I watched Fawlty Towers for the first time - and one seriously offensive scene got my blood boiling. Described by my family members as one of the “best sitcoms ever” and a “British institution”, I had high hopes for the show. But just like after a good night at Spoons, necking shot after shot, Fawlty Towers left me with a rather bitter taste in my mouth.

You see, recently I got some boomers riled up after writing up an OPINION piece on what I thought about Only Fools and Horses, after watching it for the first time. And spoiler alert - I’m not a fan. So, I thought why not watch yet another throwback show that is presumably laden with outdated and offensive views? And guess what? I was right! Now, before the keyboard warriors and fans of the show come at me for being “soft” and a “snowflake” (nice insults by the way) - I understand that this is from a really, really, really, really long time ago.

But as a woke 27-year-old, it’s hard not to call out the blatant racism. (Cue some middle-aged man called Barry on Facebook moaning: “There’s too many melts in the world.”) Well, in less than a minute of the first Fawlty Towers episode, there’s already a ‘joke’ about the Spanish waiter, Manuel - with him straight away the target of verbal abuse.

Hotel owner Basil Fawlty makes fun of his “strange dialect” and he even admits he only hired him because he’s “cheap.” And of course, the studio audience laughed along - because finding someone foreign.