Gourmet Night

Fawlty Towers has a new chef and Basil thinks it's a perfect opportunity to invite a higher class of guest for some fine dining.

This is another episode where Basil's attempt at social climbing ends in complete disaster. You know this will be the case from the off, but as usual the intricately plotted series of disasters are all hilarious.

Basil Fawlty going into a situation where he wants everything to go perfect is a funny enough concept in itself, but watching him react and deal with everything that goes wrong is a brilliant.

My favourite parts are how he deals with an unruly child and when he has to introduce the guests to each other. The car breakdown is good but it's not my favourite part of the episode let alone the series as it is often regarded.

John Cleese is brilliant as always and is well supported by the other cast members, particularly Andrew Sachs and Connie Booth.

The episode with the famous 'Basil gives the car a "damn good thrashing" with a tree branch' scene, "Gourmet Night" offers some spectacular comedy. This is another of the Fawlty's efforts to raise the hotel's status and level of clientèle. Their idea is to have 'gourmet nights' where the chef will serve haute cuisine to a group of VIPs in the Torquay area. On the debut evening, they find out that Curt the chef, is gay and has been rejected by Manuel, then he gets plastered and can't cook the meal. The hotel staff is left to fend for themselves, with their usual 'cover-up' routines that backfire badly (check out the dining room scene where Manuel, Polly, and Sybil try to distract the guests with their own entertainment!)

This episode was one in particular that had perfect casting of the guest stars - Allan Cuthbertson as the brash Colonel Hall, who suffers from a constantly-twitching neck muscle, with Ann Way as his diminutive wife. Also great are Steve Plytas as the drunken chef Curt, and the very French Andre Maranne as the local restaurant owner and consultant to the Fawlty Towers kitchens.

"Gourmet Night" is probably the best for Cleese's physical comedy. The scene in the kitchen where he derisively hurls the duck at Curt is side-splittingly hilarious. But who can forget the scene with Basil attacking the car with the tree branch, and the sight of him running up the driveway carrying the evening's meal... Who's for trifle?!

I like the bit where he hit the car with a tree branch

This episode features one of the most well recognised scenes in the history of British TV comedy: a desperate Basil Fawlty giving his broken down car a damn good thrashing. Actually, it's just one of many great moments in yet another classic episode of Fawlty Towers.

This time around, Basil is trying to give his establishment some class by organising a gourmet night (no riff raff!), but problems arise when his new chef gets seriously sozzled and is unable to prepare anything on the menu.

My favourite moment (car thrashing aside) is when Basil introduces a couple, Mr and Mrs Twitchen, to Colonel Hall, who has a repetitive neck spasm, but there are many other great scenes guaranteed to have your sides splitting, including Basil cuffing an obnoxious brat, and Manuel getting his foot stuck in a roast duck.

Gourmet Night is without a doubt one of the best episodes of Fawlty Towers, and on that basis one of the funniest things ever made. It is moment after moment of pure comedy joy, no matter how many times I see The Colonel's introduction, or the Duck throw, or indeed The famous car thrashing it never stops being funny. I'm not sure if anyone else feels the same, but I find it an exhausting watch, I'm sure it genuinely raises my blood pressure, Cleese is truly at his maniacal best, he leaves me breathless watching him. By the time he rifles the trifle I am out of breath. The characters are just glorious, the Colonel and his wife are simply magical, Alan Cuthbertson and Ann Way are flawless in their delivery, how they manage not to laugh is beyond me. Steve Plytas was hilarious also, 'just say ugh.' Who though could bet against that red mini being the star of the show.