Richard Ingrams

During the original run of the series, Basil e Sybil (1975), as television critic of "The Spectator" magazine, he wrote a scathing review of the program. John Cleese, whom he criticized personally in the same review, was a friend of Peter Cook, who was the owner of "Private Eye", the magazine which Ingrams edited, and took great exception to the review. Cleese's revenge was to write in a character called Mr Ingrams into a later episode, a guest whom Basil discovers blowing up an inflatable sex doll.

A scandal can only flourish in the right soil. There must be a prevalent atmosphere for an incident, which might in other circumstances be totally ignored, to emerge as a symptom of all that is wrong with the times.