Prunella Scales
Acting
Biography
Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales CBE (née Illingworth; 22 June 1932) was an English former actor, best known for playing Sybil Fawlty, wife of Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers; for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in A Question of Attribution (Screen One, BBC 1991) by Alan Bennett (for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award); and for the documentary series Great Canal Journeys (2014–2021), in which she travels on canal barges and narrowboats with her husband, fellow actor Timothy West.
As actor 106
Midsomer Murders
1997
Casualty
1986
Silent Witness
1996
Loose Women
1999
Film '72
1971
Agatha Christie's Marple
2004
The BBC Television Shakespeare
1978
BBC Play of the Month
1965
Bergerac
1981
Playhouse
1974
Thirty-Minute Theatre
1965
Dalziel and Pascoe
1996
An Audience with...
1978
ScreenPlay
1986
Screen One
1989
Fawlty Towers
1975
Never the Twain
1981
Wolf
1994
Dennis the Menace and Gnasher
1996
After Henry
1988
Target
1977
Howards End
1992
Unnatural Causes
1986
The Boys from Brazil
1978
Country Matters
1972
Pickersgill People
1978
Mapp & Lucia
1985
Great Canal Journeys
2014
Emma
1996
Weekend Playhouse
1984
Faces of Jim
1961
Seven of One
1973
Theatre Night
1985
The Rector's Wife
1994
Marriage Lines
1961
Fair Game
1994
Second Best
1994
Mr. Big
1977
Consuming Passions
1988
Horrid Henry: The Movie
2011
The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends: The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Mr. Jeremy Fisher
1994
An Awfully Big Adventure
1995
Sub Rosa
2014
Room at the Top
1958
The Wicked Lady
1983
Look at the State We're In!
1995
Hobson's Choice
1954
Home Cooking
1986
Keeping Mum
1997
Looking for Victoria
2003
Dickens
2002
Natural Causes
1988
Dirty Beasts
1990
Pride and Prejudice
1952
Freddie As F.R.O.7.
1992
Signs and Wonders
1995
Thompson
1988
The World of Lee Evans
1995
Revolting Rhymes
1990
The Shell Seekers
2007
S.W.A.L.K.
1982
Laxdale Hall
1953
A Chorus of Disapproval
1989
Think
2007
Run For Your Wife
2012
Stiff Upper Lips
1998
The Hound of the Baskervilles
1978
Mad Cows
1999
The Funny Blokes of British Comedy
2005
The Merry Wives of Windsor
1982
Waltz of the Toreadors
1962
The Apple Cart
1975
50 Years of BBC Two Comedy
2014
The Phone Call
2013
The Royal
2003
My Friend Walter
1992
An Ideal Husband
1999
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
1987
When We Are Married
1987
Breaking the Code
1996
The Crowded Day
1954
Station Jim
2001
What Every Woman Wants
1954
The Littlest Horse Thieves
1976
The Achurch Letters
1977
Lord of Misrule
1996
Bosses From Hell
1989
The Ring of Truth
1973
The Cancellation Of Fawlty Towers
2025
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson
1990
Slimming Down
1984
Doris and Doreen
1978
A Question of Attribution
1991
Outside Edge
1982
Fawlty Towers Revisited
2005
Beyond The Pale
1989
Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened
2009
Communicators From Hell
1989
Singles
1983
Mr. Loveday's Little Outing
2006
What the Pythons Did Next...
2007
Absurd Person Singular
1985
An Audience with Alf Garnett
1997
The Ghost of Greville Lodge
2000
What the Butler Saw
1987
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
2002