The Kipper and the Corpse  (12th March 1979)

A fatality occurs at Fawlty Towers; one of the guests goes to bed one evening but rather annoyingly for Basil, doesn’t make it through to the next morning. Naturally, all hell breaks loose during Basil’s attempts to transfer the corpse from the bedroom to a more suitable spot in the hotel until the undertaker can take it away, particularly as he tries to do it without anyone noticing……..

An element of farce creeps into most episodes of Fawlty Towers, but if there’s one which owes more in inspiration to this form of comedy than any others then it has to be The Kipper and The Corpse. In no other episode is there as much running about the hotel, popping in and out of bedrooms, slamming doors, hiding in wardrobes and everything else associated with high farce. However, this very physical and visual basis for comedy doesn’t make this episode less sophisticated than any others in terms of plot and dialogue.

Basil exhibits a mild amount of fawning towards Doctor Price, completely normal behaviour from him regarding any professional guests at the hotel, assuming they don’t suddenly declare that they’re a psychiatrist, of course…….

Not really touched upon in this episode.

Again, not a subject mentioned in The Kipper and The Corpse.

Basil gets his wires crossed in this episode when he assumes that the three colleagues of the late Mr Leeman who arrive the next morning to collect him (unaware that he passed away during the night) are in fact the undertakers, who of course would be well aware of the situation. The conversation which ensues between them is delightful, particularly as Basil quite matter-of-factly informs them that Mr Leeman is in the laundry bin, a statement which would have been equally bizarre even if he’d still been alive.

A favourite scene for me in The Kipper and the Corpse is where Doctor Price and Manuel are in the dining room arguing about whether breakfast has finished. It’s not a scene full of sharp wit or acidic put-downs, something which populates so many classic scenes within the series; instead it appeals to me simply because it’s silly. The sight of watching dour-faced Geoffrey Palmer running round a dining table like a dog chasing its tail is one which makes me smile, particularly as the scene culminates with his nonsensical statement of, "I’m a Doctor - I’m a Doctor and I want my sausages!"

Of course there are other more generally applauded classic moments, such as Basil half supporting and half shielding the late Mr Leaman in front of the hat stand in the foyer. Basil shows such determination to save face that he offers to send in the post a hat belonging to one of Mr Leeman’s colleague’s rather than hand it to him and risk revealing the erstwhile hidden corpse behind him.

The bedroom scene where Basil rejoices at the fact that Mr Leeman wasn’t poisoned by the out-of-date kippers served to him for breakfast is also fondly remembered, particularly when the kipper in question can be seen poking out of Basil’s tank-top.

But by far the best moment for me in the episode is when we last see Mr Leeman alive and well and just about to go up to his room for the night. After Sybil has asked him if he’d like breakfast in bed and he accepts her offer, Basil adds:

"Is it your legs?"

"I beg your pardon?" replies Mr Leeman.

Basil continues: "Well it’s just that most of the guests manage to struggle downstairs for breakfast and I thought there may be something wrong with your legs!"

If that wasn’t enough, after Sybil has asked Mr Leeman what he would like for breakfast, if he’d prefer tea or coffee, and then which newspaper he’d like, Basil joins in by enquiring as to which type of wood he’d like his breakfast tray made out of. In my mind, sarcasm (which, in my opinion and whilst we’re on the subject, is one of the highest forms of wit when used appropriately) doesn’t come much better than this.

Geoffrey Palmer was already an established actor, particularly in TV sit-coms (Reggie Perrin and Butterflies being the most notable during the 1970’s), and his deadpan portrayal of the slightly odd Doctor Price builds upon his already impressive comedy CV. Also worth mentioning is Gilly Flower as Miss Tibbs, whose character is far more prominent in The Kipper and The Corpse than in other episodes. Incidentally, according to IMDB, Gilly Flower played a character called ‘Miss Gatsby’ in a later episode of Only Fools And Horses…..

Elizabeth Benson played Mrs White in this episode, and she also appeared in an episode of Only Fools And Horses in December 1982, an episode entitled ‘A Touch of Glass’ (better known as ‘The one with the chandelier’). My titbit of trivia - which is tenuous in the extreme - is that the first episode of Fawlty Towers was of course entitled ‘A Touch of Class’.

Another piece of trivia - or should I say ‘useless information’ - is that for years I had no idea what ‘prophylactic’ means. The word is mentioned by Mr White in this episode when he’s trying to think of an alternative hotel for him and his wife to stay in once they realise that Fawlty Towers is actually a lunatic asylum. "Perhaps we could try the one up by the Prophylactic Emporium?" he says. It’s only recently that I discovered that it’s another word for ‘condom’. What an odd place that emporium must have been………