Posted on 08/09/2006 8:11:09 AM PDT by 1066AD
Sybil returns to 'Fawlty Towers' Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales is to star at the re-opening of the Torquay hotel which inspired the legendary series. Scales, who played the long-suffering Sybil, is set to arrive in a replica of the Austin 1100 famously thrashed with a branch by her screen husband Basil.
The event on 18 September is to mark a refurbishment of the Hotel Gleneagles.
It will be the first time Scales has visited the hotel - which is a local landmark because of Fawlty Towers.
It is the spiritual home of Fawlty Towers Hotel co-owner Brian Shone
Hotel co-owner Brian Shone, said: "We want to make her arrival as memorable as possible and what better way than to have her arrive in the back of a red Austin 1100."
Basil's thrashing of his recalcitrant 1100 in the Gourmet Night episode once topped a poll of memorable motoring moments, beating the Italian Job's car chase.
Show creator John Cleese based the character of Basil Fawlty on Donald Sinclair, a former owner of the Hotel Gleneagles.
Eric Idle's suitcase
Cleese, who stayed at the hotel with the Monty Python team in 1971, described Mr Sinclair as "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met".
Mr Sinclair, who died in 1981, is said to have thrown Eric Idle's suitcase out of the window "in case it contained a bomb" and complained about Terry Gilliam's table manners.
The actual hotel seen at the start and end of the series was the Woodburn Grange Country Club in Buckinghamshire, but that burned down in 1991.
The Gleneagles has become a popular tourist destination.
Mr Shone, said: "We get about eight or 10 coaches a day stopping outside.
"Some people just want to walk about inside.
"It is the spiritual home of Fawlty Towers."
Mr Shone keeps Fawlty Towers memorabilia inside the foyer of the hotel which, with its new boutique hotel look, is otherwise very different from the hotel in the series.
Fawlty Towers has proved to be one of the most enduring sitcoms in TV history.
Despite only running for 12 episodes, it regularly tops polls of favourite TV shows.
Or is that Python and Cheese?
Twelve episodes? TOTAL?
Funny, Donald Sinclair was the name of his character in Rat Race.
Yep. I've got the entire run on one video tape.
Sybil.....Yes,but not at the same time,Basil
"Don't mention the war."
Back then,at least,British TV was much different from ours...particularly the BBC.
It wasn't at all unusual for a BBC sitcom to air only a few times in a season,unlike our networks where there were 20,30 or 40 episodes per season.
I heard or read somewhere that the writers and cast of Fawlty Towers would work for months preparing a single episode.
Check it out....it's a genuine classic.Although those who appreciate it most are those who are most familiar with "Britcoms" in general.
You just gotta love the Brits. Who else could get away with naming a poor baby girl Prunella?
Of course you started it.You invaded Poland!
Prunella Scales is one of my favorite actresses. Always barely restrained at the edge.
I found that remarkably low as well.
Say what you will about her name,but her performance in Fawlty qualifies her as a comic genius.
I can't believe there's only 12 either. There might be a lost 13th according to - http://www.fawltysite.net/
Can remember laughing hillariously night after night, great times back way back when..........
Not much call for it here, sir.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.