Don’t mention the words! Fawlty Towers back on TV (but best not to tell Basil)
FAWLTY Towers is coming back to our screens – but not as we remember it.
The classic comedy is to be repeated on the BBC for the first time in eight years – but with offensive language contained in two episodes edited out.
The show, which ran for 12 episodes in the 1970s, will air from next Monday as part of the Beeb’s Festival of Funny, aimed at cheering the nation up during lockdown.
But it is understood that racist remarks made in the episode The Germans will be removed.
Some of the controversial comments are made by the cantankerous character Major Gowen.
The episode is also remembered for Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, saying the famous line: “Don’t mention the war.”
A separate episode, The Anniversary, starts in traditional fashion with the letters of the Fawlty Towers hotel sign rearranged into an anagram.
But as it spells out “Flowery T **** ”, it will also be taken out.
Last year, creator Cleese branded BBC bosses “cowardly and gutless” for temporarily removing the episode containing the major’s racist remarks from the UKTV streaming platform.
He said: “If you put nonsense words into the mouth of someone you want to make fun of, you’re not broadcasting their views. The major was an old fossil left over from decades before. We were not supporting his views, we were making fun of them.
“If they can’t see that, if people are too stupid to see that, what can one say?”
But in 2013, he agreed to the words being edited out of a BBC Two repeat, which was airing in a pre-watershed slot.
At the time some viewers accused the BBC of “airbrushing history”. One said: “The major is a figure of fun, he doesn’t whip up hatred.”
A BBC spokeswoman said that editing out offensive language was in keeping with the broadcaster’s editorial policy for shows airing before 9pm.
She added: “We are excited to bring back Fawlty Towers and are adhering to Ofcom’s language guidance and the BBC’s editorial guidelines and broadcasting the same, pre-watershed compliant version of the show which we broadcast in 2013.”
THE CITY of Auckland in New Zealand went into lockdown last week following the discovery of one Covid infection. One.To continue that approach to its logical end would mean that, even once fully vaccinated, its population would be subject to such restrictions indefinitely, with nationwide house arrest reintroduced each time any fresh case emerged.
Operating on such a risk-averse basis, it is difficult to see how foreign visitors could ever be contemplated again, certainly in any numbers.
Unveiling his planned relaxation of this country’s rules last week, Boris Johnson emphasised that pursuing a zero Covid goal was impossible.
In other words, that we will have to learn to live with it, as we have always had to previously with other respiratory infections.
Yet will the freedom from all restrictions pledged from that red letter day of June 21 prove mythical?Vaccine passports to travel are inevitable. But certificated proof of inoculation, not just for work, but to gain entry to places of entertainment, appears to win wide favour judging by opinion polls.
There is no indication that masking and distancing will end once the vast majority are jabbed. Their continuation alone will spell doom for much of the already scarcely surviving retail and hospitality sector.
As Professor Robert Dingwall, one of the Government’s advisers, so rightly says, prolonging such measures presents: “boundless opportunities to promote the idea that the avoidance of disease is the only objective of a good society – life takes priority over liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rather than being held in balance with them.”
Reflect for just a moment on how – less than a year ago – you would have reacted to requiring the Prime Minister’s permission to sit on a bench outside with one other person. Now that’s regarded by many as a reckless act.
As a society we are becoming institutionalised.
This summer will decide whether we effectively wish to continue in that state indefinitely.