‘¡Adios, Manuel!’
'Uno, dos, tres' Andrew Sachs in 2004 7 April 1930 - 23 November 2016 [ Wikipedia ] The death of Andrew Sachs was announced today. He had been suffering from dementia for the last four years. He played Manuel, a Spanish waiter from Barcelona, in the twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers , six made in 1975 and six in 1979. 'Manuel' is one of the funniest characters ever to appear on TV and, I would venture, in the whole of literature. He was put-upon by his employer, Basil Fawlty, but everyone was on his side. The Uno, dos, tres clip above is one of my favourites, as I have a smattering of Spanish. And, as an Irishman, I really enjoyed the episode below involving the 'Orally men', men working for a cheap, corner-cutting Irish builder named O'Reilly, doing some 'repairs' to Fawlty Towers, a small hotel located in Torquay in the south-west of England. I remember watching the first series of Fawlty Towers with my late...