Fawlty Towers interval

It's great how us young folks can just pop open the laptop and go blogging when John Cleese starts the segue into the fundraising pitch and we're in for 10 or 15 minutes of the excruciating price we pay for public TV, and I'm certainly not referring to the money.

F. T. is a subject of polite disagreement around here, though. Not that anyone fails to find it impossibly funny, of course; but some of us can watch it and some cannot. If the interactions of Mr and Mrs Fawlty are just too painful, that's pretty much it for watching the show. As it happens, I can put up with that. But the sequences they just showed before the break reminded me that I have my limits. The Nazi episode is fine with me, and the Corpse; but the Gourmet Night episode begins to strike too close to home. The Beating of the Car, in particular. Which raises an interesting question, which someone like Shakespear's sister with millions of commenters should pose: which bit of Fawlty Towers is just too much for you?

Flay Otters. time to get back to the show.


... back again.

The Sensible One Around Here suggests that we can just buy the freakin tape of this Fawlty Towers Retrospective and see it sometime without the dumb breaks. But I persist in watching it.

One wishes they would not feel the need to put in the little patronising (you can tell from the s that the a is short there) bits explaining what and where Devon is, and like that. But I suppose Americans need these things, and I'm just being unrealistic. I mean, is it necessary to explain that Mr Johnson (I think I have the name right) is obviously Fawlty's social inferior as shown by his dress and accent? Yes, I suppose it is.

Speaking of which, how bout dem accents? John Cleese is John Cleese, and that's enough. But Prunella Scales has that marvelous lower middle class affected accent (as I'm told it is). The aforementioned Mr Johnson has his unaffected lower accent. And of course, Manuel!

You know, it was rather a long time before I found out that Connie Booth did her extremely good American accent (not in F. T., of course) by nature and not by hard study; I suppose the English perceived that instantly; but even they, I think, must respect her accent when she was doing Polly.

Teribly funny show. Doesn't look as if they'll have much of a closer after the final membership break, but one must hang around to see. Meanwhile, off to read more blogs while they talk on and on.