The last episode of Fawlty Towers was on TV here recently, it’s “Basil the Rat”. A health inspector is visiting the hotel, and everyone is frantically looking for Manuel’s escaped pet rat[sup]1[/sup] (also named Basil). They are inches from a clean getaway when they serve the health inspector cheese and crackers, and he’s face-to-face with the rat in the cracker box. Sybil looks dreamily out the window and says “it’s started to rain again” while Polly and Manuel drag Basil (the tall one) out of the dining room.
I’ve long had the theory that Basil is dead. It just seems like the right sort of end for him. His life is going nowhere. He absorbs abuse and incompetence, and dishes out as much as he can, but it’s welling up inside him. Did he have a stroke, as alluded to in “The Builders”? Did he eat the poisoned veal? Are there any other clues I’m missing? What say you?
I think you can make of it what you will, but I don’t see Basil Fawlty quite dying there. In real life, the restaurant would be closed down by the health inspector, making it uneconomic to run the hotel, so Basil and Sybil would have to get out of the hotel business, and perhaps see even more of each other than they do running Fawlty Towers. It’s that last thought which causes Basil Fawlty to collapse, not the poisoned veal.
What all of you seem not to understand is that “Fawlty Towers”, considered by most to be a delightful but frivolous situation comedy, is actually a deeply insightful and cynical commentary on modern so-called civilized life in which the Average Man (Basil Fawlty, played with deadpan rigid sincerity by John Cleese), trapped in the insufferably tiny Modern World (The Hotel), is set upon by Authority (Sybil), dependent upon Obtusity (Manuel the Porter) and Indifference (Terry the Chef), required to support and humor the Indigent (Major Gowen, Miss Tibbs, and Ms. Gatsby), troubled by the mischievous and manipulative Prankster (the paperboy), and has to turn to the emasculating expertise of a woman (Polly) in order to extract himself from the troubles that have bound him. Every episode is an attempt at escape from Fawlty’s troubles, typically through extensively planned but ultimately absurd plans, as Basil tries to extract himself from the Hotel and return to a more normal life, but his overseers draw him back in at the close of every episode, making his escape only transitory. The seemingly incomprehensible final episode is actually a study in the existential inescapability of the external dependencies and demands of Modern Society, and we may therefore conclude that while Basil appears to escape into the sweet release of death (or at least temporary nescience) in fact he will awaken in his rooms, only to look out the window and find himself returned to The Hotel. There is no escape, Mr. Fawlty. By hook or by crook, you will give us in-formation.
The question raised by the final episode has escaped you all. Was it the product of a dream by a man about a rat named Basil, or a dream by a rat about a man with the same name? Eh? Eh? Ah.
Is filigree Siberian hamster. But how did a pigeon get in the water tank? Fly?
Anyway, I guess if Cleese doesn’t consider Fawlty dead, it’s safe to assume that wasn’t the intention of the final episode. It was interesting to think about though.
If he had died of a stroke, I imagined the fortunes of the hotel would have improved dramatically under the stern but competent control of the widow Fawlty, especially once word got out that the abusive madman who used to run the place was no longer terrorizing the guests. After a few years she would be able to go into semi-retirement, having promoted Polly to a managerial position. Terry, although somewhat lackadaisical, knew his way around the kitchen well-enough and would not have been above occasionally flattering and flirting with his new boss, so he’d probably do all right. I’m afraid Manuel would have found himself aboard the first boat for Barcelona, steerage class.
If, however, Mr. Fawlty had died of poisoning, I’m afraid Mrs. Fawlty would have been the prime suspect in the ensuing investigation. Although charges would be dismissed without trial due to the lack of hard evidence and the fact that anyone who had ever come into contact with Basil could be said to have sufficient motive, the cloud of suspicion would remain over her for life and she would be finished in the hospitality business. She might be able to survive however on the goodwill of the people of Torquay, who would be understanding, if not outright grateful. Terry and Polly would probably also have to find other lines of work, but would eventually land on their feet. Manuel again might be the odd man out.
[quote=
Stranger On A Train]
What all of you seem not to understand is that “Fawlty Towers”, considered by most to be a delightful but frivolous situation comedy, is actually a deeply insightful and cynical commentary on modern so-called civilized life in which the Average Man… tries to extract himself from the Hotel and return to a more normal life.
[/quote]
Nicely done, but I believe Cleese is on record as calling Fawlty “a monster.” I don’t think he was ever intended to be an average man. Also, leaving the hotel certainly was not his primary motivation in every episode (or any episode, that I recall). In the episode that inspired this thread, he was struggling to stay in the hotel business.
Now what does that have to do with anything? In the context of the episode, the inspector is so unequipped to deal the fact that he has just been offered a live rat to go with his biscuit that he is simply not going to deal with it.
The show is based on a real guy in a real hotel on the coast of England. Cleese met the guy while staying there when filming some Python stuff. I think the hotel is called the Glen Eagles, not sure if it still exists.
Also Connie Booth (who played Polly) is now a psychoanalyst and will no longer talk about the show. She divorced Cleese between the 1st and 2nd set of shows. (first set filmed in 75, 2nd set in 79)