FAWLTY 2016
Rebecca Davis thinks this year would be so funny if it wasn’t true
THIS has been such a tumultuous year that each new death of a public figure seems ever more poignant, as if the individuals in question simply couldn’t take it any more and decided to check out before the world plunged into nuclear war in earnest. I felt that way about the recent exit of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, even though the poor man was 86 and I hadn’t spared him a conscious thought for years. “I thought he died ages ago,” was my partner’s unfeeling response when I tried to share my sadness at his passing.
In tribute to Sachs I’ve been rewatching Fawlty Towers, the British sitcom that made him famous in the role of hapless Spanish waiter Manuel. Not having seen it since the last century (literally), I was curious to see whether the show had stood the test of time.
Fawlty Towers was, in fairness, never to everyone’s taste. You have to have a hearty appetite for slapstick. The humour is not exactly cerebral, even though people sometimes assume British comedy is intrinsically cleverer just because it’s delivered in plummy accents. Many of the laughs are derived from John Cleese tying his lanky frame in knots as an external manifestation of his inner tension.
But most of the other laughs come from Manuel. From the hyper-conscious vantage point of 2016 it seems extraordinary that a character like Manuel could ever have been written: the simpleton foreigner who exists as an emotional punchbag for Cleese’s uptight, anxiety-ridden Englishman. Oh wait, the entire British tabloid industry still dances to this one tune.
Regardless: when you watch Fawlty Towers now, you can’t help but be struck by some of the real cruelty Cleese’s Basil Fawlty inflicts on Manuel. He’s constantly moering him with saucepans and spitting abuse in his face. “Nitwit!” shouts Fawlty. “What is witnit?” stammers Manuel back.
And it’s not like there’s any respite. It’s not like there’s an episode of Fawlty Towers where Fawlty realises Manuel is actually a decent and underappreciated chap and makes him Employee Of The Month. Fawlty Towers is a universe which exists outside of labour laws and best management practice.
And that’s exactly what makes it so funny. In fact, I actually found it funnier now than I used to, precisely because there’s a kind of shocked frisson in watching historical comedy so shamelessly built on ethnic stereotype. If Fawlty Towers was made today, I’d be the first to dash off an outraged think piece on its overt xenophobia. As it is, I justify my enjoyment by seeing it as a relic of its time. If only 2016 wasn’t starting to look more and more similar to that time . . .