Torquay - Torquay in English Culture

Torquay in English Culture

A number of sketches for the Monty Python's Flying Circus television show (1969–73) were filmed on location in and around both Torquay and neighbouring Paignton. It was while staying in Torquay at the Gleneagles Hotel with the Python team in 1971, that John Cleese found inspiration (and the setting, although not the actual film location) for the popular sitcom Fawlty Towers (1975, 1979). Incidents during the Pythons' stay are said to include the owner, Donald Sinclair, having thrown Eric Idle's suitcase out of the window thinking it was a bomb. Cleese later described the eccentric owner as, "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met", although Mr. Sinclair's widow has since said her husband was totally misrepresented in the comedy.

In the 1970s several episodes of the comedy series The Goodies were filmed in and around Torquay. In 1979 the town was again the site of filming, when the Ray Winstone, BAFTA nominated drama That Summer was both set in and filmed around the town. In 2003, the movie Blackball starring Paul Kaye and Vince Vaughn was set here. The movie is about Cliff Starkey who is the Bad Boy of Lawn Bowls.

In October 2010, it was reported that Bristol-based artist Banksy had painted a mural on the wall of the Grosvenor Hotel in Belgrave Road. The mural shows a child drawing a robot, and uses the vent of an extractor fan as the head of the robot. The painting was vandalised in May 2011.