Fawlty Towers: Season 2, Episode 4The Kipper and the Corpse (12 Mar. 1979)One of the guests has died in his sleep, but Basil thinks it's due to serving him spoiled food. Director:Bob Spiers |
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Fawlty Towers: Season 2, Episode 4The Kipper and the Corpse (12 Mar. 1979)One of the guests has died in his sleep, but Basil thinks it's due to serving him spoiled food. Director:Bob Spiers |
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| Episode cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| John Cleese | ... | ||
| Prunella Scales | ... | ||
| Andrew Sachs | ... | ||
| Connie Booth | ... | ||
| Geoffrey Palmer | ... | ||
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Mavis Pugh | ... | |
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Richard Davies | ... |
Mr. White
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Elizabeth Benson | ... |
Mrs. White
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Ballard Berkeley | ... | |
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Gilly Flower | ... | |
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Renee Roberts | ... | |
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Brian Hall | ... | |
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Derek Royle | ... |
Mr. Leeman
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Robert McBain | ... |
Mr. Xerxes
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Pamela Buchner | ... |
Miss Young
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One of the hotel's guests dies in his sleep but Basil doesn't really notice and just goes about his business, delivering the man's breakfast to his room and then complaining that he was rude and didn't thank him. Polly soon realizes he is dead and Sybil asks another guest, Dr. Price, to attend to the situation. Basil thinks the out of date kippers were the cause, but he's been dead most of the night. Pandemonium sets in when they try to remove the body without any of the guests knowing what has happened. It doesn't quite go as planned. Written by garykmcd
Fawlty Towers was notorious for rotten customer service, and this episode is a dissertation on it. It complements "Waldorf Salad" and "Basil the Rat" (the final episode) quite well - this time, dead bodies with a subplot involving ill-prepared kippers (and sausages) are brought into the mix. A group of executives drop off Mr. Leeman at the hotel - he dies during the night, but the hotel staff think it's a result of food poisoning of that morning's breakfast. Painstaking efforts are made by Basil, Manuel, and Polly to hide the body - carting the corpse up and down stairs, eventually depositing it first in one of the closets in a guest room and then in the kitchen. As Andrew Sachs has mentioned, they cast the Leeman character with a small man (Derek Royle) so as to make all the hauling a bit easier. The supporting cast in this one are especially good (Geoffrey Palmer as the snobby sausage-loving Dr. Price, and Mavis Pugh as Mrs. Chase, owner of the sausage-loving shi-tzu dog). Gilly Flower, who plays Ms. Tibbs, got a fairly big part in this episode after many episodes with one and two-liners, and she did it very well.
This is the episode with the well-known 'Basil pokes Manuel in the eye' scene and a bit where Basil walks in on a guest preparing to have his way with an inflatable sex doll. By episode's end, it seems like just about everyone has 'had it' with the lousy hotel - even Manuel belts out a firm, "Meeester Fawlty, I no wan' to work here anymore! I on strike!" But in the end, Basil is the one who gets the respite and once again, leaves Sybil to solve the day's problems. Personally, I think this would've been a good episode to end the series. Although unintentionally, it rounds out the other episodes nicely and pretty much drives home the fact that Fawlty Towers is a hotel that's beyond help.