Judge Dennis Davis
British Comedy: Fawlty Towers
Summary
An entertaining appreciation of Fawlty Towers, one of the most iconic and well-loved British comedy sitcoms of all time. Created by John Cleese and Connie Booth, the first six episodes premiered on BBC2 in 1975 with the second six episodes broadcasting in 1979. By playing on British prejudices of the post-war period, the show gives permission to laugh at traumatic and shameful things, showing the power and impact of comedy.
Judge Dennis Davis
Dennis Davis is a judge of the High Court of South Africa and judge president of the Competition Appeals Court of South Africa. He has held professorial appointments at the University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand, as well as numerous visiting appointments at Cambridge, Harvard, New York University, and others. He has authored eleven books, including Lawfare: Judging Politics in South Africa.
I think it was a different world, and it’s not that we didn’t take our prejudices seriously, we were able to talk about them. It worries me that to a large degree we aren’t able to have these kinds of conversations.
Well that’s precisely what I wanted to have as a conversation. So I wanted to show you a series of clips from “Fawlty Towers” and I could understand someone who doesn’t think they’re funny anymore, but I think they are. I think that the interesting part about it is that we are laughing at prejudices, the brilliance of it is to actually focus in on all these themes that I’ve spoken about and ultimately to satirise them. It’s not prejudicial itself, it’s to actually expose forms of prejudice for which the whole thing is targeted, and for me that was absolutely brilliant and I think that is why it remains unique. So yes, perhaps you could argue that it’s slightly stylized, but frankly I fail to see that. I still think that to a large degree it punctures the pomposity of the English balloon in a way that I find totally delightful.