I watched Upstairs Downstairs during Covid and was delighted to see her in a small role in one episode. Of course I recognized her immediately (from having seen this episode many, many times over the years) even though she was a bit younger. Her performance here was absolutely brilliant.
First episode I ever saw on original broadcast and I remember to this day sitting on the settee next to my now late Mother and just crying with laughter at the bedroom window scene and “Is this a piece of your brain?”
I met old cows like Mrs Richardson, often! Rich, Blind, Deaf and Mean! Her house mentioned in the story, valued at over 90k, would be equivalent to about 3 Million pounds today. The old Cow was super-rich! Brilliant performance from the amazing Joan Sanderson.
I used to be a waiter in a small cafe/restaurant. One Christmas we did a table of about 16 old biddies. We didn't charge service charges or anything, do you know what tip I got? £1! Not only that, this was just after the new pound coins came in, so it wasn't even legal bloody tender!!! 😂
The joke a lot of people seem to miss is when the "Charades" for the horses name is being done, Basil points to his fly for Dragonfly and Polly immediately says "SMALL" 😂 😂 😂
Yes, I noticed all the references in that skit years ago but as you say, ppl may not pick up on them. "Flying tart", as Polly will have remembered Basil referring to his wife by an equivalent name and "Fish wife" too.
“Satisfied customer, We should have him stuffed.” I’ve watched this since I was a kid, my Dad used to watch it on a loop. Now I’m 31, I still laugh my head off and Basil’s character became a lot more relatable. I’ve never lasted more than a week in a customer service job.
This is my favourite episode of FT. It's a little bit of genius. The bit in the hotel room, Basil and Manuel in the dining room, Basil miming the name of his horse and "You'll have to sew 'em back on first!"
I have seen this episode so many times ( even when it was Broadcast on BBC2 ) and I still laugh and get annoyed in equal measure ...I feel your pain lads
This is my favourite episode. Gets me in stitches every time. I've dealt with so many people like Mrs Richards in my days in retail and tourism. My favourite line is "please try to understand before one of us dies" 🤣 I use that line a lot!
First time I watched this was when I was 12/13 sort of age. My dad had the boxset and I stole it to watch from his office. After I had seen the first 2 episodes, I told him what I did just so I could ask him if it was a real hotel. We even went to Torquay the following year by happenstance. When we watched this episode, we watched it together and I'll never forget his and my mum's reaction when I let out a "fucking hell Major!". My dad found it hilarious thankfully and we watched the rest together. This is my favorite of them all. I'm 28 now and everytime I watch, I get less angry as Major and more at Basil for being aware of who surrounds him yet trusting them with the money lol Massive shout out to the actress who played the 'Karen'. Her comedic delivery is beautiful
Been watching all your reactions and love them. I spent my childhood holidays in Torquay and was disappointed to find out years later that the Hotel used was not in Torquay. I still like to drop a few of Fawlty Towers one liners in to a conversation.."You better lie down before something else happens" is a fav of mine. I love the way you get it all..and try and make sense of the value of the money back then. 1979 I was 17 and earned £20.00 per week. I bought my first house in 1981 for £18.000..it was better times.
This is my favorite episode of Fawlty Towers. The Mrs Richards character is brilliant. I also tried to do the money calculation with an online inflation calculator, it says £75 (1979) = £513 today which is $655.
For TV comedy, the care in the writing is spectacular. The fact that Mrs. Richards speaks first to Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby about "toilet paper" as she arrives in Reception makes it plausible/excuseable that she would simply say "paper" to Polly.
I used to be the assistant manager of a frozen food store and one day an older lady came in asking if we would donate some food for some thing. I went in the back pretending to be doing something useful like asking the manager. Our rules on this kind of thing was fairly simple. We'd tell them we couldn't give out charity without the customer calling head office. We'd then give them a little business card with head office number on it. But a I came back on the shop floor I couldn't find the lady anywhere. So I said to Peter, the guy on the checkout, "Has that silly old cow fooked off?". She was standing right behind me. lol. She was really angry and I was trying to come up with an excuse or lie or just anything I could say. But words failed me. So as I'm standing there listening to this woman shout and me I hander the card and said "call them if you want free stuff. Now you can fook off!"... Manager came to the shop floor short while after, he was busy cashing up at the time. She'd phone him and told him what had happened. He couldn't stop laughing. It cost us £200 in shop stock. But even the area manager was laughing.
Happy days, about the time I started my first "proper job". When I was paid £30 a week, and it cost me £15 per week for a room in a shared house. Sharing the bathroom, lounge, kitchen and utility bills etc.
£75 in 1979 would actually be worth £485.49 now, which is still an amazing amount to win on a bet. It would get you a decent spa weekend for two. He said that would be for a £5 stake which nowadays would be £32.35 😊
"the samaritans were engaged" always confused me. i found out the brits got a suicide hotline called the good samaritans. so, the samaritans were engaged means the suicide hotline put him on hold
My late aunt Babs was exactly like Mrs Richards, every time I see Mr Richards I think of her. She used to knit me bright green or yellow sweaters with weird patterns and make me wear them when I was a kid.
"Is this a piece of your brain?" 😂 I had read somewhere that John Cleese just threw that in and it was kept. Not sure if it's true on not, but it's brilliant.
I know that you both like the two Ronnies, so I think you would really like Ronnie Barker in "Porridge". Doing porridge is slang for being in prison and this is a comedy based in a prison. I think that you would both really like it.
The view of Torquay that Mrs Richardson complained about would have been very close to what you would have seen from where Fawlty Towers was supposed to be .
Hi guys, if you can, if you haven't already, you could do with getting hold of one of our other classic comedies, arguably one of the best sitcoms to come on to our ITV channel around the same time as FT, which strangely has similar plot lines to FT in some episodes, is the masterpiece called "Rising Damp". This also stars a great ensemble cast with the protagonist, or more like the antagonist being played by an actor called "Leanard Rositter", who has been looked upon as being arguably our greatest-ever comedy actor who mostly gives a masterful performance in each episode of this sitcom.
"Well, Marjory Atwell then. Marjory. I always call her Winnie, well because she looks like Winnie!" "She's not black?!" "Black? Churchill wasn't black!" Winifred Atwell was a ragtime/boogie-woogie pianist from Trinidad. She was popular in the UK and Australia in the 50s and 60s.
I can't decide which is my favourite........"It's over there between the land and the sky" in this episode, or "Yes you did, you invaded Poland" from The Germans. The story surrounding both sets the scene perfectly, so an otherwise ordinary phrase becomes incredibly hilarious.
Is it fair to say that only 1 still of Daniel is in existence? Every single time, the image has him holding his head in his hands. Come on @ETS, there's photographers you're putting out of work, you slugs.
This episode really makes me dislike Sybil. Nothing wrong with occasional gambling, as long as it's in moderation. And for someone to be going through their spouse's pockets for something like that is just wrong... No wonder Basil is so messed up!!
Mrs Richardson is played by the wonderful Joan Sanderson who was a regular face on British tv through the late sixties through to the early nineties.
I watched Upstairs Downstairs during Covid and was delighted to see her in a small role in one episode. Of course I recognized her immediately (from having seen this episode many, many times over the years) even though she was a bit younger. Her performance here was absolutely brilliant.
Ah, Mrs Richards in all her glory. My all time favourite episode. Joan Sanderson is an absolute dream & Basil is trying his very best to be polite.
The way she says "dragonfly" with that crack of relief in her voice is the most perfectly delivered line since "a haaandbaaag?!?!"
Don't see many references to Wilde on RUclips comments. :)
First episode I ever saw on original broadcast and I remember to this day sitting on the settee next to my now late Mother and just crying with laughter at the bedroom window scene and “Is this a piece of your brain?”
I met old cows like Mrs Richardson, often! Rich, Blind, Deaf and Mean! Her house mentioned in the story, valued at over 90k, would be equivalent to about 3 Million pounds today. The old Cow was super-rich! Brilliant performance from the amazing Joan Sanderson.
I used to be a waiter in a small cafe/restaurant. One Christmas we did a table of about 16 old biddies. We didn't charge service charges or anything, do you know what tip I got? £1!
Not only that, this was just after the new pound coins came in, so it wasn't even legal bloody tender!!! 😂
The £1 coin was introduced on 21 April 1983.
The one pound note ceased to be legal tender on 11 March 1988.
The joke a lot of people seem to miss is when the "Charades" for the horses name is being done, Basil points to his fly for Dragonfly and Polly immediately says "SMALL" 😂 😂 😂
Yes, I noticed all the references in that skit years ago but as you say, ppl may not pick up on them. "Flying tart", as Polly will have remembered Basil referring to his wife by an equivalent name and "Fish wife" too.
And Connie Booth was married to Jonn Cleese so she should know.
Not missed, but a tad vulgar to be funny.
No, most people do not miss that joke.
This is my favourite episode. The actress playing Mrs Richards was absolutely perfect in the role.
The late great Joan Sanderson, who always played matrons etc. Brilliant comedy actress
“Satisfied customer, We should have him stuffed.”
I’ve watched this since I was a kid, my Dad used to watch it on a loop. Now I’m 31, I still laugh my head off and Basil’s character became a lot more relatable. I’ve never lasted more than a week in a customer service job.
I work in retail and I sometimes use that line and then have to explain where it comes from to my work colleagues.
This is my favourite episode of FT. It's a little bit of genius. The bit in the hotel room, Basil and Manuel in the dining room, Basil miming the name of his horse and "You'll have to sew 'em back on first!"
At 13:19 he says don't tell anyone else "not even me". The "not even me" really sticks to Manuel's mind.
I have seen this episode so many times ( even when it was Broadcast on BBC2 ) and I still laugh and get annoyed in equal measure ...I feel your pain lads
At the time of her death she was working on the series, After Henry with the wonderful Prunella Scales
Mrs Richardson,such an infuriating character. But that means it was well written
And very well acted
Is it bad I thought of her being a Mrs Bouquet
@@marktallentire3464 . Indeed 👍
@@mlee6050 . That Bucket woman ! 🙂
@@mlee6050don't forget that it's pronounced bouquet, but spelt bucket
“The Samaritans were engaged…” refers to a suicide hotline; “engaged” means the line was busy.
"is this a piece of your brain?" 😂😂😂
One of the few episodes where Basil is pretty much in the right and it's the customer that's wrong.
This is my favourite episode. Gets me in stitches every time. I've dealt with so many people like Mrs Richards in my days in retail and tourism. My favourite line is "please try to understand before one of us dies" 🤣 I use that line a lot!
Such a clever script. My favourite episode.
First time I watched this was when I was 12/13 sort of age. My dad had the boxset and I stole it to watch from his office. After I had seen the first 2 episodes, I told him what I did just so I could ask him if it was a real hotel. We even went to Torquay the following year by happenstance. When we watched this episode, we watched it together and I'll never forget his and my mum's reaction when I let out a "fucking hell Major!". My dad found it hilarious thankfully and we watched the rest together. This is my favorite of them all. I'm 28 now and everytime I watch, I get less angry as Major and more at Basil for being aware of who surrounds him yet trusting them with the money lol Massive shout out to the actress who played the 'Karen'. Her comedic delivery is beautiful
Another way to work it easier, Is that the room cost £7.20 and would now be around £70, therefore the £75 he won would, be nearly x10. At around £750.
No wonder he was so devastated to lose it 😂😂
Brilliantly played by Joan Sanderson who was very good friends with John Cleese.
Joan Sanderson RIP! What a performance.
Told you would love this episode. It is only one of maybe 5 or 6 sitcom episodes that me laugh so hard I've actually lost bladder control.
This is my favourite episode. Look forward to seeing you react to the next 5, which are still good ones.
I’ve always thought The Anniversary was pretty weak. All the others are fantastic of course.
Oh Daniel bro.. 24:07 it is painful you are right! All his own doing though 😂 hope you and spencer had a great Christmas 🎄 love your reactions 🫶🏽
Great that you're back with 7th episode - the first of series 2. Thanks.
Been watching all your reactions and love them. I spent my childhood holidays in Torquay and was disappointed to find out years later that the Hotel used was not in Torquay. I still like to drop a few of Fawlty Towers one liners in to a conversation.."You better lie down before something else happens" is a fav of mine. I love the way you get it all..and try and make sense of the value of the money back then. 1979 I was 17 and earned £20.00 per week. I bought my first house in 1981 for £18.000..it was better times.
I’m a cow, I regularly reenact Sybil’s “Oh, I know…ooh, I know”🤣🤣🤣 It’s so tempting, isn’t it?😌❤️
@@DeidreL9 There are so many and all can still fit into conversations today
There can't be that many sitcoms that can keep up that sort of pace.
My favourite episode - Basil finally meets someone who deserves the rudeness…
This is my favorite episode of Fawlty Towers. The Mrs Richards character is brilliant. I also tried to do the money calculation with an online inflation calculator, it says £75 (1979) = £513 today which is $655.
For TV comedy, the care in the writing is spectacular. The fact that Mrs. Richards speaks first to Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby about "toilet paper" as she arrives in Reception makes it plausible/excuseable that she would simply say "paper" to Polly.
That woman's greatest annoyance was to constantly BARK "WHAT?" at every opportunity!
This is my favourite episode. "Is this a piece of your brain?" is my favourite in the whole show.
I was eagerly awaiting you reacting to this comic masterpiece 😂
I used to be the assistant manager of a frozen food store and one day an older lady came in asking if we would donate some food for some thing. I went in the back pretending to be doing something useful like asking the manager. Our rules on this kind of thing was fairly simple. We'd tell them we couldn't give out charity without the customer calling head office. We'd then give them a little business card with head office number on it. But a I came back on the shop floor I couldn't find the lady anywhere. So I said to Peter, the guy on the checkout, "Has that silly old cow fooked off?". She was standing right behind me. lol. She was really angry and I was trying to come up with an excuse or lie or just anything I could say. But words failed me. So as I'm standing there listening to this woman shout and me I hander the card and said "call them if you want free stuff. Now you can fook off!"...
Manager came to the shop floor short while after, he was busy cashing up at the time. She'd phone him and told him what had happened. He couldn't stop laughing. It cost us £200 in shop stock. But even the area manager was laughing.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Happy days, about the time I started my first "proper job". When I was paid £30 a week, and it cost me £15 per week for a room in a shared house. Sharing the bathroom, lounge, kitchen and utility bills etc.
Oh, I was waiting for your reaction to this one. My favourite!😊
That deaf old woman was the person in TV I hated the MOST growing up.
£75 in 1979 would actually be worth £485.49 now, which is still an amazing amount to win on a bet. It would get you a decent spa weekend for two. He said that would be for a £5 stake which nowadays would be £32.35 😊
To this day people still joke that "I know nothing. I come from Barcellona".
Arguably, the funniest episode of Fawlty Towers, and the best piece of comedy writing ever.
"the samaritans were engaged" always confused me. i found out the brits got a suicide hotline called the good samaritans. so, the samaritans were engaged means the suicide hotline put him on hold
That episode is a work of absolute genius amongst 12 episodes of genius
the F T sign begins to really change after this episode,, the last one in the series being the best and you will really chuckle,,,,
mind you s11s is funny too,,,,
Glad this is back!
My late aunt Babs was exactly like Mrs Richards, every time I see Mr Richards I think of her. She used to knit me bright green or yellow sweaters with weird patterns and make me wear them when I was a kid.
"Is this a piece of your brain?" 😂 I had read somewhere that John Cleese just threw that in and it was kept. Not sure if it's true on not, but it's brilliant.
Yes. And apparently there was a debate about whether to keep it.
No, but it is the Mona Lisa of sitcoms!
I know that you both like the two Ronnies, so I think you would really like Ronnie Barker in "Porridge". Doing porridge is slang for being in prison and this is a comedy based in a prison. I think that you would both really like it.
5:37 £7.20 back in 1979 is about the equivalent of £34 in today’s money
18:27 £75 in 1979 is the equivalent of £362.78 today
Have you noticed the hotel sign it changes it time.
75 pounds in 1979 is worth about 350 pounds today.
I notice you've taken a leaf out of the "Fawlty Towers" signpost book and gone with "For Coypright Reason" ;-)
The money she was asking for her house is the equivalent of £1.5 million, worked out on average uk prices then and now.
The view of Torquay that Mrs Richardson complained about would have been very close to what you would have seen from where Fawlty Towers was supposed to be .
Qué?
Where was it supposed to be?
Hi guys, if you can, if you haven't already, you could do with getting hold of one of our other classic comedies, arguably one of the best sitcoms to come on to our ITV channel around the same time as FT, which strangely has similar plot lines to FT in some episodes, is the masterpiece called "Rising Damp". This also stars a great ensemble cast with the protagonist, or more like the antagonist being played by an actor called "Leanard Rositter", who has been looked upon as being arguably our greatest-ever comedy actor who mostly gives a masterful performance in each episode of this sitcom.
1:54 - The moment you know this is a lost cause 🙂
I would SOOOO put a bet on a horse called "Flying Tart" omg.
heards of wildebeasts,,,, gets me everytime,,,,
Brilliant actors
The next ep "The Psychiatrist" is arguably the 2nd best of the 12 behind The Germans, but might be my fave for all the farce and miss direction in it.
Misdirection
Thanks, I can sleep easier now.@@rocketrabble6737
Average weekly wage in 79 for Hotel Staff was about £50.
New BBC upload for you guys !!! "1979: FRED DIBNAH and his wife TOPPLE HUGE CHIMNEY with FIRE | Steeplejack | 1970s | BBC Archive
😂😂😂🫶🏽🙌🏽🫣🫣🤣🤣nice one boys👌🏽
Another good one!😊👍"Not a word to the dragon".😉
"Well, Marjory Atwell then. Marjory. I always call her Winnie, well because she looks like Winnie!" "She's not black?!" "Black? Churchill wasn't black!" Winifred Atwell was a ragtime/boogie-woogie pianist from Trinidad. She was popular in the UK and Australia in the 50s and 60s.
the next episode is SUPERB
yeah watery fowls! cant stop thinking about the hand,,,,
Ahh.. Fawlty Towers... The Mona-Lisa of sitcoms... :)
75 GBP in 1975 would be equivalent to about 780 USD in 2023 I believe.
Biggest mistake Basil made was giving the money to the Major. Even Manuel would have understood the instructions better.
That is Torquay madame
After inflation, £7.20 in 1979 would be the equivalent of about £40 now (VAT = Sales Tax)
But the average hotel room would be about £120/night now.
I can't decide which is my favourite........"It's over there between the land and the sky" in this episode, or "Yes you did, you invaded Poland" from The Germans.
The story surrounding both sets the scene perfectly, so an otherwise ordinary phrase becomes incredibly hilarious.
"vomit on her Basil says" is my personal favourite.
£92,750 in 1979 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £600,385.70 in 2023, or about $729,801. £75 would be about £485.49, or $590.
The room cost 7 pounds and 20 pence a night. £7.20.
The earliest known documented footage of a Karen 🤣
My favourite Fawlty Towers episode 👌
1979 £100= around £500 today.
In 1979 £1 would get around $2.25.
Today its about £1 =$1.25.
Call that a bath?Its not big enough to drown a mouse.............
Never dates... Pure joy
The Samitiarns are a helpline you ring if you feel rotten
"Samitiarns?"
Anyone who has ever worked in Customer Services or retail has dealt with a Mrs Richardson.
Heads up! The bottom “FOR COPYRIGHT REASON” is misspelled! 😉
We thought Fawlty Towers fans would appreciate it as a nod to the sign gag 😜
My favourite episode , herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain
So funny to see you guys totally wrecked by Basils predicaments..... its just exactly why John Cleese wrote it ... he's a Genius.
Based on a real guy the monty dudes found themselves staying with. Genius.
£75 in 1979 is worth £379.48 today - £379.48 is equal to $468.40 in U.S. dollars in 2023
As someone with the surname Richards I’ve always found this episode highly offensive. 😜
Come on guys you must realise by now basil is destined to suffer 🤣
Andrew sachs(manuel?) Is british,sadly no longer with us 😢
Mrs. Richards can make today's modern Karen tremble.
Do "Green Wing". It's got filthy jokes, you'll love it. :D
you guys gotta watch "riseing damp" its as good as this strong cast.
I know noooothing, I am from Barcelona lmao. It does hurt. Even Al Bundy got a W once in a while.
Don’t trust other people with your money!
He's still £5 up, though!
Is it fair to say that only 1 still of Daniel is in existence? Every single time, the image has him holding his head in his hands. Come on @ETS, there's photographers you're putting out of work, you slugs.
Qué?
It wasn’t 1979
I love this episode
Poor people who read "For Coypright Reason"
That's a trick right out of the Fawlty Towers book 😉
This episode really makes me dislike Sybil. Nothing wrong with occasional gambling, as long as it's in moderation. And for someone to be going through their spouse's pockets for something like that is just wrong... No wonder Basil is so messed up!!