Fawlty Towers

Chaos at a Torquay hotel

Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, set in a shabby fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay. Cleese stars as Basil Fawlty, a snobbish, misanthropic and perpetually exasperated hotelier whose desperate attempts to raise the establishment's tone collapse into farce. He is bullied by his sharp-tongued wife Sybil, rescued repeatedly by the level-headed maid Polly, and driven to fury by Manuel, a well-meaning but hopelessly confused Spanish waiter from Barcelona. Although only twelve episodes were ever made, the show's meticulously constructed plots and Basil's escalating rages made it one of the most acclaimed comedies in television history.