Basil Fawlty

Character in the British comedy series Fawlty Towers

Basil Fawlty is the main character of the 1970s British sitcom Fawlty Towers, played by John Cleese. The proprietor of the hotel Fawlty Towers, he is a cynical and misanthropic snob, desperate to attract hotel guests from the British upper class. His inept attempts to run an efficient hotel, however, usually end in farce. Possessing a dry, sarcastic wit, Basil has become an iconic British comedy character who remains widely known to the public despite only 12 half hour episodes ever having been made. Cleese would receive the 1980 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. In a 2001 poll conducted by Channel 4, Basil was ranked second on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. Known for his quotable rants, the character was inspired by Donald Sinclair, an eccentric, inhospitable, and boorishly impolite hotel owner whom Cleese had encountered when he stayed at his hotel (Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devonshire) along with the rest of Monty Python in May 1970.

Fawlty Towers was inspired by the Monty Python group's stay at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. Cleese and Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming for the Python show had finished. The owner, former Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander Donald Sinclair, was very rude to the guests and had an explosive temper, once throwing a bus timetable at a guest who asked when the next bus to town would arrive and placing Eric Idle's suitcase, which contained a ticking alarm clock, behind a wall in the garden in the fear it contained a bomb. He also denounced Minneapolis born Monty Python group member Terry Gilliam's table manners as too American (Gilliam had his fork in what Sinclair considered to be the wrong hand while eating). Cleese used the name "Donald Sinclair" for his character in the 2001 film Rat Race. In the episode "The Builders", Fawlty refers to a local hotel or restaurant called "Gleneagles" while talking to Miss Gatsby and Miss Tibbs. Cleese once lived in London's Basil Street.

Basil, who runs the titular hotel in Torquay, is a misanthropic, lazy, and egotistical snob. In the episode "Communication Problems," Spanish hotel waiter Manuel said Basil is from Swanage, although Manuel is prone to making mistakes. Basil is alleged to have served in the British Army. He once claims: "I fought in the Korean War, you know. I killed four men" to which his wife sarcastically replies, "He was in the Catering Corps; he used to poison them". He often wears military ties, and sports a military type moustache. He also claims to have sustained a shrapnel injury to his leg, which has a tendency to flare up at convenient moments – usually when Sybil asks him an awkward question. Basil mainly aspires to attract "respectable" hotel guests from titled members of the British upper class and invariably refers to his overwhelmingly working class accented guests as "plebs" and "riff raff". By contrast, Basil's wife Sybil often has to deal with the fallout of his horrible behaviour, with varying degrees of success. Basil is generally desperate to avoid his wife's wrath, and his plans often conflict with hers, but he mostly fails to stand up to her. She is often verbally abusive towards him (describing him as "an ageing, brilliantined stick insect") and though he is much taller than Sybil, he often finds himself on the receiving end of her temper, expressed both verbally and physically. Cleese has made the point that, on account of Basil's inner need to conflict with his wife's wishes, "Basil couldn't be Basil if he didn't have Sybil". Fawlty routinely expresses conservative opinions. For example, in "The Wedding Party", Basil shows open disgust towards a young couple having premarital sex. In "The Germans", Basil blames the failure of the hotel's fire extinguisher on "bloody Wilson", referring to the then Labour Prime Minister. Basil is also frequently furious about labour unions and strike action – in "A Touch of Class", he launches into a tirade against dustmen and postmen going on strike, and in "The Kipper and the Corpse" he is so enraged by news of a car strike that he fails to notice that one of his guests is dead. Cleese has also described Fawlty as "buried in the past", as he utterly despises living in the England of the 1970s and instead pines for the "good old days" when the British Empire still existed. Basil also often mentions British military history, but never battles in which the British armed forces were anything other than victorious. Basil takes many of his frustrations out on the hapless waiter Manuel, physically abusing and bullying him in a variety of ways. The relationship between Basil Fawlty and Manuel has been the subject of academic discourse. On occasions he also assaults others, such as choking a guest in "The Hotel Inspectors", kneeing Major Gowen in "Basil the Rat", "accidentally" elbowing a young boy in the head in "Gourmet Night" and, in the same episode, famously beating his "vicious bastard" of a car with a tree branch when it breaks down. John Cleese reprised the role of Basil in the song "Don't Mention the World Cup", an allusion to "don't mention the war" from the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans", for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which was played in Germany. Cleese appeared as Basil in a 2016 TV advertisement for Specsavers during which, in a reference to the Fawlty Towers episode "Gourmet Night" where the character thrashes his car with a branch, Basil accidentally attacks an adjacent police car, mistaking it for his own. In February 2023 a revival of Fawlty Towers was announced with Cleese reprising the role as an older Basil still running the hotel whilst trying to fit into the modern world.

In the British fantasy series Redwall, an extremely sarcastic and imprudent anthropomorphic hare, "Basil Stag Hare", makes an appearance. Author Brian Jacques claims to have based his name and character on Basil Fawlty. In the 2004 film Shrek 2, John Cleese's character of King Harold references the character by using Fawlty's excuse of "war wound shrapnel" with "Just the old Crusade wound playing up a bit". In the 2016 movie Deadpool, one of the scenes sees the titular character (played by Ryan Reynolds) asking Ajax (played by Ed Skrein) what his name is, he asks many names and one of them is Basil Fawlty. In the 2016 expansion Blood and Wine for the video game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, there is a character named Barnabas Basil Foulty who acts as Geralt's majordomo. In the comedy drama anthology series The White Lotus, resort manager Armand (played by Murray Bartlett) bears a strong physical resemblance to Basil Fawlty. Like Basil he frequently displays erratic and sarcastic behaviour and is highly antagonistic towards certain guests.

When Fawlty Towers was remade for American television, the character of Basil Fawlty was also remade. In the 1978 remake Snavely, Basil's character is recreated as loud mouthed Henry Snavely. In Amanda's, the character was recreated somewhat as the rude Amanda Cartwright, and in Payne, the character appeared as meddlesome Royal Payne. In Hotel de Botel (the Dutch adaptation of Fawlty Towers), the Basil character was called Koos Overwater and was played by Dutch comedian and actor Andre van Duin.