Basil Fotherington-Tomas is a classic fictional character in a series of books by
Geoffrey Willans
Herbert Geoffrey Willans, RNVR, (4 February 1911 – 6 August 1958), an English writer and journalist, is best known as the creator of Nigel Molesworth, the "goriller of 3B" and "curse of St. Custard's", as in the four books with illustrations ...
and
Ronald Searle featuring the archetypal English
prep school
Preparatory school or prep school may refer to: Schools
*Preparatory school (United Kingdom), an independent school preparing children aged 8–13 for entry into fee-charging independent schools, usually public schools
*College-preparatory school, ...
boy of the 1950s,
Nigel Molesworth, who is the supposed author.
Nigel is a schoolboy at
St. Custard's
Nigel Molesworth is a fictional character, the supposed author of a series of books about life in an English prep school named St Custard's. The books were written by Geoffrey Willans, with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle.
The Moleswort ...
, a fictional (and terrible) prep school located in a carefully unspecified part of England. Nigel's spelling is extremely uneven, a feature found endearing by fans.
While Nigel epitomises the worthy inky and earthy school boy, Fotherington-Tomas is the opposite, being an effete and loathed
sissy. Fotherington-Tomas is reported to bear a certain resemblance to
Little Lord Fauntleroy; while he is also a student at St. Custard's, he is regularly dismissed as a being a "gurl" and a sissy by Molesworth, due to his curly blond locks and his questionable tendency to skip around the school saying such things as "hullo clouds, hullo sky". In several footballing scenes in the books, Fotherington-Tomas plays in goal. He is a surprisingly talented
tennis player.
Other appearances
*Fotherington-Tomas also occasionally appears as a name in ''
Private Eye
''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satire, satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely r ...
'' magazine, usually as a pupil of the spoof public school
St. Cake's.
*In ''
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century'' chapter 2, "Paint it Black", we see Fotherington-Tomas in 1969. He is the
Brian Jones of the League universe, and was in a band with
Turner, the League's
Mick Jagger. Shortly before being drowned in his own swimming pool by occultists, Basil engages in sexual acts with Wolfe from the film ''
Villain''.
*In the short story collection ''
Back in the USSA'' by
Kim Newman and
Eugene Byrne, he appears in the story "Teddy Bear's Picnic" as the analogue of
Colonel Kurtz
Colonel Walter Kurtz, portrayed by Marlon Brando, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film ''Apocalypse Now''. Colonel Kurtz is based on the character of a nineteenth-century ivory trader, also cal ...
from the film ''
Apocalypse Now''. "Hello clouds, hello sky, hello pile of severed human heads."
*Fotherington-Tomas appears in the 1982 ZX Spectrum BASIC manual as an example of a disallowed variable name "because of the hyphen - a space would be fine".
Books featuring Fotherington-Tomas
* ''Down with Skool'' (1953)
* ''How to be Topp'' (1954)
* ''Whizz for Atomms'' (1956)
* ''Back in the Jug Agane'' (1959)
* ''The Lost Diaries of Nigel Molesworth'' (2022)
Characters in British novels
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