A top-tier strategy for a top-tier comedy legend. The one and only John Cleese turns 86 today 🎉 | Monty Python

Negotiating with monsters! | John Cleese

British comedian John Cleese on how he created the character of Basil Fawlty from the classic British sitcom Fawlty Towers (1975, 1979). Cleese reveals that Fawlty - an eccentric, chronically uptight, hotelier - was inspired by a real-life hotel manager he encountered in Torquay, England called Mr Sinclair. See the funniest, most splendiferous and bizarre moments on a show that had five million Aussies a week turning on their TV sets in the 1970s and 80s. https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curat

Just keep absolutely calm and turn left. | John Cleese

😂🇬🇧🏨💡 Timeless British Comedy Gold This isn’t just any sitcom scene — it’s Fawlty Towers at its outrageous best. Basil is showing an Australian guest to her room after a long trip 🧳. The bathroom light isn’t working 💡, and while she stretches her neck against the wall 🙆‍♀️, Basil reaches around the corner… and mistakes her breast for the light switch. 😳 At that very moment, Sybil walks in 🚪—and the chaos is pure comic perfection. 🎬 Written by John Cleese & Connie Booth, Fawlty Towers

1975: #OnThisDay 50 years ago Fawlty Towers opened its doors to guests. Written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, who were also a married couple at the time, the pair discuss Basil Fawlty’s irrepressible character and how the development of Basil and his wife Sybil felt like therapy at times. Additional contributions are provided by broadcasters Alan Coren and Anthony Jay. Clip taken from Tonight, originally broadcast on BBC One, Friday 20 February 1975. | BBC Archive