Sybil sees her role as socialising with the guests and seems to spend more time on the telephone to her friend Audrey than actually helping out in the hotel. She is a worthy opponent for Basil and appears completely unfazed by his insults, as well as adding many of her own.

Prunella Scales played the part very differently to the way Cleese and Booth had originally envisaged. This worried them at first but they soon came to realise that the way she played the part was in fact better, and when they wrote the second series they were able to write the dialogue with her in mind.

It is difficult to see how Basil and Sybil ever got together in the first place - Sybil says her mother describes it as 'black magic.' However, Basil's attempt to organise a surprise party in The Anniversary for their 15th wedding anniversary does suggest that there is some affection between them, although it is unclear how much of this is real affection and how much is an attempt on Basil's part to avoid 'what happened last time he didn't remember'.