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	~~{{short description\|Character in the British comedy series Fawlty Towers}}~~
	~~{{Use British English\|date=May 2017}}~~
	~~{{Use dmy dates\|date=February 2021}}~~
	{{Infobox character		{{Infobox character
	~~\| colour = Yellow~~
	\| name = Basil Fawlty		\| name = Basil Fawlty
	\| series = [[Fawlty Towers]]		\| series = [[Fawlty Towers]]
	\| image = Basil Fawlty.jpg		\| image = Basil Fawlty.jpg
	~~\| image_size = 240px~~
	\| first = "[[A Touch of Class (Fawlty Towers)\|A Touch of Class]]" (1975)		\| first = "[[A Touch of Class (Fawlty Towers)\|A Touch of Class]]" (1975)
	\| last =		\| last =

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{{short description|Character in the British comedy series Fawlty Towers}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}}
{{Infobox character
| colour = Yellow
| name = Basil Fawlty
| series = [[Fawlty Towers]]
| image = Basil Fawlty.jpg
| image_size = 240px
| first = "[[A Touch of Class (Fawlty Towers)|A Touch of Class]]" (1975)
| last =
| creator = [[John Cleese]]<br>[[Connie Booth]]
| based_on = [[Donald Sinclair (hotel owner)|Donald Sinclair]]
| portrayer = John Cleese
| occupation = [[Hotel]]ier
| gender = Male
| spouse = [[Sybil Fawlty]] (wife)
| nationality = [[United Kingdom|British]]
| affiliation = [[British Army]]
}}
'''Basil Fawlty''' is the main character of the 1970s British sitcom ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'', played by [[John Cleese]]. The proprietor of the hotel Fawlty Towers, he is a [[Cynicism (contemporary)|cynical]] and [[Misanthropy|misanthropic]] [[snob]], desperate to belong to a higher [[social class]]. His attempts to run the hotel often end in [[farce]]. Possessing a dry, sarcastic wit, Basil has become an iconic British comedy character who remains widely known to the public despite only 12 half-hour episodes ever having been made. Cleese would receive the 1980 [[British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance]].<ref>{{cite news |title=See all of John Cleese's BAFTA wins and nominations |url=http://awards.bafta.org/keyword-search?keywords=John%20Cleese |access-date=7 September 2022 |website=BAFTA.org}}</ref> In a 2001 poll conducted by [[Channel 4]], Basil was ranked second on their list of the [[100 Greatest (TV series)|100 Greatest TV Characters]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/G/greatest/tv_characters/results.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090531160558/http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/G/greatest/tv_characters/results.html |archive-date=31 May 2009 |title=100 Greatest TV Characters |access-date=26 May 2019 |publisher=[[Channel 4]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/ITVProgs/2001/05/05/Y22090001/ |title=100 Greatest ... (100 Greatest TV Characters (Part 1)) |publisher=[[ITN Source]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150221233837/http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/ITVProgs/2001/05/05/Y22090001/ |archive-date=21 February 2015 |access-date=13 May 2019}}</ref>

Known for his quotable rants,<ref>{{cite news |title=Fawlty Towers: 20 of Basil's best rants |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/Fawlty-Towers-20-of-Basils-best-rants/ |access-date=25 May 2019 |work=The Telegraph|location=UK}}</ref> the character was inspired by [[Donald Sinclair (hotel owner)|Donald Sinclair]], an eccentric, inhospitable hotel owner whom Cleese had encountered when he stayed at his hotel ([[Gleneagles Hotel, Torquay|Gleneagles Hotel]] in [[Torquay]], England) along with the rest of [[Monty Python]] in May 1970.<ref>{{cite news |title=Fawlty hotelier was bonkers, says waitress |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1394580/Fawlty-hotelier-was-bonkers-says-waitress.html |access-date=24 May 2019 |work=The Telegraph|location=UK}}</ref>

==Personality==
Basil, who runs the titular hotel in [[Torquay]], is a misanthropic, pessimistic snob, whose main aspiration is to become a member of more "respectable" social circles. He sees the successful running of the hotel as a means of achieving this dream, yet his job frequently requires him to be pleasant to people he despises – something he severely struggles with, referring with contempt to the majority of his guests as "plebs" and "riff-raff". His much more customer-friendly wife [[Sybil Fawlty|Sybil]] often has to deal with the fallout of Basil's bad treatment of the guests, to varying success. In the episode "[[Communication Problems]]," [[Manuel (Fawlty Towers)|Manuel]] said Basil is from [[Swanage]], although Manuel is prone to making mistakes.

Basil has staunch [[Right-wing politics|right-wing]] and [[Traditional values|traditionalist views]] about most things, for example in "[[The Wedding Party (Fawlty Towers)|The Wedding Party]]", he shows open disgust towards a young unmarried couple having an active sex life. In "[[The Germans]]" he appears to blame the failure of the hotel's fire extinguisher on "bloody Wilson", referencing the-then [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|prime minister]], [[Harold Wilson]]. He is also frequently furious about industrial action – in "[[A Touch of Class (Fawlty Towers)|A Touch of Class]]", he launches into a tirade against dustmen and postmen going on strike, and in "[[The Kipper and the Corpse]]" he is so enraged by news of a car strike that he fails to notice that one of his guests is dead.

He is desperate to avoid his wife's wrath, and his plans often conflict with hers, but he mostly fails to stand up to her. She is often [[Verbal abuse|verbally abusive]] towards him (describing him as "an ageing, [[brilliantine]]d [[phasmatodea|stick insect]]") and though he is much taller than Sybil, he often finds himself on the receiving end of her temper, expressed verbally and physically.<ref name="Best moments"/> Basil does occasionally manage to gain the upper hand. In "[[The Kipper and the Corpse]]", Sybil refuses to help Basil dispose of the body of recently deceased guest Mr. Leeman. Basil gets his revenge towards the end of the episode, when he asks a number of disgruntled guests to direct their complaints towards Sybil. In "[[The Psychiatrist (Fawlty Towers)|The Psychiatrist]]", he has a row with Sybil during which he calls his wife a "rancorous, coiffured old sow". He often addresses her (in a faux-romantic way) with insults such as "my little nest of [[Viperidae|vipers]]".<ref>{{cite news |title=Fawlty Towers 40th anniversary: Britain's finest sitcom was TV's most perfectly constructed farce |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/fawlty-towers-40th-anniversary-britains-finest-sitcom-was-tvs-most-perfectly-constructed-farce-10506552.html |access-date=26 May 2019 |work=The Independent}}</ref>

[[File:Austin 1100 MkI Countryman (estate) 1098cc Nov 1967.JPG|thumb|left|[[BMC ADO16|Austin 1100 Mk.I Countryman]]. A red version was immortalised in the ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'' episode "[[Gourmet Night]]". When the car breaks down and won't start, Basil gets out and tells it, "I'm going to give you a damn good thrashing", before he starts beating it with a branch.<ref name="Best moments">{{cite news |title=The 10 best Fawlty Towers moments |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/sep/18/the-10-best-fawlty-towers-moments-40th-anniversary |access-date=23 August 2019 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>]]
Basil takes many of his frustrations out on the hapless waiter [[Manuel (Fawlty Towers)|Manuel]], physically abusing and bullying him in a variety of ways. The relationship between Basil Fawlty and Manuel has been the subject of academic discourse.<ref name="Journal of Pragmatics">{{cite journal | title= Gricean theory and linguicism: Infringements and physical violence in the relationship between Manuel and Basil Fawlty | last1= Greenall | first1= Annjo K.| date= March 2009| journal= [[Journal of Pragmatics]]| volume=41 | issue= 3| pages=470–483 | doi=10.1016/j.pragma.2008.05.017}}</ref> On occasions he also assaults others, such as choking a guest in "[[The Hotel Inspectors]]", kneeing [[Major Gowen]] in "[[Basil the Rat]]", "accidentally" elbowing a young boy in the head in "[[Gourmet Night]]" and, in the same episode, famously beating his [[Austin 1100|"vicious bastard" of a car]] with a tree branch when it breaks down.<ref name="Best moments"/>

Another eccentricity affecting Basil is that of occasionally swapping words around in a sentence while propounding a falsehood, for instance in "[[The Anniversary (Fawlty Towers)|The Anniversary]]" when he announces to the party guests that it's "''perfectly Sybil! Simple's not well. She's lost her throat and her voice hurts''", and – less obviously – reassuring himself as much as his wife in "[[The Wedding Party (Fawlty Towers)|The Wedding Party]]" that the sound of knocking on his bedroom door was "probably some key who forgot the guest for their door". He also has difficulty disconnecting his thought-process from unrelated events, as in "The Wedding Party", when he is looking through Polly's sketchbook of life-drawing pictures and answers the telephone with, "Hello, Fawlty Titties?" or in "The Psychiatrist", where, after inadvertently staining a female guest with paint, he realises that Sybil has noticed, and in panic puts his hands on the guest's breasts as a means of stopping her from seeing it.

Basil is known to have served in the [[British Army]] during the [[Korean War]], possibly as part of his [[National Service]]. He claims: "I fought in the Korean War, you know, I killed four men" to which his wife jokingly replies, "He was in the [[Army Catering Corps|Catering Corps]]; he used to poison them". He often wears military ties, and sports a military-type moustache. He also claims to have sustained a [[Shrapnel shell|shrapnel]] injury to his leg in the Korean War, which has a tendency to flare up at convenient moments – usually when Sybil asks him an awkward question. (John Cleese was only 14 years old when the Korean War ended, suggesting that Basil is several years older than he.) Basil is often seen wearing regimental ties, most frequently that of the [[East Lancashire Regiment]], and sometimes that of the [[Gordon Highlanders]]. He is also seen wearing a [[Winchester College]] tie (in "The Kipper and the Corpse"), and a [[Balliol College, Oxford]] tie (in "The Germans"). It is likely that these regimental and old boy ties were all worn dishonestly; an example of Basil's pretentiousness.

John Cleese himself described Basil as being a man who could run a top-notch hotel if he didn't have all the guests getting in the way. He has also made the point that on account of Basil's inner need to conflict with his wife's wishes, "Basil couldn't be Basil if he didn't have Sybil".

His desire to elevate his class status is exemplified in the unusual care and respect he affords [[upper class]] guests, such as Lord Melbury (who turned out to be an impostor), Mrs Peignoir (a wealthy French antique dealer) and Major Gowen, an elderly ex-soldier and recurring character – although Basil is sometimes scathing towards him, frequently alluding to his [[senility]] and his frequenting of the hotel bar ("drunken old sod"). He has particular respect for doctors, having once aspired to be one himself, and shows a reverential attitude to Dr. Abbott in "The Psychiatrist" (until he learns that Dr. Abbott is a psychiatrist), and Dr. Price in "The Kipper and the Corpse" (until Dr. Price begins to ask awkward questions about the death of Mr. Leeman, and inconveniently requests sausages for breakfast).

Basil is constantly spiteful and abusive to guests, and liable to pick up a tail-end of a situation (often panicking when things go wrong) and turn it into a farcical misunderstanding. Basil is known for his tight-fisted attitude to the hotel's expenses, employing completely incompetent builder O'Reilly in "[[The Builders]]" simply because he was cheap. Notoriously, he also becomes indignant whenever a guest makes a request, even if the request is quite reasonable. In "The Kipper and the Corpse", he is offended when a sickly guest politely asked for breakfast in bed, and Basil responds by sarcastically asking him which type of wood he would like his breakfast tray made out of.

Basil has been married to Sybil since 17 April 1964, although Sybil once sarcastically stated that they have been married since 1485. They very rarely show any signs of affection towards one another (in "The Wedding Party" they are shown to sleep in separate beds); in "A Touch of Class", Basil kisses Sybil but she tells him not to, and in "Gourmet Night" Sybil shows affection towards Basil while she is drunk, to which he responds telling her to "drink another vat of wine". "The Anniversary" is one of the few episodes in which Basil tries to be nice to Sybil, who misreads the situation and believes he has forgotten their anniversary.

==Reprisals==
John Cleese portrayed Basil in a 1980 special of the British rock band, [[Queen (band)|Queen]]. Basil is seen at a bar and is asked what he thinks of Queen, to which he shows disgust and calls the music "rock rubbish." He asks, "What do you need that for when you got Beethoven?" <ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nQlcCKItRQ | title=1980 John Cleese Talks about QUEEN | website=[[YouTube]] }}</ref>

John Cleese reprised the role of Basil in the song "[[Don't Mention the World Cup]]", an allusion to "don't mention the war" from the ''Fawlty Towers'' episode "[[The Germans]]", for the [[2006 FIFA World Cup]], which was played in [[Germany]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Sherwin |first=Adam |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article718221.ece |title=Don't mention the War, says Cleese in World Cup peace bid |publisher=The Times (archived at Wayback Machine) |access-date=2014-05-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110809055508/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article718221.ece |archive-date=9 August 2011 }}</ref><ref name=abc>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1642618.htm |title=Soccer fans learn World Cup etiquette according to Cleese |work=ABC |date=2006-05-19 |access-date=2014-05-29}}</ref>

Cleese appeared as Basil in a 2016 TV advertisement for [[Specsavers]] during which, in a reference to the ''Fawlty Towers'' episode "[[Gourmet Night]]" where the character thrashes his car with a branch, Basil accidentally attacks an adjacent police car, mistaking it for his own.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9tSN0178Us/ Specsavers Fawlty Car, featuring John Cleese #shouldve]</ref>

In February 2023 a revival to Fawlty Towers was announced with Cleese reprising the role as an older Basil still running the hotel whilst trying to fit into the modern world.

==Origins==
''Fawlty Towers'' was inspired by the [[Monty Python]] team's stay in the [[Gleneagles Hotel, Torquay|Gleneagles Hotel]] in [[Torquay]]. Cleese and Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming for the Python show had finished. The owner, Mr [[Donald Sinclair (hotel owner)|Donald Sinclair]],<ref name=Brewers>{{cite book |last=Donaldson |first=William |date=2002 |title=Brewer's Rogues Villains and Eccentrics |publisher=Cassell |page=574 |isbn=978-0-304-35728-4 }}</ref> was very rude, throwing a bus timetable at a guest who asked when the next bus to town would arrive and placing [[Eric Idle]]'s suitcase behind a wall in the garden in case it contained a bomb (actually it contained a ticking alarm clock). He also criticised the American-born [[Terry Gilliam]]'s table manners for being too American (he had the fork in what Sinclair considered to be the wrong hand while eating). Cleese used the name "Donald Sinclair" for his character in the 2001 film ''[[Rat Race (2001 film)|Rat Race]]''. In the episode "[[The Builders]]", Fawlty refers to a local hotel or restaurant called "Gleneagles" while talking to Miss Gatsby and Miss Tibbs. Cleese once lived in London's [[Basil Street]].

==Cultural references==
In the British [[fantasy]] series ''[[Redwall]]'', an extremely sarcastic and imprudent [[anthropomorphic]] [[hare]], "Basil Stag Hare", makes an appearance. Author [[Brian Jacques]] claims to have based his name and character on Basil Fawlty.

In the 2004 film ''[[Shrek 2]]'', John Cleese's character of King Harold references the character by using Fawlty's excuse of "war wound shrapnel" with "Just the old [[Crusade]] wound playing up a bit".

In the 2016 movie ''[[Deadpool (film)|Deadpool]]'', one of the scenes sees the titular character (played by [[Ryan Reynolds]]) asking [[Francis Fanny|Ajax]] (played by [[Ed Skrein]]) what his name is, he asks many names and one of them is Basil Fawlty.

In the 2016 expansion ''[[The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood and Wine|Blood and Wine]]'' for the video game ''[[The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt]]'', there is a character named Barnabas-Basil Foulty who acts as Geralt's [[majordomo]].

In the [[comedy-drama]] [[anthology]] series ''[[The White Lotus]]'', resort manager Armand (played by [[Murray Bartlett]]) bears a strong physical resemblance to Basil Fawlty. Like Basil he frequently displays erratic and sarcastic behaviour and is highly antagonistic towards certain guests.

==Adaptations==
When ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'' was remade for [[United States|American]] [[television]], the character of Basil Fawlty was also remade. In the 1978 remake ''Snavely'', Basil's character is recreated as loud-mouthed Henry Snavely. In ''[[Amanda's]]'', the character was recreated somewhat as the rude Amanda Cartwright, and in ''[[Payne (TV series)|Payne]]'', the character appeared as meddlesome Royal Payne.

In Hotel de Botel (the Dutch adaptation of Fawlty Towers), Basil was renamed to Koos Overwater and was played by Dutch comedian and actor [[André van Duin|Andre van Duin]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Fawlty Towers}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fawlty, Basil}}
[[Category:Fawlty Towers characters]]
[[Category:Fictional English people]]
[[Category:Fictional hoteliers]]
[[Category:Fictional characters based on real people]]
[[Category:Fictional Korean War veterans]]
[[Category:Fictional business executives]]
[[Category:Television characters introduced in 1975]]
[[Category:Male characters in television]]

Basil Fawlty - Revision history

Kurt at 20:39, 19 February 2023

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en>Thedalekmasteroftheearth: /* Reprisals */