What Makes Basil Run? Extra material

Remember how I said at the end of part 2 that I didn't have the space to give a detailed breakdown of the fire drill sequence in The Germans?

Well, that was when I had to fit the article into a magazine (e-zine at the time). On this blog, however, I have all the space and time in the world. So here it is, the detailed analysis of the fire drill!

Looking at the entire sequence, we see it is basically one huge scene, only interrupted twice for a short cutaway to the kitchen (where Manuel sets everything on fire), and an exterior shot of Fawlty asking the guests to come back inside again. The entire sequence lasts for nearly ten minutes.

The sequence consists of three parts: first the preparation for the drill, then the drill itself during which the kitchen catches fire, and then Fawlty's discovery of the fire and his disastrous attempts to get the situation under control. There are three 'acts', yet they flow seamlessly into one another.

The sequence is probably most remarkable for its expert use of comedic build-up. Things start off quietly with another attempt at hanging up the moose head (a running gag in the episode), then Basil chides a couple of guests who haven't read the notice about the fire drill. This nicely sets up his feeling of superiority and gives the impression that he is control of things. An impression immediately countered to his response to a potential problem Polly brings up(who's going to do her part in checking the hotel when she's not at work), which he simply waves away.

Then we get a phone call from Sybill at the hospital to remind Fawlty about the fire drill (another running gag), and this sets in motion the events of the rest of the sequence when it becomes clear that Sybill has locked the key to the fire alarm in the safe. It's a perfect example of combining comedy with the advancement of the plot.

As Basil goes to open the safe, the burglar alarm goes off - and the guests naturally interpret this as the signal that the fire drill has started. Fawlty tries to explain but gets into a heated discussion with his assembled guests about how they are unable to tell the difference between the alarms as they don't know what they sound like. At this point Fawlty turns on both alarms consecutively - and the guests walk out, as the fire alarm is now ringing. This drives Basil even more crazy (he hasn't started the drill officially yet) to the point where he insults Mrs. Tibbs ('you old fool'), and things get even more hectic when Manuel and Polly barge in to do their part. The continuing ringing of the fire alarm and Basil's shouting add to the nervous energy of the sequence.

There's a marvelous capper when Fawlty finally switches off the alarm, and immediately afterwards Sybill phones again, causing Basil to explode and smash the phone down. The running gag works to perfection, and its inclusion here is totally unexpected yet profoundly logical.

At this point we get a breather. Fawlty officially starts the fire drill in 30 seconds. But the quiet (which is necessary fot the audience to catch its breath) doesn't last long, as Basil quickly gets irritated by the way in which his guests just stand about in the hall, waiting for the alarm to start. (we should let you all burn)

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Manuel manages to start a real fire...

From now on, superior awareness of the audience is at play, and the stakes have been raised (the drill has now become 'real'). As Basil escorts the guests outside, a quiet moment, we know that the moment where he discovers what's really going on cannot be long in coming. However, the moment of discovery is delayed as long as possible. When the smoke-damaged Manuel barrels out of the kitchen (fire, fire), he is pushed back into the kitchen by Fawlty who locks the door (and who doesn't notice his besmudged state, focussing too much on the way he expects things to be).

As Manuel keeps banging and shouting on the door, Basil goes to ask the guests to come back inside (the drill is over) in the second, very short cutaway during the sequence. Manuel keeps up the ruckus, and finally the complaints of a guest force Basil to let Manuel out of the kitchen. And now he finally realizes that there is a real fire in progress.

And once more, we get a delayed reaction (which again creates a small breathing pause for the audience). Fawlty closes the door to the kitchen, calls the guests back and tries to explain in a roundabout fashion that there's a real fire - while Manuel clings to his knees and moans loudly. When Basil pronounces the word 'fire', he finally flips - stalking through the reception area and spitting out the word 'fire' like an insane stork with Tourette's syndrome.

It falls to Polly to call Basil to order and get him to ring the alarm (his first reaction was to call Sybill - like a little boy running to his mother). Which he tries to do - but 'someone' has lost the key! Basil rants and rave and finally ends up shaking his fist at God (Thank you so bloddy much!), blaming everyone but himself for the crisis. Once again, the comedy remains 100% true to the character. Basil cannot admit to anyone that he might be at fault in any way - not even to himself.

Polly admonishes Basil to break the glass, which he tries twice ineffectually. Then, however, Sybill rings again - and Basil uses the phone to smash the glass and start the alarm. Brilliant use of the recurring gag, and also a wonderful demonstration of the Rule of 3 within the sequence.

With the fire alarm ringing merrily, Basil now tries to extinguish the fire, but the fire extinguisher blows up in his face, and after that he hits his head on the pan Manuel is holding (in a slightly contrived bit of business) as the sequence finally climaxes. He wants to punch Manuel in revenge - but falls over in a faint.


John Cleese isn't as big a fan of The Germans as the audience because the structure of the episode isn't as elegant as some of the others. This is true - the fire drill is a story element which is resolved two thirds of the way through the episode, and it mainly provides the reason for Basil's lunatic behaviour with regards to his German guests. The two storylines never intertwine as they do in (say) The Psychiatrists or Communication Problems. But the comic genius and the structural brilliance of the fire drill sequence more than make up for this minor flaw (as does Cleese's Hitler impression, of course).

What Makes Basil Run? Part 4

VOICE


Finally, I would like to mention the specific voice of the series. The humour of Fawlty Towers is quite specific. It almost always comes from within the characters, rather than from the obviously fertile mind of the writers.

While there are many funny one-liners, these are never mechanical. When Basil launches a quip, it is always to vent his frustrations or revel in a temporary triumph. The same thing applies to the physical comedy. It can go very far (the final scenes of The Germans, for example) but it is always properly motivated. Basil doesn’t just begin insulting his German guests accidentally - he has to have a concussion to do so.

The physical comedy in the series is often slapstick - in fact, some scenes are almost cartoonish. There’s a lot of black humour here, from messing with a corpse to Basil bullying his whipping boy, Manuel. Whatever the style of comedy though, situational, verbal or physical, every comedic opportunity is always exploited to the fullest. One never comes away from a Fawlty Towers episode feeling that the creators missed out on some opportunities.

Finally, taboos. Quite often, Cleese and Booth will break the barriers of good taste, not by grossing the audience out but by transgressing the socially accepted ways of behaviour. Dragging corpses around, insulting guests, screaming into hearing aids and groping Australian tourists are all types of behaviour rarely seen in comedies - at least, before the eighties and the rise of the Young Ones-generation. While shattering taboos isn’t the main thing on the agenda, it does give Fawlty Towers an edginess which many comedies lack, even today.

We hope this look under the hood of Fawlty Towers has proven to be enlightening and inspiring. If there is ONE lesson to be learned from this series, it is this : there is no substitute for a comedy series developed by talented writers who feel truly passionate about their creation. And it is this passion which makes Fawlty Towers a delight to this very day.

What Makes Basil Run? Part 2

PLOTTING

One specific peculiarity of the way John Cleese and Connie Booth use the midpoint is that it often serves to introduce a new complication.

In Communication Problems the midpoint is the ‘theft’ of Mrs. Richards’ money. In the very first episode, A Touch Of Class, the midpoint is the moment where Basil realises his new guest is a (fake) Lord and starts to fawn over him shamelessly. In Gourmet Night, it’s the moment where the new gourmet chef is discovered dead drunk just when Basil’s select guests have arrived.

Unlike in American sitcoms where the midpoint has to be a cliff-hanger (how are they going to get out of THAT!?), though, the complications do not arise immediately. The perfect pacing and ever increasing tempo of the best Fawlty Towers episodes are due to the fact that the story structure could be developed without having to make room for commercial breaks.

As for the plotting, there is a recurrent formula in most of the episodes (certainly in all of the best ones). There are almost always two plotlines, which start out having very little to do with each other (e.g. Mrs. Richards arriving at the hotel and Basil gambling on the horses, German tourists coming to stay and a fire drill, a psychiatrist staying at the hotel and a lusty Romeo sneaking a girlfriend into his room, a stalling car and a gourmet night), yet which become completely intertwined and totally influence each other’s development so that in the third act it is usually impossible to separate them. The beauty of the system is that all of these interactions are logical and (largely) credible, yet totally impossible to predict.

It is telling that two of the weakest episodes, The Builders and The Anniversary, sin against these principles. In The Builders there is no second plotline to speak of. In The Anniversary there ARE two plotlines, Basil hiding the fact from his friends that Sybil has stormed out before he could spring his surprise party on her, and Manuel wanting to make a paella for said party; yet they hardly interact with each other. Worse, the plot development is forced along by two moments of illogical behaviour : Polly deciding to invent the lie that Sybil is ill in her room for no real reason, and Basil later challenging his disbelieving friends to go see Sybil if they don’t believe him, and keeping this up so long past their embarrassed refusal that they do take him up on the offer.

Another aspect of structure in which Fawlty Towers reigns supreme is in its use of comic build-up. Every episode starts off slowly and keeps building to an expertly managed crescendo. There is an incredible amount of comic material in each of these scripts : in Communication Problems I count approximately 250 jokes, ranging from mild smiles to out-and-out guffaws. That’s almost ten jokes per minute.

The downside to this abundance of riches is that sometimes intended gags are not registered by the audience because of the great speed at which they follow one another. Once the plot takes off, the audience is taken on a rollercoaster of laughter, with a number of carefully conceived setpieces of increasing intensity serving as the comedic highlights of the episodes.

Between these setpieces, Cleese and Booth make sure to insert breathing space for the audience. These ‘lows’ in the rollercoaster do not stop the momentum, however : they are used to set up the next big gag scene. In fact, it is in these ‘low-energy’ moments that the plot develops most, so the interest of the audience never wanes.

The setpieces, invariably the most memorable parts of the episode, get the necessary time for them to work. There is no Seinfeldian ‘one-minute time limit’ to individual scenes in these scripts. This allows the scenes to build as necessary so they achieve a very organic quality.

An extreme example is the fire drill sequence from The Germans : apart from one cutaway to Manuel in the kitchen, this 10 minute sequence plays uninterruptedly in the same set without ever outstaying its welcome. Space does not permit us to analyse this sequence in detail, but it will repay careful study a hundredfold.

What Makes Basil Run? Part 1

The following article (split into parts because it's just too darn long to post it in one go) was originally presented in the electronic version of Screentalk. It actually got me onto BBC Television as an 'expert witness' in the Fawtly Towers episode of the Britain's Greatest Sitcom series. Quite the honour!

Being made fun of and humiliated by ever-grumpy host of the episode Jack Dee, not so much. Ah, the joys of showbusiness.



But anyway... Here's the first part. Enjoy!

John Cleese’s masterpiece, Fawlty Towers, has been elected as the all-time number one British television programme by the BFI. Not bad for a series of only twelve episodes, which was a ratings failure on its initial run...

In the present article, we will examine the writing of this marvellous show. How did John Cleese and Connie Booth weave their magic? Do they have particular tricks of the trade? And are there lessons to be learned here for us lesser mortals?

STRUCTURE

Fawlty Towers has its antecedents in farce, a theatrical genre in which structure is extremely important. In a typical farce, characters find themselves in a complex web of misunderstandings and confusion. However, the audience must always remain completely clear about what is going on, or they will lose interest. That’s why a good farce is constructed very carefully like an intricate piece of clockwork. It is no surprise that John Cleese, a known structure fanatic, would work within this genre.

When we consider the script as a whole, it is immediately apparent that Fawlty Towers is far more densely plotted than most other comedy series (and certainly all American sitcoms).

This does not mean that the intrigue is hard to follow, but rather that the plot is full of logical yet unexpected twists and complications. I tend to call Fawlty Towers a ‘plotcom’ rather than a ‘sitcom proper’ (where the characters find themselves in less complex situations e.g. learning to drive, going on a diet...).

One element of the artistic success of Fawlty Towers is this in-depth plot development. In fact, when we analyse the episodes for structure, we find the traditional 10-point screenplay structure in its entirety. This means that within the scope of thirty minutes the plot hits as many main story beats as a full-length film. We will illustrate this dramatic structure by analysing two of the most beloved episodes, Communication Problems and Basil the Rat :

COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS




1) Opening : Mrs. Richards, the deaf woman from Hell, arrives at the hotel.
2) Start Plot : Basil gets a horseracing tip from a guest.
3) Plot Point One : Basil sends Manuel off to bet on the horses for him.
4) Focus Point One : Manuel returns with Fawlty’s winnings.
5) Midpoint : Mrs. Richards has some money stolen - the same amount as Basil just won!
6) Focus Point Two : Basil gives his winnings to the Major for safekeeping.
7) Plot Point Two : The money is discovered and handed to Mrs. Richards, to Basil’s dismay.
8) Crisis : Basil is crying hysterically when the man from the shop walks in with Mrs. Richards vase and money.
9) Climax : Basil hands Mrs. Richards her vase when his secret is discovered - the vase drops and is shattered.
10) Resolution : Sybil pays Mrs. Richards for her vase with Basil’s winnings.

BASIL THE RAT



1) Opening : Basil discovers a health inspector in his kitchen and gets a stern warning .
2) Start Plot : Manuel has a pet rat called Basil in his room.
3) Plot Point One : Manuel is forced to remove the rat from the hotel.
4) Focus Point One : Manuel’s rat has escaped from the shed.
5) Midpoint : Basil discovers that the rat is loose in the hotel.
6) Focus Point Two : The staff manages to keep the rat’s presence secret from the health inspector.
7) Plot Point Two : The health inspector wants to have dinner in the hotel.
8) Crisis : The rat is discovered by Manuel and Basil in the dining room.
9) Climax : The rat is offered to the health inspector in the cheese biscuits tin; Polly manages to convince him he imagined it.
10) Resolution : Manuel drags a fainted Basil out of the dining room.

Coming soon: part 2!

If for some incomprehensible reason you do not yet have Fawlty Towers in your possession, you can get it here: