1. The wrong room
Suggested by mateofthebloke
Possibly the Towers’ most troublesome guest, the deaf and short-sighted Mrs Richards (played by Joan Sanderson) comes to stay in Communication Problems, and promptly complains to Basil about her room. Her complaints include the broken radio (she can’t hear it because she won’t turn on her hearing aid) and a bath “not big enough to drown a mouse”. Finally, she claims that the view is not what she expected, prompting one of Basil’s wittier ripostes: “Well, may I ask what you expected to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically?”
2. The fire
Suggested by David Jones
In a cruel twist of fate, Manuel starts a real fire moments before a fire drill is due to begin in The Germans. Falling out of the kitchen, his dinner jacket smoking, Basil clamps a hand over the waiter’s mouth and explains the situation to his guests, who have congregated in the hotel lobby. Soon, however, his composure and diction disintegrate, until all he is able to say is, repeatedly, “FIRE”. All the while, Manuel hobbles about, saucepan in hand. User David Jones singles out the “the glorious moment where [Manuel] gets picked up and remains rigid like a cardboard cut-out”
3. The builders
Suggested by CVA1976
In a telephone prank of Bart Simpson-Moe Szyslak proportions, Basil calls Manuel while on a golfing holiday in Paignton in The Builders. After failing to recognise his employer on the phone (“Where are your ears, you great big halfwit?”), Manuel, who’s overseeing the renovation of the Towers, is persuaded to throw his weight around on Fawlty’s behalf. “You men, work,” he instructs O’Reilly’s crew. Finally, he beckons the burliest of the three men and, listening carefully to Basil’s instructions, communicates that he is “a hideous orangutan”. Unsurprisingly, his interlocutor expresses his dissatisfaction with his fist.
4. The Bruces
Suggested by freespeechoneeach
A frisky, giggling young Mr and Mrs Bruce come to the Towers asking for a double room. Basil’s reluctance to grant them one becomes justified when the woman tries to pick up a letter for Jean Wilson, and Basil realises that the pair are not in fact married: “It’s against the law. The law of England. Nothing to do with me.” When Jean enquires of the room “Is it airy?”, an increasingly irate Basil replies, “Well, there’s air in it”. Sybil arrives to resolve the room-booking to the couple’s taste and Basil’s chagrin: “Do you mind sharing a bath?”
5. The cupboard
Suggested by HeeeresJohnny
Perhaps the most elaborate plotline of any of Fawlty Towers’ dozen episodes, in which Basil finds himself in a series of increasingly precarious situations with an attractive Australian guest, Raylene Miles. Having been thrown out of the hotel by a jealous Sybil, he goes to Raylene’s room to tell her she must leave, but finds her changing her top. He jumps into her cupboard, at which point Sybil arrives to apologise for Basil’s flirtations. Seeing a curled finger holding shut the cupboard door, she tears it open to discover Basil, whom she berates as “an ageing, brilliantined stick insect”. If not Basil’s finest hour, surely Sybil’s finest putdown.
6. The language lesson
Suggested by AcatcalledTosh
The tables turn, and it’s Manuel who gets the chance to teach Basil a thing or two about language. Or so he thinks: though Basil may be attempting to tell Manuel that “there is too much butter on those trays”, Manuel mistakes “on those trays” for a mispronounced “uno, dos, tres”. Somehow Basil runs with it, and so begins a fraught Spanglish exchange (“utter comedic genius”, according to AcatcalledTosh). For once, it’s Manuel who comes off saner, as Basil dismisses him with a frantic “Arriba! Arriba!” Basil’s excuse is that “I learned classical Spanish, not the strange dialect he seems to have picked up.” Perhaps Spanish speakers would agree: Manuel, played by Andrew Sachs, is of course not a native speaker himself.
7. O’Reilly meets Fawlty
Suggested by mrssnufflupagus
The universe sets two opposing forces on a collision course, as Fawlty meets head builder O’Reilly, who wants to impart to Basil some heaven-sent wisdom. He tells Fawlty that “if the good Lord meant us to worry, he would’ve given us things to worry about” (“He HAS,” Basil frantically replies, “my WIFE!”). O’Reilly’s optimism quickly begins to wear on the cantankerous hotelier, and when the builder sermonises “I’m tellin’ ya, if the good Lord…” “…Is mentioned once more,” Basil interjects, “I shall move you closer to him”. And so ends their conversation.
8. The misshapen chips
Suggested by chuggachugga
“These eggs look like you laid them,” complains the young Ronald Heath, a diner at the hotel’s restaurant on Gourmet Night. His brattishness is compounded by his parents’ nauseating praise for him: “He’s very clever,” insists his mother, though “rather highly strung”; “Yes, yes he should be,” mutters Basil. Basil expresses his fury at the boy’s complaint (in this case, that his chips are the wrong shape) in particularly elaborate style – “Oh, dear...What shape do you usually have? Mickey Mouse shape? Smarties shape? Amphibious landing-craft shape? Poke-in-the-eye shape?” – proving once again the wafer-thinness of his hospitality.
9. The case
Suggested by shazzerman
Lord Melbury, a slickly dressed aristocrat, turns up at the hotel unannounced, and leaves a briefcase of “valuables” in Basil’s care. When detective inspector Danny Brown appears shortly afterwards, it transpires Melbury is a confidence trickster. Sybil suggests they open the case, much as Basil insists otherwise (“Sybil, I forbid you to open that safe. Sybil, I forbid you to take that case out! Sybil, you cannot open that case! I FORBID it!”). The case is opened, to reveal only a pair of bricks.
10. Sybil the mastermind
Suggested by stevegreenman
When an unwelcome guest (or as Basil tactically renames it, “a Siberian hamster”) is discovered at the hotel in Basil the Rat, slapstick mayhem ensues. As Basil runs around the Towers with the caged rodent, Sybil’s response is particularly unhelpful: “What are you going to do with it, Basil? You can’t keep it in here. And don’t let it loose in the garden, it’ll come back in the house.” Angered by his wife’s uninspired suggestions, Basil asks Sybil, “Can’t we get you on Mastermind, Sybil? ‘Next contestant, Sybil Fawlty from Torquay. Special subject: the bleedin’ obvious.’” A textbook instance of Fawlty nuptial bliss.
