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"Well she can't fall over waiters, or get herself jammed under desks, or start burglar alarms, or lock people in burning rooms, or fire fire extinguishers straight in her own face, but I think the hotel could do without that sort of coping for a couple days what do you think Basil, hmm?"
Sybil Fawlty

Sybil Fawlty


Sybil Fawlty is a fictional character from the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. She is played by Prunella Scales. Her age is listed as 34 years old as seen on her medical chart in the 1975 episode "The Germans", thus presumably indicating that she was born in 1941. Scales was in her 40s during the filming of Fawlty Towers.

She is Basil Fawlty's wife, and the only recurring character in the series who refers to him by his first name. Sybil is a far more effective worker and manager than Basil; she handles crises calmly, picks up the pieces after a nasty confrontation and stays polite to guests. Despite her effectiveness as a worker, however, she is known to be extremely lazy; during busy check-in sessions or meal-times, while everyone else is busy working around her, she has a tendency to gossip with her friends on the phone. However she is shown to be quick to anger and has shown aggression (as well as resorting to quick violence), especially towards her husband and to builder Mr O'Reilly. One of her biggest hot-buttons is a man smiling at her when she is angry with them.

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