Fifty years on, Fawlty Towers is still the best of cruel British humour

Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text sizeThis month marks 50 years since Fawlty Towers first appeared on British television (it first aired on Australian screens two years later, in 1977). Not even because John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty is one of the great British comic grotesques, up there with Falstaff. The real secret is that Fawlty Towers represents something essential about the best British humour: it is cruel, and it is surreal. Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), Manuel (Andrew Sachs), Sybil Fawlty (Prunella Scales) and Polly (Connie Booth).