"Fawlty Towers" Gourmet Night (1975)

User Rating:

9.0/10   

Director:

John Howard Davies

Writers:

John Cleese (written by) and
Connie Booth (written by)

TV Series:

"Fawlty Towers" (1975)

Original Air Date:

17 October 1975 (Season 1, Episode 5)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

The cream of Torquay society turns out for a special gourmet night at Fawlty Towers. Expectations are high but so...

Plot Keywords:

Gourmet Night | Reference To Henry Kissinger | Beating Car With Branch | Hotel | English

Cast

John Cleese	...	Basil Fawlty
Prunella Scales	...	Sybil Fawlty
Connie Booth	...	Polly Sherman
Andrew Sachs	...	Manuel
André Maranne	...	André
Steve Plytas	...	Kurt
Allan Cuthbertson	...	Colonel Hall
Ann Way	...	Mrs. Hall
Richard Caldicot	...	Mr. Twitchen
Betty Huntley-Wright	...	Mrs. Twitchen
Ballard Berkeley	...	Major Gowen
Gilly Flower	...	Miss Tibbs
Renee Roberts	...	Miss Gatsby
Jeffrey Segal	...	Mr. Heath
Elizabeth Benson	...	Mrs. Heath

Certification:

Australia:PG

Trivia:

Anagram: WA RTY TOWELS (missing F but space between A and R in WARTY)

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: When Basil runs to change the menu and Sybil says, "Yhy?" you can see a shadow of the boom on the pigeonholes at the side.

Quotes:

Sybil Fawlty: Are you still here Basil?
Basil Fawlty: No, I went a few minutes ago dear, but I expect I'll be back shortly.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The John Cleese Interview (1998) (V)

They're in a Terrible Fix!

The episode with the famous 'Basil gives the car a "damn good thrashing" with a tree branch' scene, "Gourmet Night" offers some spectacular comedy. This is another of the Fawlty's efforts to raise the hotel's status and level of clientèle. Their idea is to have 'gourmet nights' where the chef will serve haute cuisine to a group of VIPs in the Torquay area. On the debut evening, they find out that Curt the chef, is gay and has been rejected by Manuel, then he gets plastered and can't cook the meal. The hotel staff is left to fend for themselves, with their usual 'cover-up' routines that backfire badly (check out the dining room scene where Manuel, Polly, and Sybil try to distract the guests with their own entertainment!)

This episode was one in particular that had perfect casting of the guest stars - Allan Cuthbertson as the brash Colonel Hall, who suffers from a constantly-twitching neck muscle, with Ann Way as his diminutive wife. Also great are Steve Plytas as the drunken chef Curt, and the very French Andre Maranne as the local restaurant owner and consultant to the Fawlty Towers kitchens.

"Gourmet Night" is probably the best for Cleese's physical comedy. The scene in the kitchen where he derisively hurls the duck at Curt is side-splittingly hilarious. But who can forget the scene with Basil attacking the car with the tree branch, and the sight of him running up the driveway carrying the evening's meal... Who's for trifle?!