Fawlty Towers hotel opens for relaunch

The hotel that inspired the classic comedy series Fawlty Towers will welcome four of the cast at its million-pound relaunch tomorrow.

Disaster-prone hotelier Basil Fawlty’s waspish, hairsprayed, chocolate-munching wife Sybil will be there in the person of actress Prunella Scales.

But if she utters the familiar bark of “Basil!” she will be disappointed.

The frenetic, beanpole host and his hard-drinking cook Kurt will be there - but only in the shape of mannequins.

Ms Scales will arrive in a replica of the flame-red Austin 1100 henpecked Basil so famously thrashed with a tree branch in the Gourmet Night episode of the 1970s series.

Devotees will recall how black-tied Fawlty, enraged at the car’s repeated stalling as he was driving a pre-cooked duck back to the hotel, rushed off screen to grab the weapon he used to belabour the car’s bonnet.

The Austin will make an appearance following an appeal by the new owners of the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon – Brian Shone and Barry Taylor.

John Cleese and Connie Booth – waitress Polly in the series – wrote Fawlty Towers after the Monty Python team booked into the Hotel Gleneagles in 1971.

They were confronted by the hotel owner who berated them for their table manners and threw their briefcase out of the window for fear it was a bomb.

When they asked the time of the next bus to town, the manager – the late Donald Sinclair – threw a timetable at them.

The Python team reacted like most offended customers – they packed up and left.

John Cleese based the Basil Fawlty character on Mr Sinclair, describing him as “the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met“.

Mr Sinclair, who died in 1981, is said to have thrown Eric Idle’s suitcase out of the window “in case it contained a bomb“, and complained about Terry Gilliam’s table manners.

He would probably have something to say about the transformation of the shabby premises into a three-star boutique hotel.

Mr Shone said of Ms Scales’ visit: “I am amazed she’s doing this. Not only is she doing it, she’s so enthusiastic about the red car.

“She’s never visited the hotel before so this will be her first time here, which is amazing.”

The actual hotel seen at the start and end of the sitcom was the Woodburn Grange Country Club in Buckinghamshire, but that burned down in 1991.

Coach-loads of tourists turn up to the Hotel Gleneagles in the Wellswood area of Torquay every day – just to take a look at the place which inspired arguably the most famous comedy series ever made.

“We get about eight or 10 coaches a day stopping outside,” said Mr Shone. “Some people just want to walk about inside.

“It is the spiritual home of Fawlty Towers,” he said, adding that the relaunch event is by invitation only.

Mr Shone keeps Fawlty Towers memorabilia inside the foyer of the hotel, which is otherwise very different from the hotel in the series.

Only 12 episodes were made of Fawlty Towers for BBC1 – and they ensured lasting international fame for the cast, which also included Andrew Sachs as the hapless Spanish waiter Manuel.

The Austin 1100 is being loaned by retired printer Fernand Pinkney, a 59-year-old Fawlty Towers fan and collector of Austin 1100s.

A member of the international Austin 1100 club, Mr Pinkney, from Edmonton, London, is lending a model he picked up for £40 (€59.41) at a scrapyard two-and-a-half years ago.

He spent 18 months restoring the car to tip-top condition and sprayed it harvest gold – until he entered it at the International Classic Car Show last November at the Birmingham NEC.

The theme was TV series – so Mr Pinkney sprayed the 1973 vintage car flame red, and made mannequins of Basil Fawlty and Kurt to go with it.

Mr Pinkney also has six other Austin 1100s.