Connie Booth pays tribute to Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs following his death

FAWLTY Towers co-star Connie Booth has said Andrew Sachs and a “wit that could sting” in a touching tribute following his death.

Booth, who played waitress Polly in the much-loved BBC sitcom, said the actor – best known for playing hapless waiter Manuel – had “none of the manic bravado” of most comedians.

And she said despite being injured in some of the slapstick stunts during filming, Booth says she “never saw pain in Andrew” off-stage or on.

Her tribute is the latest in an outpouring of praise for the actor who died last week aged 86 after a battle with dementia – 50 years after the cast of the groundbreaking sitcom first met.

“Looking back, the choice of Andrew was a stroke of enormous good luck,” Booth wrote in The Guardian.

“Like Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy, he and John at first glance were a droll study in comic contrast. Basil was tall and dogmatic, Manuel small and confused.

“People say that nobody but John could have played Basil; it’s just as true that nobody but Andrew could have played Manuel, even though there was a time when Andrew, who was German by birth, wanted to play the character in German. The character became iconic.”

Booth, now 72, was a co-writer of the show with then-husband John Cleese, who played frustrated hotel owner Basil Fawlty.

In the insightful tribute, she also described how Sachs had a “certain detachment about him” which was magnified after he developed vascular dementia four years ago.

“He wasn’t showy or noisy; he was a good listener; he had wit that could sting,” she said.

She said his detachment meant that even when he was seriously injured during some of the show’s most famous scenes, he stoically carried on.

“During a fire drill at the hotel, Basil assembles everyone in the lobby, but Manuel is in the kitchen with a frying pan and his sleeve catches fire,” she recalled.

“Manuel runs out yelling: ‘Fire! Fire!’ But Basil, insisting that there is no fire, pushes him back in, which sets the whole kitchen ablaze.

“Although Andrew had on a protective jacket, he was badly burned. In that moment of panic and pain, Andrew remained calm. (He later sued the BBC).”

She said in another scene, John Cleese smacked him over a head with a frying pan, leaving him concussed, but he showed no pain.

“It reminds me of my first question to Andrew about what makes something funny. He used the example of slipping on a banana peel,” she wrote.

“If an actual person slips on a banana peel, he said, we’re concerned for him. To be comic, the audience must instinctively know he’s hasn’t been hurt, that he’s OK. Off-stage or on, I never saw pain in Andrew.”

The BBC changed its schedule on Friday to broadcast the Fawlty Towers episode Communication Problems, featuring Manuel’s famous “I know nothing” line.

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