Infamous 'Fawlty Towers' hotel to be knocked down

The shambolic English hotel run by a shockingly rude manager that first inspired the iconic British TV comedy Fawlty Towers has at last been served its just desserts.

The Gleneagles Hotel in the seaside town of Torquay, in Devon, is to be knocked down after closing its doors for the last time in January, and a retirement home is to be built on the site.

In a move that would have finally pushed fictional hotelier Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, over the edge, local councillors agreed the 41-bedroom hotel was now commercially “unviable” and had little prospect of improving, according to the Telegraph UK.

However, the hotel will long live on in the hearts, minds and affections of Fawlty Towers fans around the world.

Cleese is believed to have become entranced with the hotel and its eccentric manager after the Monty Python team stayed there in 1970. 

The Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. Photo: Google Maps.

During their time at the hotel, real-life manager Donald Sinclair was reported to have thrown a bus timetable at a guest who asked when the next bus was due, hidden Eric Idle’s briefcase behind a wall because he thought it might contain a bomb and criticised Terry Gilliam’s table manners. 

Cleese based Basil Fawlty on him, while Prunella Scales played his bossy wife Sybil. Connie Booth, who was then married to Cleese, was long-suffering chambermaid Polly, and Andrew Sachs was the hapless, and hopeless, Spanish waiter Manuel.

The show first went to air on the BBC in 1975, and finished after just 12 episodes. However, some of its lines have become comedy legend, with the series voted the best British TV series of all time by the British Film Institute in 2000.

When a guest, for instance, complained to Fawlty about the view, he replied, “But that is Torquay, madam”. When she further protested it wasn’t good enough, he launched one of his much beloved rants. “Well may I ask what you expected to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window?” he asked. “Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain…”

When she objects and says she just expected to see the sea – and not through a telescope – he replied, “Well might I suggest you move to a hotel closer to the sea? Or preferably in it.”

John Cleese and Prunella Scales in a scene from Fawlty Towers. Photo: Supplied.

It was only one example of how he treated his guests, with a mix of contempt, rudeness and downright boorishness.

After ordering everyone, “Don’t mention the war!”, he was only cheerful when one of the guests died, and let loose at others, “You snobs! You stupid, stuck-up, toffee-nosed, half-witted upper-class piles of pus!”

But now, at last, the chips that guests complained of as being “the wrong shape” are down for the hotel, which has escaped demolition many times in the past. In 2005, it was actually bought by two fans of the series for £1.5 million ($720,000), but was then sold on.

It will now be levelled and a 32-apartment retirement housing complex will be built, which is now likely to be occupied by mature retirees like the doddery major who was a fixture at the hotel rather than the oily guest who coined the phrase, “Pretentious? Moi?”

Doubtless the new residents will be hoping their manager is a little more empathic than Fawlty, who once remarked, “A satisfied customer? We should have him stuffed.”