Television: Don't go away... Basil's back

Fawlty Towers - the show that did for hotels what Psycho did for showers - begins another rerun next week. Fiona Barber finds there's no shortage of fans who will be taking another look.

Basil Fawlty, the worst hotelier in the world, has booked in for yet another season.

You might have thought that Attila the Uncoordinated had lurched off the small screen for the final time, but he's ready to pop up again like a rat from a biscuit tin.

Fawlty Towers returns to TV One at 8 pm on Thursday for at least its fifth repeat session since 1985 (TVNZ does not have records of reruns before then).

Only 12 episodes were made about the man most unsuited to the hospitality industry, who was, frighteningly, based on a real hotelier.

They were written by John Cleese and his then-partner Connie Booth, who played Basil and Polly the waitress, and were first screened in Britain in the mid-70s.
Thanks to frequent reruns, and video sales of the series, visitors to the Torquay hotel have been terrorised ever since.

Spare a thought for battered Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs), who must go yet another round with Basil the bully. Not to mention long-suffering Sybil Fawlty (Prunella Scales), whose astringent put-downs fail even to dent the armour of her ever-scheming but self-thwarting husband.

"Do you really imagine, even in your wildest dreams, that a girl like this could possibly be interested in an ageing, brilliantined stick insect like you?" she tosses at Basil in The Psychiatrist episode.

Auckland mayor Christine Fletcher considers Sybil a heroine and identifies with her because she has "all those irritating males around her."

Fletcher says she knows lots of Basils - and no, she can't be persuaded to name them.

She has no particular favourite episode or scene but admires the show for capturing the petty frustrations of life.

Another local body leader has found more than a hint of Fawlty Towers in town halls and council chambers.

"At times I feel in a similar position in local government - everything going out of control, people you've given jobs to do mucking it up like poor old Manuel," says Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt.

His favourite episode? Without a doubt The Germans, which he says highlights prejudices in a funny way. That show has a concussed Basil serving Colditz salads and Prawn Goebbels to German guests.

Actress and comic Ginette McDonald has gazed upon fiasco upon fiasco at Fawlty Towers and thinks the programme stands up well now. She too likes The Germans episode, for poking the borax at political correctness.
McDonald might watch another series - if there is no serious competition.

"If there's someone more amusing in the room I'll watch him or her, but that's very doubtful."

McDonald has an explanation for the frenetic pace of the show - she says the scripts were originally an hour long, but instead of pruning them back to 30 minutes Cleese insisted they be acted faster.

Another interesting snippet: when Fawlty Towers was dubbed for Spanish television, Manuel became an Italian waiter.

Telly chef Jo Seagar, another fan, admits to having had some Basilesque moments both as a restaurant chef and in filming her show.

She once slipped in her restaurant kitchen, hurting an already dodgy knee. Trying to break her fall, she put out her arm and broke her wrist.

The only way ambulance staff could remove the injured foodie from the building was through the main dining area where Seagar, in full chef's regalia, continued to issue meal orders.

More recently, attempts to keep a Christmas pudding aflame long enough for filming kept fizzling out. The remedy - lighter fluid - saw the pudding ignite all right but also set off the sprinkler system.

She remembers one scene in which Basil gropes for a light switch and instead connects with a young woman's chest. "That was a real hoot," says Seagar, who lists the scene when the rat emerges from the biscuit tin as another pearler.

Olympic boardsailor Bruce Kendall also likes the rodent episode - "the one when they're running around looking for the rat in the kitchen and the inspector happens to be in the hotel."

Kendall says he can appreciate Basil's situation, being on the edge but doing the best he can. Time permitting, he will be settling in to watch the terror of Torquay up to his old tricks.

The general manager of the Hotel Du Vin and De Redcliffe Winery, Christiaan Palsenbarg, will try to catch some episodes which he hasn't seen for about 10 years. He recalls fondly the show in which Basil tries to guess which of his guests are hotel inspectors.

There have been Fawlty-type moments in Palsenbarg's career, although he says none have come to the dizzy heights of disaster that Basil attained. And if they had, "I probably wouldn't tell you."