its worst.
It was first broadcast on BBC 2 on September 19, 1975. The episodes of the first series were:
The second series was transmitted three and a half years later, with the first episode being broadcast on February 19, 1979. The episodes of the second series were:
Fawlty Towers was inspired by the Monty Python team's stay in the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. John and Connie stayed on at the hotel after filming for the Python show had finished. The widow of the hotel's then owner is now campaigning to remove what she sees as a slur on her husband's reputation, but former staff and visitors have remembered actual events there that were as ludicrous as those depicted in the programmes.
Arthur Mathews[?] and Graham Linehan[?] have cited Fawlty Towers as a major influence on their sitcom Father Ted (for one thing, they have the same initials....)
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