Basil Fawlty could have driven me to prison!
Fawlty Towers infamously struggled with its public health inspection, with Manuel's rat "Basil" stealing the episode he appeared in. Yet the reality of the sitcom's health and safety record was even more lackadaisical and even downright shocking.
The car thrashing scene, in which Basil Fawlty manically sets about his Austin 1100 Countryman with a tree branch has gone down in comedy history. But the shoot itself was a potential disaster waiting to happen, because John Cleese didn't have a driving licence and wasn't fully versed in the car's pedal functions, a former crew member has revealed.
Floor manager Tony Guya told Joe Wilkinson and David Earl's Chatabix podcast that he was hiding in the car's footwell, prompting Cleese on when to drive.
"I said 'I'll tap you on the leg when it's time to go'" he recalled. "He said 'that's the brake, that's the accelerator, that's the clutch ...'. I said: 'Don't muck about!'
"He said 'I know! I meant to take some lessons. I haven't had any lessons!'"
"If we'd gone across the road and killed two kids, I'd still be inside!"
Elsewhere in the interview, Guya described the venue used to film the sitcom as a seedy den of sex, gambling and gangsters.
Wooburn Grange Country Club, which provided the exterior shots for the hotel, was actually a casino where "you could rent rooms by the hour.
"It was basically a club where you could gamble, hire a room, and take your 'secretary' for an afternoon.
"One guy turned up in his Jaguar and was sitting in his car when a guy stepped out of the bushes with a sawn-off shotgun and blew his head off.
"He was a hitman hired to top someone, but he'd shot the wrong guy!"
Located in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, Wooburn Grange burned down in 1991. Guya joked that it had been an insurance job and that he'd been expecting it to go up in flames the following week.