Samuel West has revealed that he lost sleep over planning his late mother Prunella Scales' memorial. The All Creatures Great and Small actor spoke candidly about the Fawlty Towers star's passing in a new episode of Channel 5's Sam & Ade Go Birding, where he reunited with his close friend Ade Edmondson.
Insomnia and the memorial
During the episode, which saw the pair venture to West Wales during breeding season, Samuel opened up about his mother's death in October 2025. He admitted he had been awake since 3.20am, partly due to his thoughts about the memorial.
Ade shared his own experience with sleep, saying: "I used to not be able to sleep, I used to have quite bad insomnia and now I take a pill, it just sort of quietens my mind, I just lie there thinking." Samuel then admitted: "I've got to get my mum's memorial over, that's the main thing at the moment."
Ade sympathised with his friend, saying: "I can see how that can be. It could keep you awake."
Prunella Scales' life and legacy
Prunella died aged 93, having been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013. She was best known for portraying hotel manager Sybil Fawlty alongside John Cleese in the beloved British sitcom Fawlty Towers.
Speaking about his anxieties surrounding the memorial, Samuel confessed: "It's quite a difficult life to sum up in an hour and 20 minutes, I want to do it as well as I can." Ade suggested that the memorial is "not actually for her" but rather for her friends and family, "to share the sense of her going".
Memorial speakers and personal reflections
Samuel shared details of the service, revealing that her co-star John Cleese would be speaking, as would former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock, who shared a decades-long friendship with Prunella rooted in their mutual dedication to political activism.
"I want her to be remembered as a friend of progressive causes, and so does he [Kinnock]," Sam shared. "And Cleese wants us to show a bit of Fawlty Towers because he thinks she's a genius comic actress, which she was. And then Joe [Samuel's brother] and I will give a eulogy that's about remembering her as a loving, supportive person over all our lives, really."
Samuel also disclosed that he "called her mummy for a bit and then ma, never called her mum". Elsewhere in the episode, Ade admitted he had a "trickier" relationship with his own parents.
The pair had been discussing the role male birds play, with Samuel observing: "Dad is quite hands-on as well, does his fair share of nurturing." He then put it to Ade: "Were you a hands-on dad when your kids were small?"
"I think I was," Ade reflected. "It's hard, we both worked an awful lot whilst our kids were small. I enjoyed having girls, it's made me a different person, I think. I've got a trickier relationship with my parents. Whenever I have sort of faced parental difficulty, I have always thought, 'What would my dad do?' Because I must do the exact opposite if I want my kids to love me."
Sam & Ade Go Birding broadcasts every Thursday at 7pm on Channel 5.
