Fawlty Towers
The Anniversary
TV Flash files “The Anniversary” as hour 11 of 12 in the TV Flash guide — Fawlty Towers (1975–1979) on BBC Two, season 2, episode 5, aired 1979-03-26, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S02E05: listed hour 11 of 12 in the Fawlty Towers guide, hour 5 of 6 in season 2. It aired 1979-03-26 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “The Kipper and the Corpse (a.k.a. Death)” (S02E04). Next is “Basil the Rat (a.k.a. Rats)” (S02E06).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Basil invites some friends for a surprise wedding anniversary party, but Sybil assumes he has forgotten their anniversary and storms off, leaving her husband and Polly, in disguise, desperately telling the others she is 'ill', while Manuel and Terry constantly quarrel over who will make the seafood paella which Basil had permitted Manuel to cook for the occasion.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Anniversary sit in the Fawlty Towers guide?
S02E05 is listed hour 11 of 12 — hour 5 of 6 in season 2, season 2 episode 5.
When did Fawlty Towers S02E05 air?
The Anniversary aired 1979-03-26 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Is twelve episodes really the whole show?
Yes. Two series, deliberate scarcity. Watch all of them — short-run sitcom as cathedral, not a missing-season mystery.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Twelve episodes. John Cleese's Basil turns a Torquay hotel into a pressure cooker of class panic, Sybil combat, and don't-mention-the-war. Short-run sitcom as cathedral: every farce brick laid on purpose. The rage, the waiter Manuel, and proof that less can outlive whole sitcom empires.
Picture a Torquay hotel that only needed twelve keys. 1975–1979, BBC Two: hostile hotelier Basil Fawlty terrorizes guests and staff in farces that escalate to operatic disaster. Fawlty Towers, from John Cleese and Connie Booth, runs two series — deliberate scarcity inspired by a real hotelier the Pythons once encountered. Prunella Scales's Sybil, Booth's Polly, Andrew Sachs's Manuel. Class panic, marital combat, don't-mention-the-war. Every farce brick laid on purpose. On the palate: damp carpet, a sign that will…
Filed against
- John Cleese as Basil Fawlty
John Cleese’s various Monty Python’s Flying Circus turns rewired sketch so a punchline did not have to bow — 1960s catalog BBC cutouts, then Fawlty Towers stretching the rage into twelve episodes of a Torquay pressure cooker. TV Flash…
- Prunella Scales as Sybil Fawlty
Prunella Scales played Sybil Fawlty on Fawlty Towers, twelve 1970s episodes in which John Cleese’s Basil turns a Torquay hotel into a pressure cooker of class panic, Sybil combat, and don’t-mention-the-war. Short-run sitcom as cathedral:…
- Connie Booth as Polly Sherman
Connie Booth played Polly Sherman on Fawlty Towers — twelve episodes, John Cleese's Basil turning a Torquay hotel into a pressure cooker of class panic, Sybil combat, and don't-mention-the-war. Short-run sitcom as cathedral: every farce…
- Andrew Sachs as Manuel
Andrew Sachs’s Manuel made Fawlty Towers’ twelve-episode cathedral ring — John Cleese’s Basil as class panic, Sybil combat, don’t-mention-the-war, and a Torquay waiter who turned farce bricks into a national catchphrase. Short-run sitcom…