Fawlty Towers - The Complete Series

Buy This Item Fawlty Towers - The Complete Series by BBC Warner  Available from Amazon  $42.49  on 9-23-2008     Basil Fawlty, as created and performed by John Cleese, is the rudest, most boorish, most hilariously obnoxious man on the face of the planet. What a natural for a TV sitcom! His screen wife, Sybil (Prunella Scales), put it best in the episode "The Psychiatrist": "You're either crawling all over them, licking their boots, or spitting poison at them like some Benzedrine puff adder." He mockingly replies, "Just trying to enjoy myself, dear." With his gangly frame and contortionist abilities, Cleese brilliantly punctuates Basil's outrageous faux pas with absurd gymnastics and turns Three Stooges-style pokes and kicks into a slapstick ballet. Scales's Sybil is the genial but obliviously chatty voice of reason and Andrew Sachs mangles the English language as the Spanish bellhop Manuel, whose struggles with simple directions results in comic lunacy reminiscent of Robert Benigni. After a six-episode run in 1975, Cleese and cowriter and costar Connie Booth (who plays Polly, the maid all too often pulled into Basil's ridiculous plans) reunited the cast in 1979 for another six episodes without missing a punch line. The four-volume collection contains all 12 shows, interspersed with interview segments featuring Cleese discussing the genesis of the series and anecdotes about the individual episodes. Remember to watch the opening credits of each show to spot the creative misspellings on the hotel sign (my favorite: "Fatty Owls"). <I>--Sean Axmaker</I> Reader Reviews If Monty Python are The Beatles of comedy then Fawlty Towers is....well some other famous band you've probably heard of. Unlike the usually "comedy of ideas" of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers is of a much more down to earth nature. It's not so much as a sitcom as a farce ( in the best possible way of course) Each episode starts off gently, with only a few moments sparking off subdued chuckles from the sudience, and likely to only raise a smile at home. But the episodes gradually build momentum until towards the end it is nearly manic, with physical comedy prevailing. In truth some may find the pace just a bit *too* much if they're used to gentler comdey sitcoms, but for sheer absurdity the series takes some beating. There are a few faults with the series. Series 1 was largely experimental, and nothing on TV at the time was quite like it. As with nearly all experiments, there are occasional failures. Of Series 1, one episode was truly great (The Germans), two were good (Hotel Inspectors and A Touch Of Class) two were adequate (Wedding Party and Gourmet Night) and one was actually pretty poor (The Builders. Not even Cleese himself likes this one. The endless scenes of people being hit by an umbrella is painfully unfunny to watch) Series 2 is the stronger of the two series IMO, as by this time they had learned what worked well and what didn't. As a somewhat unimportant aside what's with the awful cover art. None of the characters there look very much like what the actors, and if I didn't know the series I think it would dissaude me from impulse buying. Overall easily one of the best comedy series of all time, and very reccomended if you like your comedy outrageous and frantic. Just don't expect *every* minute to have you laughing til your sides hurt.

Fawlty Towers - The Complete Series Available from Amazon Price: $42.49 Updated on 9-23-2008.

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