[Clip contains language some may find offensive] Having banged his bonce on a falling moose head, Basil is concussed and what little tact he may have hidden has firmly checked out by the time a group of German guests check in. Unable to follow his own order of not mentioning the war, he runs amuck with toe-curling slips-of-the-tongue, wartime wisecracks and a high-kicking impersonation of Hitler. Despite Polly’s admirable attempts to halt him, the damage is done and Basil drives his German guests to fury and tears.

In a clip from John Cleese’s personal favourite Fawlty Towers Episode, Basil The Rat, Manuel’s escaped pet rat (which he insists is a Siberian hamster) plagues the restaurant and threatens closure if the heath and safety inspector spots it before the Fawlty crew catches it. But there’s plenty of places a crafty rat can take refuge… and a frightful way to serve it.

Abusing guests, gagging a fume-intoxicated Manuel, hurling a typewriter at a fire alarm and attacking himself with a fire extinguisher… Basil provides a hilarious masterclass on how NOT to keep a cool and hospitable head in the event of a hotel fa-fa-fa-fire! Hyperactive Basil at his very best!

Basil has his sights desperately set on making Fawlty Towers a sleep-over of choice for posh patrons, so he doesn’t think twice about shunting a family of bread-and-butter guests off their table-with-a-view in order to make way for Lord Melbury, who unbeknown to all is nothing more than a common trickster. And in true Basil style, he does it with the grace of a cowpat.

Fearing the sharp end of Sybil’s tongue when she finds out that the cowboy builders he has hired have made a cock-up of reception alterations, Basil loses the plot. With slaps and shouting aplenty, he attempts to blame his blunder on Polly and Manuel before trying to strangle his wife’s oversized garden gnome and tripping head-first behind the welcome desk.

An American couple have coughed up extra cash to dine late in the Fawlty Towers restaurant, but unbeknown to them, Terry the chef has legged it and Basil is playing cook – miserably. After attempting to cover his tracks by presenting a letter of apology from the non-existent chef, Basil bolts to the kitchen to fan bellowing smoke and things go from bad to couldn’t-really-get-worse.

Fearing that a kipper from the hotel kitchen has killed a guest stone cold dead, Basil, Polly and Sybil awkwardly field questions from a bedside doctor, and desperately try to make it seem like there is absolutely nothing fishy about their patron’s passing. But Basil blows it by parading around the room with the suspected murder weapon protruding from his rather fetching tank top.

A simple comment about butter proportions on breakfast trays renders Manuel and Basil tongue-tied in a lingo labyrinth of mind-bending Spanglish. Neither fair well as Menza-level linguists, but it’s proper lost-in-translation funny.

Mrs Richards, a hard-of-hearing guest that has turned complaining into a sport and refuses to turn her hearing aid up, pushes Basil’s patience to the max and gets Manuel yet another slap from his bullying boss.