"WARTY TOWELS, or What a Farce"

Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) gives his car a damn good thrashing

Hello, all you FATTY OWLS, WATERY FOWLS, and FLOWERY TWATS! Shall we FLAY OTTERS?

For those of you unfamiliar with the anagrams above, I am alluding to the legendary “Britcom” Fawlty Towers. I do so advisedly as this week on Texting our focus is “Gourmet Night,” the fifth episode of the first season of John Cleese and Connie Booth’s farcical TV series. In preparation for the podcast, I rewatched all twelve episodes of the classic show for at least the fifth time. Tomek, on the other hand, was heretofore an FT virgin and viewed “Gourmet Night” (and three other episodes) with fresh eyes. This made for an interesting conversation, during which we reflect on the etymology of “farce,” the changing standards of comedy, and Bakhtin’s “material bodily lower stratum,” among other things. We also make intertextual connections to “Whitehall farce,” theatre of the absurd, theatre of cruelty, commedia dell’arte, the Old Comedy of Aristophanes, Larry David, and of course Monty Python.

Thanks to Craig Branch, friend of the show and host of the Can’t Find My Way Home podcast, for suggesting that we focus on “Gourmet Night” and for providing us with the last word at 1:46:49.

Cheers as well to Robert (and his chorus of birds), Tom, and Guy for sharing their thoughts on FT in general and “Gourmet Night” in particular. Their contributions can be found at 1:30:11, 1:35:13, and 1:42:03, respectively.

We received Len’s take after final editing had been completed but I’m pleased to share it here:

Enjoy this Fun-Filled Festival of Fawlty and let us know what you think!

Next week, for the season 2 finale, our textual focus will be Shakespeare’s Othello. Until then!

MW