TV Dinners - Fawlty Towers
TV Dinners - Fawlty Towers
The 70s were the heyday of British sitcom and, despite what any viewers' poll might tell you, Fawlty Towers was the decade's crowning glory. Only 12 episodes were ever made, which meant the jokes and slapstick routines never had time to grow thin and the situations in which hotel owner Basil Fawlty found himself imprisoned were never in short supply. Food played a big part in the Fawlty Towers mix.
An entire episode was given over to an impending visit from a trio of Simple yet delicious hotel inspectors, which had Basil, manically played by John Cleese, tormented by an out-of-date kipper served to a guest who dies in his sleep. Another guest, a doctor played by Geoffrey Palmer, orders the kitchen to be scrubbed before any more cooking is done, except for sausages which he has ordered for his much-delayed breakfast. Other episodes brought conflict between Basil and guests over the shape of chips ("What shape would you like? Mickey Mouse shape? Donald Duck shape? Amphibious landing craft shape?").
In another, Basil mistakes Chateaubriand for a wine and suggests that most of the guests can't tell a Bordeaux from a Claret. In the same scene he asks whether the paté was to a guest's satisfaction before talking it up with the observation that "the chef buys it himself you know". A sophisticated step up from the onedimensional joke about a one-armed washer-upper in Robin's Nest, we think you'll agree (see TV Dinners, April). The culinary triumph of Fawlty Towers came in the Gourmet Night episode in which a temperamental French chef is hired to provide the great and the good of Torquay with five-star food (the local paper ad specifies "no riff raff").
Alas, the chef hits the sauce and is incapacitated to the point of vomiting over the starters. A friendly local restaurant steps in but can only provide duck. When it arrives, Manuel the waiter manages to step on it. A mix-up at the restaurant means the replacement duck is substituted by an identical silver salver, the lid of which Basil lifts to reveal a tacky gateau to his astounded guests. Basil: "Sorry, duck's off." Cut to black. Roll credits. Genius.
