The Major

A retired military man and long-term resident of Fawlty Towers, the Major drifts through the hotel in cardigan and blazer, forever lost in a newspaper or a rambling anecdote. He is courteous, vague, and hopelessly behind on current events, greeting each day's chaos with placid, uncomprehending calm.

Ballard Berkeley plays him utterly straight, which is the joke: while Basil combusts around him, the Major potters along in his own gentle fog, delivering non-sequiturs and confused reminiscences with total sincerity. He's the show's quiet counterweight, a relic of a vanished England whose obliviousness makes the surrounding hysteria feel even more unhinged.