X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Fawlty Towers


Comic timing

Here, the humour is derived both from rapid speech and rapid movement — people running into and out of rooms at breakneck speed and managing to cause havoc in the process as done to perfection in the series Fawlty Towers.

Goose step

In the British sitcom Fawlty Towers, the main character Basil Fawlty infamously imitates the goose step in front of some German guests.


5000 Volts

Although Tina Charles provided the vocals, she was not publicly acknowledged as the group's singer and for the band's 1975 appearance on BBC Television's Top of the Pops they were fronted by singer/actress Luan Peters (best remembered for her role as Raylene Miles, an Australian tourist in an episode of Fawlty Towers), first broadcast in 1979.

BMC ADO16

The Austin 1100 Countryman appeared in the legendary "Gourmet Night" episode of Fawlty Towers, in which short tempered owner of Fawlty Towers Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) gave it a "damn good thrashing".

John Quarmby

John Quarmby is a plain voiced English actor best known for the role of Mr Carnegie, the Health Inspector in the Fawlty Towers episode "Basil the Rat" and Henry Tobias (the newspaper editor) in K-9 and Company.

Luan Peters

She was also active on television in series such as: Z-Cars, Public Eye, Doctor Who (in the serials Frontier in Space and The Macra Terror) , Target, The Professionals and the Fawlty Towers episode The Psychiatrist playing Raylene Miles, an Australian tourist.

Michael Gill

In 1951 he married, the Actress Yvonne Gilan, best remembered for her portrayal of Mrs. Peignoir in Fawlty Towers.

Not the Nine O'Clock News

As the show was originally scheduled to air after Fawlty Towers, John Cleese was to have introduced the first episode in a sketch referring to a technicians' strike then in progress, explaining (in character as Basil Fawlty) that there was no show that week so a "tatty revue" would be broadcast instead.

The Admirable Crichton

In The Germans, an episode of British sitcom Fawlty Towers, Basil Fawlty sarcastically says "Oh, it's the Admirable Crichton" on Manuel's belated arrival.


see also