Quotes

[on Fawlty Towers (1975)] People say that nobody but [John Cleese] could have played Basil; it's just as true that nobody but [Andrew Sachs] could have played Manuel, even though there was a time when Andrew, who was German by birth, wanted to play the character in German. The character became iconic.

Fawlty Towers succeeds, I think, because it allows infantile rage and aggression a field day in a buttoned down, well-mannered English society. It's unique in being a farce, with all the plot surprises and precision that the style requires. And it doesn't hurt that the star of the show is a six-foot-five comic genius. If he was shorter I can't imagine how it would have worked.