There are wonderful lines in Fawlty Towers, many from rants by Basil. To the man who dares to ask for breakfast in bed: ‘You could sleep with your mouth open so I could drop in lightly buttered pieces of kipper…’, or to the woman who doesn’t like the view: ‘What did you expect from a hotel in Torquay? Krakatoa exploding? Herds of wildebeest…?’ But for some reason the one that makes me laugh most is Geoffrey Palmer’s as he sits famished during a chaotic breakfast. Jowls quivering, with that mixture of pomposity and despair that marks inhabitants and guests of the hotel, he declares, ‘I’m a doctor, and I want my sausages!’ I don’t know why it’s so funny. You had to be there.
The show was picked over at considerable length on G.O.L.D., the comedy cable channel, in Fawlty Towers: Re-opened.
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