Communication Problems
Encyclopedia
"Communication Problems" is the first episode of the second series of BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom produced by BBC Television and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Twelve television program episodes were produced . The show was written by John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth, both of whom played major characters...

and the seventh episode overall. It is also known as "Mrs. Richards".

Cast

Episode Credited cast:
  • John Cleese
    John Cleese
    John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...

     as Basil Fawlty
    Basil Fawlty
    Basil Fawlty is the main character of the British sitcom Fawlty Towers, played by John Cleese. The character is often thought of as an iconic British comedy character, and has been deemed unforgettable despite only a dozen half-hour episodes ever being made....

  • Prunella Scales
    Prunella Scales
    Prunella Scales CBE is an English actress, known for her role as Basil Fawlty's long-suffering wife in the British comedy Fawlty Towers and her award-nominated role as Queen Elizabeth II in the British film A Question of Attribution.-Career:Throughout her long career, Scales has usually been cast...

     as Sybil Fawlty
    Sybil Fawlty
    Sybil Fawlty is a fictional character from the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. She is played by Prunella Scales. Her age is listed as 34 years old as seen on her medical chart in the 1975 episode "The Germans", thus presumably indicating that she was born in 1941...

  • Joan Sanderson
    Joan Sanderson
    Joan Sanderson was an English television and stage actress. During a long career she invariably played dragonish dowagers, stuck-up spinsters and suburban matrons.-Theatre:...

     as Mrs. Alice Richards
  • Andrew Sachs
    Andrew Sachs
    Andrew Sachs is a German-born British actor. He made his name on British television and is best known for his portrayals of Manuel in Fawlty Towers, a role for which he was BAFTA-nominated, and Ramsay Clegg in Coronation Street.-Early life:Sachs was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Katharina , a...

     as Manuel
    Manuel (Fawlty Towers)
    Manuel is a fictional character from the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. Played by Andrew Sachs, he is an iconic character in British comedy history...

  • Connie Booth
    Connie Booth
    Constance "Connie" Booth is an American-born writer and actress, known for appearances on British television and particularly for her portrayal of Polly Sherman in the popular 1970s television show Fawlty Towers, which she co-wrote with her then-husband John Cleese.-Biography:Booth's father was a...

     as Polly Sherman
    Polly Sherman (Fawlty Towers)
    Polly Sherman is a fictional character in the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. Played by Connie Booth, she is Fawlty Towers' long-suffering waitress and maid.-Personality:...

  • Ballard Berkeley as Major Gowen
    Major Gowen
    Major Gowen is a fictional character played by Ballard Berkeley in the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers.Major Gowen is an old, befuddled, somewhat senile ex-soldier permanently residing in the hotel. He enjoys talking about the world and is always on the lookout for the newspaper. He has trouble forgiving...

  • Brian Hall
    Brian Hall (actor)
    Brian Charles Hall was an English actor perhaps best known for his role in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers where he played the hotel chef Terry.-Career:...

     as Terry the Chef
  • Gilly Flower
    Gilly Flower
    Gilly Flower was an English actress, best remembered as the elderly Miss Abitha Tibbs in the cult BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers.Gilly Flower played Miss Tibbs in all twelve episodes of the show, which was produced in two six-episode series separated by a three-and-a-half-year interval Gilly Flower...

     as Miss Abitha Tibbs
    Miss Tibbs & Miss Gatsby
    Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby are fictional characters, played by Gilly Flower and Renee Roberts respectively, in the BBC television sitcom Fawlty Towers....

  • Renee Roberts as Miss Ursula Gatsby
    Miss Tibbs & Miss Gatsby
    Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby are fictional characters, played by Gilly Flower and Renee Roberts respectively, in the BBC television sitcom Fawlty Towers....



With:
  • Bill Bradley as Mr. Mackintosh
  • Robert Lankesheer as Mr. Thurston
  • George Lee as the delivery man
  • Mervyn Pascoe as Mr. Yardley
  • Johnny Shannon as Mr. Firkin

Plot

Mrs. Richards, a short-sighted, deaf, and aggressive old woman (but who believes she is in perfect condition and accuses others of being blind and deaf), arrives at the hotel and instantly starts arguing with Polly about who is being served first. Polly mischievously asks Manuel to assist Mrs. Richards and his poor English leads her to believe that the hotel manager is named "C.K. Watt," aged forty. Meanwhile, Basil gets a horse racing tip from a satisfied customer and, although Sybil has banned Basil from gambling, he plans to discreetly bet on it anyway.

Mrs. Richards then complains to Basil about her room, saying that it's cold, her radio doesn't work (it does; she just cannot hear it), there is no bath (it's too small for her taste) and such view as there is from her window is uninteresting (as she can't see it properly). Mrs. Richards demands a reduction in the price (to which Basil responds softly: "60% if you turn that hearing aid on"). He also secretly asks Manuel to go to the betting shop and make a bet on the horse, which subsequently wins the race. Manuel collects the £75 winnings and gives them to Polly to give to Basil, just as Mrs. Richards demands lavatory paper, and her referring to it as "paper" leads Polly, assuming she wants writing paper, to tell her that it is kept in the lounge. Mrs. Richards is convinced Polly is being rude and complains to Basil, as he collects his winnings.

By remarkable coincidence, Mrs. Richards announces that £85 is missing from her room, and she is convinced someone has stolen it. Sybil, who saw Polly counting Basil's money in the office, assumes that Polly found it. So as not to give away Basil's gambling, Polly says she herself won it on the horse, although her forgetting the name of the horse makes Sybil suspicious. Foolishly, Basil gives the money to the Major for safekeeping. Expectedly, when Basil asks the Major for the money the next morning, the senile old man has forgotten that Basil gave it to him. Eventually he produces it, but when he declares to have "found it" in front of Mrs. Richards, she is convinced it is hers, even though it is £10 short. Basil tries to persuade her otherwise, but is hindered by the Major and Manuel: the Major having entirely forgotten and Manuel, under Basil's previous instructions, says "I know nothing." He is distraught and is about to take the missing £10 from the till when a delivery man arrives with a vase for Mrs. Richards. He then produces £95 which she left behind in the shop: the money she thought had been stolen. Basil is elated and gives Mrs. Richards her remaining £10, leaving him still £10 up. When Sybil sees Basil with the money, she quizzes him and Polly chimes in that it is hers. Basil adds that he is putting it in the safe for her. Unfortunately, the Major suddenly blurts out, right in front of Sybil that he has remembered that Basil gave him the money last night and he won it on a horse (apparently not remembering that it was a secret from Sybil). In horror, Basil drops and breaks Mrs. Richards' vase and the episode closes with Sybil repaying Mrs. Richards the £75 cost of the vase with the money Basil had won, leaving Basil with only £10 from his successful bet.

Connections and errors

  • This episode marks the first appearance of Terry the chef (played by Brian Hall); he is the only new regular character in the last series.
  • When Sybil throws coffee at Basil, some accidentally lands on the Major – however, in a later shot, Ballard Berkeley has a dry suit, showing through the continuity error that a break in filming was needed to clean him up.
  • This episode's original audio LP release was under the title "Mrs. Richards". In later re-releases, it was changed back to "Communication Problems".
  • The following line was originally cut in rehearsal: Basil picks some morsel off the floor after Mrs. Richards hits her head in the office, and asks, "Is this a piece of your brain?" After seeing it had been cut, Andrew Sachs convinced John Cleese it was a funny moment and talked Cleese into putting it back in the script.
  • Joan Sanderson
    Joan Sanderson
    Joan Sanderson was an English television and stage actress. During a long career she invariably played dragonish dowagers, stuck-up spinsters and suburban matrons.-Theatre:...

     and John Cleese
    John Cleese
    John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...

     would later co-star again as a married, aristocratic couple in The Great Muppet Caper
    The Great Muppet Caper
    The Great Muppet Caper is a 1981 mystery comedy film directed by Jim Henson. It is the second of a series of live-action musical feature films, starring Jim Henson's Muppets. This film was produced by Henson Associates, ITC Entertainment and Universal Pictures, and premiered on 26 July 1981. The...

    .

External links

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