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Fawlty Towers is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. Set in Fawlty Towers, a dysfunctional hotel in the English seaside town of Torquay in Devon, the series was inspired by the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, where Cleese and the rest of the Monty Python group stayed in 1970. The snobby and eccentric owner, Donald Sinclair, was the inspiration for Cleese's character, Basil Fawlty. The plots centre on Fawlty, the tense, rude and put-upon owner, his bossy wife Sybil, the sensible chambermaid Polly (Booth), and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel. They attempt to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests and tradespeople.