Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers
Series title card. The "Fawlty Towers" sign varied between episodes.
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	John Cleese Connie Booth
Developed by	John Cleese Connie Booth
Written by	John Cleese Connie Booth
Directed by	John Howard Davies Bob Spiers
Starring	John Cleese Prunella Scales Andrew Sachs Connie Booth
Theme music composer	Dennis Wilson
Opening theme	"Fawlty Towers"
Ending theme	"Fawlty Towers"
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	12
Production
Producer(s)	John Howard Davies Douglas Argent
Editor(s)	Susan Imrie Bob Rymer Bill Harris
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	BBC
Distributor	BBC Worldwide
Release
Original network	BBC2
Original release	19 September 1975 – 25 October 1979
Website

Fawlty Towers is a BBC television sitcom first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975 and 1979. Twelve episodes were made (two series of six episodes each). The show was created and written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, who both also starred in the show. They were married at the time of series 1, but divorced before recording series 2. One of the best loved shows in British popular culture, it was ranked No. 1 on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000.

The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay -- pronounced "taw-key" in the English vernacular -- on the "English Riviera." The plots center on tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty (Cleese), his bossy wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), comparatively normal chambermaid Polly who often is the peacemaker and voice of reason (Booth), and hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs), showing their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests and tradespeople.

In May 1970 the Monty Python team stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel (which is referred to in "The Builders" episode) in Torquay while filming on location. John Cleese became fascinated with the behavior of the owner, Donald Sinclair, whom Cleese later described as "the rudest man I've ever come across in my life." This behavior included Sinclair throwing a timetable at a guest who asked when the next bus to town would arrive; and placing renowned English comic actor Eric Idle's briefcase (put to one side by Idle while waiting for a car with Cleese) behind a wall in the garden on the suspicion that it contained a bomb. Sinclair justified his actions by claiming the hotel had "staff problems." He also criticised the American-born Terry Gilliam's table manners for not being "British" (that is, he switched hands with his fork whilst eating). (Idle, Cleese and Gilliam all were part of the comic acting troupe Monty Python.) Cleese and Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming, furthering their research of the hotel owner. Cleese later played a hotel owner called Donald Sinclair in the 2001 movie Rat Race.