The plots centre on the tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty (Cleese), his bossy wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), the sensible chambermaid Polly (Booth), and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs).

In this edition, the main character checks into a small-town hotel, his very presence seemingly winding up the aggressive and incompetent manager (played by Timothy Bateson) with a domineering wife.

At a 30th anniversary event honouring the show, Cleese said, Connie and I wrote that first episode and we sent it in to Jimmy Gilbert, [the executive], whose job it was to assess the quality of the writing, said, (and I can quote [his note to me] fairly accurately,) "This is full of clichéd situations and stereotypical characters and I cannot see it as being anything other than a disaster."

[16][17] In several episodes of the series (notably "The Kipper and the Corpse", "The Anniversary", and "Basil the Rat"), the entrance gate at the bottom of the drive states the real name of the location.

Other location filming was done mostly around Harrow: firstly the 'damn good thrashing' scene in "Gourmet Night" in which Basil loses his temper and attacks his broken-down car with a tree branch.

Much of the humour comes from Basil's overly aggressive manner, engaging in angry but witty arguments with guests, staff and, in particular, Sybil, whom he addresses (in a faux-romantic way) with insults such as "that golfing puff adder", "my little piranha fish" and "my little nest of vipers".

[25] Basil's physical outbursts are primarily directed at Manuel, an emotional but largely innocent Spaniard whose confused English vocabulary causes him to make elementary mistakes.

In the first episode he is playing music by Brahms when Sybil remarks, after pestering him asking to do different tasks: "You could have them both done by now if you hadn't spent the whole morning skulking in there listening to that racket."

Basil often displays blatant snobbishness as he attempts to climb the social ladder, frequently expressing disdain for the "riff-raff", "cretins" and "yobbos" that he believes regularly populate his hotel.

He continues guessing even after Sybil is out of earshot, and mentions other anniversaries (none of which happened on 17 April), including the Battle of Trafalgar and Yom Kippur, just to enhance the surprise.

The only person towards whom Basil consistently exhibits tolerance and good manners is the old and senile Major Gowen, a veteran of one of the world wars (which one is never specified, though he once mentions to Mrs Peignoir that he was in France in 1918) who permanently resides at the hotel.

Energetic and petite, she prefers a working wardrobe of tight skirt-suits in shiny fabrics and sports a tower of permed hair augmented with hairpieces and wigs necessitating the use of overnight curlers.

Typically when Basil is on the verge of a meltdown due to a crisis (usually of his own making), it is Sybil who steps in to clear up the mess and bring some sense to the situation.

Basil refers to her by a number of epithets, occasionally to her face, including "that golfing puff-adder", "the dragon", "toxic midget", "the sabre-toothed tart", "my little kommandant", "my little piranha fish", "my little nest of vipers" and "you rancorous, coiffured old sow".

Prunella Scales speculated in an interview for The Complete Fawlty Towers DVD boxed set that Sybil married Basil because his origins were of a higher social class than hers.

She is the most competent of the staff and the voice of sanity during chaotic moments, but is frequently embroiled in ridiculous masquerades as she loyally attempts to aid Basil in trying to cover up a mistake or keep something from Sybil.

As revenge, Polly laces the dog's sausages with black pepper and Tabasco sauce ("bangers à la bang"), making it ill and eventually killing it.

The original producer and director, John Howard Davies, said that he made Basil use a metal one and that he was responsible for most of the violence on the show, which he felt was essential to the type of comical farce they were creating.

In 2022, a "lost" scene cut from the episode "The Anniversary" (that went unfilmed) was uncovered as part of a script copy, featuring Basil climbing out his bedroom window to avoid sex with a drunken Sybil, who had wanted to make up.

[41] Lars Holger Holm, author of the book Fawlty Towers: A Worshipper's Companion, has made detailed claims about the episode's content, but he provides no concrete evidence of its existence.

The plot, never fleshed out beyond his initial idea, would have revolved around the chaos that a now-retired Basil typically caused as he and Sybil flew to Barcelona to visit their former employee Manuel and his family.

Major renovations are made to the lobby while the Fawltys are out, but when a misreading causes the incompetent builders to mess it up spectacularly, Basil must try to remedy the situation before Sybil finds out.

After an attempted fire drill goes wrong and Basil lands up in the hospital with concussion, he succeeds in causing much offence to the German guests after finally escaping back to the hotel.

However, the only one which is actually a true anagram for the hotel's name is "Flowery Twats", created for "The Anniversary" The arrival of the "guest from hell" — Mrs. Richards, a rather deaf, domineering and bad-tempered woman — interferes with Basil's attempts to prevent the money he won on a racehorse from being discovered by Sybil, who disapproves of gambling.

The website's consensus reads: "Fawlty Towers looms large over British comedy with John Cleese's impeccably hapless performance and an endless array of exuberant slapstick—making for a supremely stimulating chuckler.

A straight zero on TripAdvisor, the very layout of Fawlty Towers itself offers comedy gold as Basil (John Cleese), his wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), waitress Polly (Connie Booth) and poor, benighted Manuel (Andrew Sachs) manoeuvre themselves (and the odd corpse) around its dowdy interior without ruining anyone's stay.

Popular American sitcoms 3rd Rock from the Sun and Cheers (in both of which Cleese made guest appearances) have cited Fawlty Towers as an inspiration, especially regarding its depiction of a dysfunctional workplace "family".

[citation needed] At a 2009 reunion event for the Gold channel as Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened, Cleese said that the cast would never make another episode of the series because they are "too old and tired" and expectations would be too high.

These consisted of the original television soundtracks, and from the second album onwards had additional voice-over from Sachs (in character as Manuel) describing scenes which relied on visual humour.

[78] The first CD release of the audio versions was in a boxed set in 2003, titled Fawlty Towers—The Collector's Edition, which included spoken introductions to each episode by Cleese, and an interview with Scales and Sachs.