Prunella Scales

Acting

Prunella Scales

Born 1932-06-22 · Sutton Abinger, Surrey, England, UK

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.

Acting credits

Wolf poster
6.1

An aging publisher becomes a demon wolf and, with this newfound youthful vigor, fights to keep his job.

Wolf

1994

Howards End poster
7.0

A saga of class relations and changing times in an Edwardian England on the brink of modernity, the film centers on liberal Margaret Schlegel, who, along with her sister Helen, becomes involved with two couples: wealthy, conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth, and the downwardly mobile working-class Leonard Bast and his mistress Jackie.

Howards End

1992

A Chorus of Disapproval poster
5.4

Guy Jones (Irons) moves to a small British town and joins the local amateur dramatics society as a way to meet people. However he soon finds the drama offstage far outweighs those onstage.

A Chorus of Disapproval

1989

The Boys from Brazil poster
6.7

Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman discovers a sinister and bizarre plot, masterminded by Dr. Josef Mengele, to rekindle the Third Reich.

The Boys from Brazil

1978

Emma poster
6.6

Emma Woodhouse is a congenial young lady who delights in meddling in other people’s affairs. She is perpetually trying to unite men and women who are utterly wrong for each other. Despite her interest in romance, Emma is clueless about her own feelings, and her relationship with gentle Mr. Knightley.

Emma

1996

Hobson's Choice poster
7.4

A widower refuses to let his three daughters marry in order to avoid paying settlements, so they'll just have to outsmart him.

Hobson's Choice

1954

Sub Rosa poster
5.0

Sub Rosa observes the 8 year old Tilda, she lives with her grandmother who runs a flower shop. The young girl roams around freely and discovers a world of indecent activities lurking behind the flower store walls.

Sub Rosa

2014

The Wicked Lady poster
4.9

Caroline is to be wed to Sir Ralph and invites her sister Barbara to be her bridesmaid. Barbara seduces Ralph, however, and she becomes the new Lady, but despite her new wealthy situation, she gets bored and turns to highway robbery for thrills. While on the road she meets a famous highwayman, and they continue as a team, but some people begin suspecting her identity, and she risks death if she continues her nefarious activities.

The Wicked Lady

1983

Consuming Passions poster
8.3

Adapted from a play written by two Monty Python vets, this toothy satire launches with a tragic accident at Chumley's chocolate factory when hapless manager Ian Littleton accidentally knocks several employees into a huge chocolate vat. The tragic mishap at the chocolate factory results in candy lovers getting an unexpected 'extra' in their sweets.

Consuming Passions

1988

An Awfully Big Adventure poster
6.5

Liverpool. 1947. Right after World War II, a star struck naive teenage girl joins a shabby theatre troupe in Liverpool. During a winter production of Peter Pan, the play quickly turns into a dark metaphor for youth as she becomes drawn into a web of sexual politics and intrigue and learns about the grown-up world of the theater.

An Awfully Big Adventure

1995

Second Best poster
6.8

The difficult relationship between a british postal officer and his adoptive son.

Second Best

1994

Room at the Top poster
6.9

An ambitious young accountant schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman.

Room at the Top

1958

My Friend Walter poster
7.0

Bess Throckmorton, a farmer's daughter from Devon, encounters an ancient relative who soon reveals himself to be the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh, determined to escape the Tower of London once and for all and return to Devon. When Sir Raleigh learns that a pair of dastardly brothers have designs on his ancestors' farm, he devises a plan to thwart them.

My Friend Walter

1992

Freddie As F.R.O.7. poster
5.2

Frederick is a young medieval French prince with magical powers, turned into a frog by his evil sorceress aunt, who kills his father in a bid to seize the throne. After being pursued by his aunt, the prince is saved by the Loch Ness Monster, who indebts herself to him, and hides out with a colony of anthropomorphic frogs for a time. After ultimately deciding to accept his fate and fight evil using his powers, Freddie grows to the size of an adult human, travels to the future, and becomes a French secret agent with a sentient car.

Freddie As F.R.O.7.

1992

Stiff Upper Lips poster
5.6

Stiff Upper Lips is a broad parody of British period films, especially the lavish Merchant-Ivory productions of the 'eighties and early 'nineties. Although it specifically targets A Room with a View, Chariots of Fire, Maurice, A Passage to India, and many other films, in a more general way Stiff Upper Lips satirises popular perceptions of certain Edwardian traits: propriety, sexual repression, xenophobia, and class snobbery.

Stiff Upper Lips

1998

Horrid Henry: The Movie poster
5.2

When Henry fails yet again to hand in his homework for the umpteenth time, he has no idea that this will set off a chain of events which will see him forming an unlikely alliance with Moody Margaret, the infuriating girl next door, and his irritating little brother Perfect Peter, outwitting corrupt school Inspectors and toppling an evil Headmaster, winning a talent contest and facing his ultimate nemesis with no way out.

Horrid Henry: The Movie

2011

Fair Game poster
4.8

It is 1970, there is World Cup and General Election fever. Marco, a wealthy Italian, has come to England to discover his true identity. Carl, a student, is torn between canvassing for the Labour party, watching the World Cup or going on a walking holiday with his girlfriend Ellie. Their paths cross in Preston library and the three take an epic journey across the Pennines.

Fair Game

1994

Revolting Rhymes poster
NR

Six of the best-loved nursery rhymes retold, with some extremely amusing twists, by the master of the comic and blood-curdling, Roald Dahl.

Revolting Rhymes

1990

Bosses From Hell poster
NR

John Cleese training video about bosses.

Bosses From Hell

1989

Dirty Beasts poster
NR

Roald Dahl, that master of wicked humour, has created a ghastly menagerie of dirty beasts - all doing the most extraordinary and unmentionable things, in irreverent and absurdly comic verse. Including Crocky-Wock, the crocodile, who every Saturday has six young children for his lunch and how Miss Milky Daisy, the cow, punished a very rude man.

Dirty Beasts

1990

Mad Cows poster
4.4

When her TV star husband Alex decides to divorce her so that he can start a career in politics, newly single mother Maddy goes shoplifting and ends up in jail. Losing custody of her infant child, Maddy hatches a scheme to break out of prison with the assistance of her friend Gillian, who's avoiding the law herself for credit card fraud. Now Maddy has to find the couple who have adopted her son and avoid falling in love with selfish Alex all over again.

Mad Cows

1999

Home Cooking poster
NR

The abused neglected wife of a loutish hotelier begins to suspect that her husband is the serial rapist that has been terrorizing the area.

Home Cooking

1986

The Shell Seekers poster
6.9

Penelope Keeling, a sixty-four-year-old daughter of a famous artist, reflects on her life, and the fate and choices that defined it, when she arrives in the Mediterranean to stay with her headstrong daughter. Shifting through time, and falling into place like the pieces of a jigsaw, the truth of Penelope's rich, heartbreaking and surprising life unfolds.

The Shell Seekers

2007

Natural Causes poster
8.0

Comedy thriller. Walter Bryce hires the professional services of the sinister Vincent to eliminate his rich, neurotic wife, Celia. All this to achieve a place in the sun with his secretary Angie. What seems to be a neat idea goes wrong when Vincent becomes involved on a personal level.

Natural Causes

1988