Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:00This is the story of how one sitcom became one of the best-loved and most-watched shows of all time.
00:00:11And created the most beloved Christmas specials in TV history.
00:00:16When I hear those stories about how much pleasure it's given a lot of people,
00:00:23it gives me a great reward.
00:00:25One, two, three...
00:00:28Yes!
00:00:29Yes, tonight, in the company of the great Del Boy himself...
00:00:33Potpourri! Potpourri!
00:00:35..we're celebrating the greatest moments of the fabulous festive episodes...
00:00:39Our coach has just blown up.
00:00:41..of Only Fools And Horses.
00:00:43Which way to Holland?
00:00:45With cast...
00:00:46Is it Derek?
00:00:47Raquel?
00:00:48Everyone everywhere had watched it.
00:00:50..crew...
00:00:51It was a bloody nightmare.
00:00:52..and famous fans.
00:00:54It's just brilliant.
00:00:55What an episode.
00:00:56Leave it out, you tart!
00:00:58It's timeless.
00:00:59You rotten...
00:01:00It's just perfect.
00:01:02Who thinks of that?
00:01:03We're celebrating the trotters.
00:01:05There is this extraordinary bond between the two of them.
00:01:08What's that dirty-looking thing?
00:01:09Revelling in the greatest scenes.
00:01:11That is your uncle, Rodney.
00:01:14I couldn't stop laughing cos it was so funny.
00:01:17..along with rarely-seen moments.
00:01:19These white mice did not turn into horses.
00:01:22Really?
00:01:23There was nothing to touch it.
00:01:25..and hearing backstage secrets.
00:01:27It wasn't a trick because it was actually done.
00:01:31We took all night doing it.
00:01:33..and Sir David Jason will share
00:01:35which one of all the fabulous Christmas moments
00:01:37is his favourite of all.
00:01:39It really is difficult to choose.
00:01:41So prepare to have your ribs tickled...
00:01:44I fought for free speech.
00:01:46Shut up.
00:01:47..as we celebrate Christmas with the trotters.
00:01:54Oh, and Merry Christmas.
00:01:57Yeah.
00:01:58And a partridge up your pear tree and all your salty old bits.
00:02:01When it came to the Christmas specials,
00:02:03we all had a great time making it.
00:02:07It was fun.
00:02:09Throughout the 1980s and 90s,
00:02:11Christmas wasn't Christmas without turkey,
00:02:14tinsel and an annual trip to Peckham...
00:02:19..for a festive feast of marvellous moments.
00:02:22Sorry.
00:02:23The only Fools And Horses Christmas special
00:02:25was required viewing.
00:02:27Not only was Fools And Horses Christmas special
00:02:31the highlight of Christmas for me,
00:02:34but it was for the whole family.
00:02:39I think everyone in the country, after the Queen's Speech,
00:02:43that's what they all did.
00:02:45They watched the Christmas special of Any Fools And Horses.
00:02:47You know what I said to him the night that we came up with the scheme?
00:02:50This time next year, we'll be millionaires.
00:02:52I said, this time next year, we'll be millionaires.
00:02:56It was like a Christmas present.
00:03:001981 was a year of firsts.
00:03:03March saw the first London Marathon.
00:03:06In July, Prince Charles married his first wife,
00:03:09and in what would be a far longer-lasting love affair,
00:03:12on 28th December, the nation got the first
00:03:15only Fools And Horses festive special, Christmas crackers.
00:03:21Oh, Bain-Marie. Bain-Marie.
00:03:24That episode, it just...
00:03:26It's got a lot in it that captures why
00:03:29Only Fools And Horses was so brilliant.
00:03:31That very first one was amazing
00:03:35because he had the electric knife.
00:03:39We had the identical electric knife
00:03:43that Mrs P would use on Christmas.
00:03:47Must get a plug put on this thing, Rodney.
00:03:50After watching that show,
00:03:52the finest thing we would do is unplug her.
00:03:54What we get in that first Christmas special
00:03:56is some classic Only Fools And Horses moments
00:03:59and really sums up that family dynamic.
00:04:01Grandad, he looks after the home, that's the idea.
00:04:04He's going to cook meals for everyone,
00:04:06but he's not very good at it.
00:04:09Not bad. Not bad, Grandad.
00:04:12Slightly underdone, maybe.
00:04:15Slightly underdone.
00:04:17I reckon A Kiss Of Life would revive that, too.
00:04:19It's just a breathtaking piece of writing
00:04:21because although Del is the comedy star,
00:04:24Rodney has these little moments of genius.
00:04:27These moments of genius were almost unseen.
00:04:30The BBC only asked for a festive helping of Only Fools,
00:04:33just to see if it was worth it.
00:04:35The BBC only asked for a festive helping of Only Fools
00:04:38just six weeks before Christmas.
00:04:41Bless him.
00:04:43John Sullivan was under a lot of pressure.
00:04:46It wasn't really enough time to do it for Christmas.
00:04:51We should have asked him months before.
00:04:53And so we're all sitting there, like, two weeks before Christmas,
00:04:57going...
00:04:58WHISTLES
00:05:00What are we... Are we doing the show?
00:05:02They said, yeah, yeah, we're doing...
00:05:04Where's the script? We haven't got a script yet.
00:05:07Filmed just a week before transmission...
00:05:09What they do is they take the giblets out, put it in a plastic bag
00:05:12and they put it back inside the turkey, don't they?
00:05:15Didn't they? Yeah.
00:05:17The final show was far more fabulous than Grandad's foul feast.
00:05:21You took the bag out, didn't you?
00:05:23Oh, didn't I? It was in there.
00:05:25Oh, my God.
00:05:27Because we all knew each other
00:05:30and because we just loved the show so much,
00:05:33we all just knuckled down and got on with it and enjoyed it.
00:05:39The Only Fools And Horses Christmas episodes have become iconic.
00:05:43But here's a moment from a 1982 BBC comedy special
00:05:47that may be less familiar.
00:05:51Silly old...
00:05:52Here, Rodney, chuck that away, will you?
00:05:55Look, you could have quite easily have made some fresh, couldn't you?
00:06:00LAUGHTER
00:06:06This six-minute sketch, called Christmas Trees,
00:06:09is also known as The Lost Episode,
00:06:11as it's seldom been broadcast for 40 years.
00:06:14Isn't that beautiful? That is raised a chasse, as they say in Fiat.
00:06:18Even as a lifelong fan,
00:06:20I hadn't seen that Christmas Trees sketch in the market.
00:06:24But it's timeless.
00:06:26You have to struggle with it like you do the old forest-type Christmas tree
00:06:30because this tree falls down.
00:06:35It's all about Del Boy trying to sell some slightly dodgy Christmas trees.
00:06:40You've got no ethics.
00:06:42You don't even know what ethics are, do you?
00:06:45Yeah.
00:06:46Ethics?
00:06:47You make model aeroplanes, don't you?
00:06:50Incredible underline jokes that go with it together.
00:06:55I loved it.
00:06:57The first two series of Only Fools And Horses
00:07:00saw viewing figures of around eight million,
00:07:03a hit by today's standard but not so impressive in the early 80s.
00:07:07Series two of Only Fools And Horses was not that successful
00:07:10and John Sullivan was really downcast about it,
00:07:13but it was repeated in the summer of that year
00:07:15and suddenly it was huge in the ratings.
00:07:18Which meant that 1983 marked a milestone,
00:07:21a coveted Christmas Day slot for Thicker Than Water,
00:07:25where we met a ghost of 18 Christmases past.
00:07:29Reg, this is Rodney.
00:07:31Rodney, I'd like you to meet your dad.
00:07:38The way that John had written him was he...
00:07:42What can I say?
00:07:44He wasn't really a very pleasant sort of character.
00:07:47Dear boy, good to see you, son.
00:07:49Pour yourself a drink.
00:07:51Delboy's patently angry that his father's turned up.
00:07:54You can see the anger that he feels
00:07:57about being deserted by their father.
00:08:00He's back now.
00:08:01What, after 18 years? Did his watch stop?
00:08:05Stone me, Rodney, we see more of Hayley's Comet than we do him.
00:08:09It made me angry watching this because, you know,
00:08:12the frustration that Delboy has trying to explain to Rodney,
00:08:15look, you don't understand, this man just went away.
00:08:18One of the Only Fools And Horses themes, I think, over the years
00:08:22was for Del to say something funny in a really sad moment
00:08:27or an emotional moment, in the way that a lot of us do,
00:08:30which I think is what gives it that genius.
00:08:32Do you know, once when I was a kid, I was doing me own work
00:08:35and I asked him what a cubic foot was.
00:08:37He said he didn't know but he tried to have a week off work with it.
00:08:41And, of course, that just was typical of John Sullivan.
00:08:47He made a wonderful piece of comedy
00:08:50out of a piece of tragedy, if you like.
00:08:54You can have humour, you can have good acting,
00:08:58but if you haven't got heart, you haven't really got a programme.
00:09:01And I think what this programme has is heart and kindness.
00:09:07Qualities this episode had in spades.
00:09:10As Del Boy sent his dad away, he did it with both heart and kindness.
00:09:16You can see the heart of Del Boy
00:09:19and he's not going to let him go with nothing.
00:09:22So you know what Del Boy is.
00:09:25And it's just the most beautiful moment.
00:09:28Ten million tuned in to watch the first and only appearance
00:09:31of Reg Trotter, and the last for Grandad.
00:09:35Leonard Pierce died as filming began on series four.
00:09:39We all loved the show so much and we loved working together
00:09:44that suddenly to hear that Leonard had passed...
00:09:49See you!
00:09:51Yes, see you, Grandad.
00:09:53..was a terrible shock for all of us.
00:09:58We had to stop filming and we didn't know quite what was going to happen.
00:10:05Coming up...
00:10:07Which way to Holland?
00:10:09..the Christmas specials get more elaborate.
00:10:12It was the most expensive joke ever to have been perpetrated.
00:10:23Christmas is all about family.
00:10:26But when it came to brotherly love,
00:10:28there was none greater than that between Del Boy and Rodney Trotter.
00:10:33Most of the time.
00:10:40You couldn't have had a better co-partner than Nick.
00:10:46He said to me, I'll always want to be your wingman.
00:10:51We liked and respected each other so much
00:10:55and we were genuinely good friends.
00:10:58What you never lost because of those two great performances
00:11:01was the love that the two had for each other as brothers.
00:11:04All I ever got was a 50-yard certificate at school.
00:11:08Well, you only need to swim 50 yards.
00:11:10Down.
00:11:12On your bike.
00:11:14You could believe they were brothers.
00:11:16There was a deep bond between them,
00:11:18but they fight like cat and dog some of the time.
00:11:20They both got so brilliant that it was sort of effortless and we knew them.
00:11:24They almost didn't have to say very much for us to know what was going on.
00:11:29I can't think of two better people to have learnt from
00:11:31than David Jason and Nick Lindhurst.
00:11:33The Christmas specials were always centred
00:11:35around the holy trinity of Trotters.
00:11:38It's a joke.
00:11:41He was just talking about wallies.
00:11:46But following the death of Leonard Pierce in 1984,
00:11:49just as Series 4 started filming,
00:11:52the whole future of the show was thrown into doubt.
00:11:55John's decision was, do we recast?
00:11:58In other words, Grandad lives on with a different actor playing it,
00:12:02and I think John rejected that in probably a minute flat.
00:12:06And then we thought, well,
00:12:08what we'll do is we'll introduce another character.
00:12:12We'll get a member of the family that was a long-lost member.
00:12:17Enter Uncle Albert,
00:12:19who would go on to appear in 13 Christmas specials.
00:12:23What's that dirty-looking thing?
00:12:26That's for Uncle Rodney.
00:12:29He brought another side to the Trotters,
00:12:33and I mean a really clever way of not replicating a character
00:12:37who's no longer there,
00:12:39but actually maintaining that sort of triumvirate
00:12:42between the three of them.
00:12:45Uncle Albert would become a firm fan favourite
00:12:48in the festive editions of Only Fools,
00:12:50but Buster Merrifield, who played him, wasn't even a trained actor.
00:12:54It's just extraordinary, because he was an amateur actor
00:12:58who had been a bank manager, but he put his photograph in
00:13:01and they thought, oh, that looks good,
00:13:03and it's obviously the extravagant white beard.
00:13:06And, of course, at Christmas time, you think it's Father Christmas.
00:13:09It's just perfect.
00:13:11Uncle Albert, that well-known naval captain
00:13:17of Her Majesty's Navy, was another great character.
00:13:22This Christmas special was complete without his wartime reminiscing.
00:13:26During the war...
00:13:28During the war...
00:13:29During the war, he was always going, during the war...
00:13:32Boy, watch it, he's a war hero, he's got a right to speak.
00:13:35I fought for free speech.
00:13:37Shut up.
00:13:39During the war...
00:13:41If you say during the war once more,
00:13:44I'm going to pour this cup of tea right over your head.
00:13:46I wasn't going to say during the war.
00:13:48Well, that's all right, then.
00:13:50Oh, no. You all right?
00:13:52I'm sorry. Thank you.
00:13:55During the 1939-1945 conflict in Germany...
00:14:00He probably didn't go to war at all.
00:14:03Uncle Albert would be front and centre
00:14:05in the 1985 Christmas special To Hull and Back,
00:14:09which saw the Trotters charter a boat to Holland,
00:14:12putting Uncle Albert at the helm.
00:14:14What could possibly go wrong?
00:14:16Ahoy there!
00:14:18Ship ahoy!
00:14:20Dale, every single ship or vessel that man has ever sailed on has sank.
00:14:24I know.
00:14:25That's got to change sometime, innit, Rodney?
00:14:28The BBC stumped up the budget to do a feature-length episode.
00:14:32A large budget, £850,000, this cost.
00:14:35And that's a bit of a gamble,
00:14:37but the show had become so popular at that point
00:14:39that they were prepared to do it.
00:14:41This is a show that basically started in a flat,
00:14:44and that was its main scene,
00:14:46and then suddenly it's kind of big and it's out in the real world,
00:14:49so it's quite a shock for the viewer, but it's quite wow as well.
00:14:53We were going to Amsterdam,
00:14:56and how to get there was a bit of a problem,
00:15:00so we thought we'd hire a boat to take us there.
00:15:04Albert, slow down, you're going too fast.
00:15:07Hey! To your right!
00:15:10Got a captain, you know,
00:15:13that was Uncle Albert, you know.
00:15:16You mean starboard! I mean right!
00:15:19Don't start all that Captain Birdseye, bloody cobblers!
00:15:22I said right!
00:15:23Finally being at sea with the guy who goes on about being at sea
00:15:26all the time is funny, and, um...
00:15:30..and it draws you in.
00:15:32This episode called for location filming on the North Sea.
00:15:36Cast and crew set sail to bring us Christmas special TV magic.
00:15:40In those days, there was nothing called health and safety,
00:15:44so I think we probably just went down to the docks
00:15:47and saw that and that all looked, some scruffy old boat,
00:15:50found out who owned it, and we booked it.
00:15:54This island race, this septic isle.
00:15:59We didn't think anything of it at the time, absolutely nothing.
00:16:03Us Brits, we've got salt water flowing through our veins.
00:16:07We shut up about blood and veins.
00:16:10We set out in this boat, all of us, go out into the ocean.
00:16:14Wait till we get out there on the big waves.
00:16:17We'll be going up and down and up and down.
00:16:22And we were ricketing about in the middle of the North Sea.
00:16:25This boat's going, I mean,
00:16:27and I'd be fascinated to know how they sort of survived it.
00:16:31All the costume department were seasick,
00:16:33the cameraman was feeling sick.
00:16:35And the boom at one point holding the sound
00:16:37because the boom operator was being sick.
00:16:39You're sick, Dale.
00:16:41Oh, bleep it out, you tart!
00:16:44David and Nick were kind of, I think...
00:16:46No, Nick wasn't feeling great.
00:16:48Oh, God.
00:16:51And while much of the action could be filmed in close-up on the harbour,
00:16:55there was one particular moment that required the boat to go offshore.
00:16:59Quite a bit offshore.
00:17:01All the way to an oil rig.
00:17:04The problem was that we soon realised
00:17:08that Uncle Albert wasn't quite as well-equipped
00:17:13about navigation as he purported to be.
00:17:19And so what the joke was,
00:17:22we stop at the bottom of the oil rig
00:17:26and Derek Trotter shouts out...
00:17:28Oi! Oi! Jump!
00:17:32Holland!
00:17:34What?
00:17:35Which way to Holland?
00:17:38Holland?
00:17:40The float just looks at him and he's in this manky little trawler
00:17:44with Uncle Albert at the helm.
00:17:47And he just looks at him and he just points that way and goes...
00:17:51It's over there!
00:17:53Cheers, pal!
00:17:55Albert, Holland is that way.
00:17:59What you saw on that boat in fiction was like them all going,
00:18:03what the hell are these idiots doing?
00:18:05Was it like it in real life?
00:18:07What are these idiots doing in the middle of the sea?
00:18:10Rodney Sea? Don't know the way, just got to ask someone, hadn't you?
00:18:14Despite being a mere 40 seconds long,
00:18:17this iconic scene took a 12-hour round trip to film.
00:18:21So that was the day to do one line, really, basically.
00:18:29Very funny.
00:18:30That episode was one of the, if not the, most expensive joke
00:18:36ever to have been perpetrated, certainly by the BBC,
00:18:40if not for television, the world over.
00:18:44Who thinks of that?
00:18:46You know, obviously John Sullivan.
00:18:48It was absolutely brilliant.
00:18:50For them to be spending the level of money that they spent
00:18:55as Thousand Horses grew was unparalleled.
00:19:00But they knew they could attract tens of millions of viewers
00:19:05on Christmas Day.
00:19:07It was the highlight. There was nothing to touch it.
00:19:11So hilarious was this epic tale of hijinks on the high seas,
00:19:15the BBC decided to go head-to-head with rivals ITV
00:19:19in the battle for viewers.
00:19:22There's always been a rivalry between the BBC and ITV,
00:19:24especially at Christmas.
00:19:25This was a jewel in the crown for the BBC's schedules at Christmas
00:19:29and they very deliberately put it up
00:19:31against ITV's big hope of Minder.
00:19:34I remember that we were disappointed
00:19:37because Minder was one of the big successful shows that ITV had.
00:19:44That was sort of so dangerous because we thought
00:19:49we're going to lose a lot of the audience to ITV.
00:19:53There was a time when you can't just stick the video on
00:19:57or set the digital box to record it.
00:20:00People would be, I've got to make a choice now.
00:20:04I've either got to watch Minder
00:20:06or we've got to watch Thousand Horses.
00:20:09An auntie went all out with their press campaign,
00:20:13as seen in this rare BBC Breakfast news sketch.
00:20:16Mr Trotter, are you assured, Mr Buttons,
00:20:19that these white mice were magic and they'd turn into horses?
00:20:22Did I say that? You most certainly did.
00:20:24Turn into horses? Yes.
00:20:25And I'm here to tell you, Mr Trotter, that, surprise, surprise,
00:20:29these white mice did not turn into horses.
00:20:32Really?
00:20:33I suppose, in Michael Gray's mind, it was,
00:20:38well, we're going to pinch your audience, that's what it...
00:20:42We've got the best show.
00:20:44With almost 17 million of us tuning in,
00:20:47only Fools were the clear winners, over ITV's 12.5 million.
00:20:51So, actually, Michael Gray'd won his point, really, didn't he?
00:20:56You know, so it was quite an achievement, really.
00:20:59Nobody, even Minder, no-one could compete with it.
00:21:03There's no-one.
00:21:04I don't know anybody who would have competed
00:21:06with only Fools in that time.
00:21:08And every year, it got better and better.
00:21:12And the following year's Christmas special...
00:21:15Good shot, you guys.
00:21:16..which saw the Trotters mingling with high society
00:21:19got almost 19 million viewers.
00:21:21Come on, where are you?
00:21:23I know you're out there somewhere, you three-wheeled jello.
00:21:27But despite its popularity, behind the scenes,
00:21:30it was far from plain sailing.
00:21:32Good morning, Charlie Hodale.
00:21:34Royal Flush was a late decision by the BBC
00:21:38to want a show for that Christmas period.
00:21:41I think the filming was squeezed into a few weeks
00:21:44and a lot of factors conspired against us.
00:21:47Nick Linterst went down with about a flu.
00:21:50David Jason lost his voice and they lost filming days because of that.
00:21:54The problems of Royal Flush sort of went right down to the wire.
00:21:58Finally, it was still being edited,
00:22:00actually, early hours of Christmas Day, on the day it was shown.
00:22:03Would you like these, sir?
00:22:05No, I can't listen to music while I'm shooting.
00:22:08The show was only completed hours before transmission.
00:22:11Right, ready when you are, John.
00:22:13Do you mean Paul?
00:22:14But it did have some cracking Christmas moments.
00:22:17In your own time, my son.
00:22:23It was wonderful because it's like Bonnie and Clyde, isn't it?
00:22:26Just up and bang, bang, both of them gone.
00:22:30I'll be all right when I get me eye in.
00:22:33And the incredulity of Jack Hedley,
00:22:35who plays the father of Rodney's posh girlfriend.
00:22:38It was great.
00:22:39Where did you get that gun from?
00:22:41Iggy Iggins.
00:22:42Iggy Iggins robs banks?
00:22:44No, but it's Saturday.
00:22:47The best line after is about the fact that, you know,
00:22:50this gun was used in some properties.
00:22:53It's an actual real gun.
00:22:55The Christmas specials weren't just entertaining,
00:22:58festive ratings winners.
00:23:00John Sullivan also used them as a chance
00:23:02to introduce key new characters,
00:23:04not least in 1988's BAFTA-winning Dates.
00:23:08Is it Derek?
00:23:10Raquel?
00:23:11Yes.
00:23:12Hi.
00:23:13Hello.
00:23:14That was the very first scene I ever filmed with David
00:23:18and I remember being quite nervous
00:23:21and I remember walking in and Roger Lloyd-Pack,
00:23:24who played Trigger, said,
00:23:26oh, welcome on board,
00:23:28your life will never quite be the same again.
00:23:31It was quite obvious that Del couldn't go on being,
00:23:35you know, couldn't go on being a bachelor,
00:23:37he'd have a wife.
00:23:39And you need to have a female character to play off.
00:23:43So in terms of the structure of the programme,
00:23:47Raquel was the vital element.
00:23:50This is a bit like Brief Encounter, isn't it?
00:23:52It's my favourite film.
00:23:54Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:23:56Yeah, and it's mine. Yeah, mine.
00:23:58Really? Yeah.
00:24:00When we came to do this scene at Waterloo Station,
00:24:03it was meant to be not in the middle of rush hour,
00:24:06so they closed off Waterloo Station.
00:24:08That's the power of fools and horses.
00:24:10They kept everybody back for 15, 20 minutes
00:24:13while we filmed these sequences.
00:24:15My favourite bit is when the big spaceship comes down
00:24:18and all the little marshes come out.
00:24:22That's Close Encounters.
00:24:25Yeah, I love it.
00:24:27That was the first thing we ever did when I was in the programme,
00:24:30meeting under the clock at Waterloo Station.
00:24:32I don't think anyone realised, of course,
00:24:34probably how iconic that scene was going to be long-term.
00:24:37At the time, it was just a rather sweet way of two people
00:24:40on a dating agency meeting under a clock.
00:24:43And then, of course, it came out on Christmas Day and Boxing Day,
00:24:47and, yeah, it was amazing.
00:24:49I mean, everyone everywhere had watched it,
00:24:52but it certainly did change my life.
00:24:55But I think it's unfair to say that everything he touches goes wrong.
00:24:59Coming up, an explosive Christmas moment.
00:25:03Our coach has just blown up.
00:25:06It wasn't a trick because it was actually done.
00:25:10The entire studio just sort of exploded.
00:25:19The 80s was the decade of consumerism.
00:25:22Making money, spending money,
00:25:24yuppies would flaunt their wealth in displays of blatant one-upmanship
00:25:28right up Dell Street.
00:25:31Derek Trotter was very much like the Peacock.
00:25:34He spoke body language and he was young and fit
00:25:38and he symbolised all of those things.
00:25:42And the 1989 Christmas special Jolly Boys Outing
00:25:46saw Dell embrace this new yuppie world.
00:25:51Nowadays, it's the sort of game that guys like me and Steve would enjoy.
00:25:55How do you mean, guys like me and Steve?
00:25:58Oh, yeah, yuppies.
00:26:01Derek, I am not a yuppie.
00:26:04You are, Stephen.
00:26:06You are, Derek.
00:26:08I was that Dell yuppie at the time.
00:26:11I had a Burberry coat, I had a Filofax, I had a scarf.
00:26:16We just followed the trend and there was no way
00:26:19that Dell wasn't going to fake it till he made it.
00:26:22He had all the kit, so he had to have the coat and the Filofax
00:26:26and the mobile phone and it makes you laugh at yourself.
00:26:30I did that. I had a Filofax, I had a mobile phone.
00:26:34He wants to be a yuppie. We start to see the braces, he's got the Filofax.
00:26:38And then when he comes up against a real yuppie in Stephen,
00:26:42they don't see eye to eye.
00:26:44Sleepy Dawn rises to reveal Kilimanjaro
00:26:49in all its hypnotic majesty.
00:26:52Oh, sounds great.
00:26:55We're all going on a Beano to Margate next Saturday.
00:27:00And that Beano to Margate gave us some of the most iconic
00:27:04Christmas moments ever in this much-loved festive favourite.
00:27:08We were a team and because of that,
00:27:11we had a wonderful, wonderful working relationship.
00:27:15We could not stop laughing.
00:27:18Right, come on in, Denzel. Full ahead, both. We're off to Margate.
00:27:21The Jolly Boys outing is a much-loved episode.
00:27:24If you ask many people, they'd say it's their favourite
00:27:27because, you know, we all want to be there.
00:27:29We feel like we're there enjoying the day out with the gang.
00:27:32You see the brothers get together with everyone
00:27:36and they all go for this day trip to Margate
00:27:39and cause chaos, of course, as they always do.
00:27:42Everyone was there.
00:27:44Boise.
00:27:46Trigger. All right, Dave?
00:27:48In a joyful three-minute montage which required writer John Sullivan
00:27:52to focus heavily on the creative skills of the director.
00:27:57When I got the script, it said,
00:27:59''Bus comes into town, we're having...
00:28:02''Everybody's talking and over to you.''
00:28:06And I went, ''Oh, thanks.''
00:28:09The director had set it up that we should all run into the sea
00:28:15just to show how these silly men are being like children again.
00:28:20He explained what he wanted us to do was to all run in up to our knees
00:28:25and just paddle about for a minute.
00:28:28As we all ran down, I thought, ''This is too bloody cold, this.''
00:28:32So I turned round and ran back up,
00:28:35much to the surprise of everyone, including the director.
00:28:38We had great fun running in and out of the sea.
00:28:41I couldn't get out of the sea quick enough.
00:28:44Everything about that was a Jolly Boys outing, to be quite honest.
00:28:48And I realised that we were only halfway through the song
00:28:53and I still hadn't got enough.
00:28:55To actually allow the programme to take a breath
00:28:58and do that fantastic montage of them just having a good time down in Margate.
00:29:02It was a bloody nightmare!
00:29:05It was absolutely... I always remember it.
00:29:08Those actors, when they got together,
00:29:11in between takes, someone would crack a gag.
00:29:14They would never stop talking and laughing
00:29:17and it was an absolute nightmare.
00:29:20But it wasn't, obviously. It was great fun.
00:29:24And David Jason, one of his favourite sequences of all the Fool's things,
00:29:29and he said, ''Because we were allowed to do it.''
00:29:32But after all that fun in the sun,
00:29:34what followed was one of the most explosive and hilarious moments
00:29:38of Only Fool's Christmas history.
00:29:41Dill! Smoke coming from the radio!
00:29:43Well, you must have pressed the wrong button or something!
00:29:46It was one of the biggest jokes in it, again,
00:29:49that anybody had dared to do.
00:29:52John and I used to meet up every so often.
00:29:55We called it the script meeting,
00:29:57which basically meant we'd talk about the script
00:29:59and have a few glasses of wine.
00:30:01So this particular occasion, John said,
00:30:04''What we need to do is to...
00:30:08''Can we get a coach? Because I want to start a little fire.''
00:30:12Abandon ship! Come on, get up there!
00:30:14Come on, everybody! Hurry up!
00:30:17And I basically said, at the end of the night,
00:30:20''Oh, come on, John, let's just blow the fucker up.''
00:30:23It's unfair to say that everything he touches goes wrong.
00:30:36But that was how that happened. It was a drunken evening, essentially.
00:30:40It wasn't a trick, because it was actually done.
00:30:44We were all standing there and he'd just waited for it to go,
00:30:48and it blew up.
00:30:50It was just a lovely, lovely moment.
00:30:54Don't worry, Harry, I won't tell your governor about it.
00:30:59The flames you see, the orange flames and glow that you see around us
00:31:03is actually very true. It came from the explosion.
00:31:07The charge that was in the back of the buster didn't go off,
00:31:10so unfortunately they had to do that again, which for us...
00:31:13Are you going to blow it right this time?
00:31:15Because I ain't staying there and flying like that ever again.
00:31:18The first time I saw it was on film, on the television sets,
00:31:21in the studio with the audience.
00:31:23And I'd heard them talk about it and they'd all said,
00:31:26''Oh, it's going to be a laugh as it blows up.''
00:31:28I thought, ''Really?''
00:31:30Well, the entire studio just sort of exploded, literally, like the coach.
00:31:35And you just thought, ''Oh, my God, they've done it.''
00:31:38Oh, the audience went to pieces on that because no-one knew it was coming.
00:31:42The audience loved it so much they broke out into a round of applause
00:31:46and, of course, the film was still running and the next lines were lost.
00:31:56Our coach has just blown up.
00:31:58So there was quite a lot of repair work to do on that
00:32:02to try to fit their laughter to the pictures.
00:32:06It is one of the biggest sequences, I think,
00:32:09of that kind in a sitcom on British television.
00:32:12And they had over 20 million viewers at this point,
00:32:15which, oh, my gosh, in this day and age,
00:32:17that's like the whole of England's just watching you.
00:32:19I thought it worked really, really well.
00:32:22I think we're all very proud of that sequence.
00:32:26It was brilliant. Everyone just... Yeah, it was breathtaking.
00:32:29And what better way to celebrate Christmas
00:32:31than to put it into a Christmas special?
00:32:35The Jolly Boys outing, I suppose,
00:32:37will go down in history as one of the best episodes ever.
00:32:41And this episode has gone down in history for another reason.
00:32:46Jolly Boys outing was one of the classics
00:32:49and I remember hearing about where...
00:32:52That was the first time I realised where Bonnet de Douche came from.
00:32:56Bonnet de Douche.
00:32:57Bonnet de Douche, he'd use that a lot
00:32:59and he'd use it a lot when we were rehearsing for anything.
00:33:02He'd just go, oh, Bonnet de Douche, whenever.
00:33:04There's just so many of them
00:33:06and I just wish I knew where it got them from.
00:33:09I went for a weekend with friends of mine to Paris.
00:33:14I was in my room and went to have a shower
00:33:17and I saw this cap and it said Bonnet de Douche
00:33:21and I just could not understand what the hell did that mean?
00:33:26So I went and told these friends of mine,
00:33:28they said, it's a shower cap.
00:33:30I said, you are joking.
00:33:32Bonnet de Douche was one of many glorious examples
00:33:35of Del's misuse of the French language
00:33:38and no Christmas special would be complete without it.
00:33:41Oh, Bain-Marie, Bain-Marie.
00:33:44Bain-Marie? What's that got to do with anything?
00:33:48One of the most absurd ideas is that Del really is good at French.
00:33:52What do you want, eh, a Sacre-Bleu chef or something?
00:33:55Del desperately wants to be a great linguist
00:33:57because it will show his sophistication and his learning
00:34:01and it will impress women
00:34:03and he always very nearly gets it right.
00:34:07Champs-Élysées.
00:34:09You'd have to know your French to know quite how funny it is.
00:34:13The one I really liked, when he just says,
00:34:16when he's telling people to hurry up, he just says,
00:34:18Mange tout, mange tout.
00:34:20Mange tout, mange tout.
00:34:22I thought that he was in command of the language.
00:34:27Chateau Neuf de Pape.
00:34:30Of course, Del did not have command of the language at all.
00:34:35I think it was Rodney who said to one of you
00:34:37in your stupid French phrases, which don't mean anything,
00:34:41of course, what do you mean they don't mean anything?
00:34:44And it's amazing how other people don't interfere
00:34:46and say, look, this is rubbish.
00:34:48That just means it's a classic sort of perennial joke.
00:34:52Oh, mon chevalier.
00:34:54He just heard it and he'd heard two words
00:34:56and they'd put two words together.
00:34:58But wait a minute, oh, potpourri, potpourri!
00:35:02I often wonder if he knew what any of it meant.
00:35:06By Christmas 1991,
00:35:08the Only Fools And Horses series had finished
00:35:11and Sir David and the team were only making Christmas specials
00:35:15and this year saw two no-expense-spared adventures,
00:35:18which took the Trotters on their transatlantic travels to Miami.
00:35:23In 1991, we get Miami twice.
00:35:26It's so big, they've had to split it into two.
00:35:29That's great for the BBC,
00:35:31it means they get the ratings on two separate nights,
00:35:34but also it means John Sullivan has more time to develop a story
00:35:37and to kind of bring more elements into it.
00:35:40Yes, Del and Rodney were off to the super glamorous US of A.
00:35:44This was a far cry from Nelson Mandela House
00:35:47and, to add to the Hollywood feel,
00:35:49some famous Fools fans joined the fun.
00:35:52Anybody think he owned the plane?
00:35:55We get a little cameo from Richard Branson,
00:35:58not a born actor, perhaps, and then we get Barry Gibb.
00:36:01You only saw the back of his head first when you saw Del Boy waving
00:36:04and then you realise it actually is him and you went,
00:36:06oh, my goodness, Barry Gibb was on Only Fools And Horses.
00:36:08I need all this.
00:36:10It's such an iconic moment.
00:36:12He was great. He was a lovely fellow.
00:36:15Del and Rodney's trip to Miami just went to prove
00:36:18you could take the trotters out of Peckham...
00:36:20He's going a long way out, hasn't he?
00:36:22Yeah, but he's enjoying himself.
00:36:24We're in the breaks and he's not eating!
00:36:26..but never Peckham out of the boys.
00:36:28And there was David Jackson on a jet ski,
00:36:31seeming to be doing about 80 miles per hour.
00:36:34He can't even swim.
00:36:37But I thought he said he had a certificate for swimming.
00:36:40Oh, yeah, he has.
00:36:42But he hasn't eaten.
00:36:46I could watch that scene over and over.
00:36:48It's the sheer terror.
00:36:53Of course, Del and Rodder's didn't get to enjoy the Miami high life.
00:36:57They end up in the muck, or rather the Everglades swamp,
00:37:01in a classic close encounter that could have spelled
00:37:03a snappy ending for the actors.
00:37:06It was a real live alligator, right?
00:37:09And it was about five or six foot long.
00:37:12Lots of people think, oh, there must be a protective screen
00:37:15between the two actors and this huge grey creature,
00:37:18but no, it was actually there next to them.
00:37:22We're having a discussion about what the director wanted
00:37:26and how it was to be achieved,
00:37:28that we would be in the same shot as the alligator.
00:37:33He wanted the live alligator to creep in behind us
00:37:38and frighten the socks off us.
00:37:43I wasn't particularly concerned
00:37:46until I saw the alligator's minder
00:37:50had a huge pistol in his holster next to him.
00:37:56And he said, well, is it going to be safe to do this?
00:38:01He pulled the gun out of his holster and he said,
00:38:04yes, don't worry, sir.
00:38:06If there's any sign of it going wrong,
00:38:08I'll shoot the alligator, OK?
00:38:10I thought, oh, my God, this is going to be disaster.
00:38:15Very slowly walk away, Dale.
00:38:19We don't want to alarm it.
00:38:24Alarm what?
00:38:26That thing behind us.
00:38:31All the time that is in the back of your mind
00:38:33when this thing at the corner of your eye
00:38:35is creeping towards us for the shot.
00:38:38Yes!
00:38:39Nick says that they were so close
00:38:41they could actually hear it breathing.
00:38:43Goodness knows what the insurance companies
00:38:45must have thought about that, heaven only knows.
00:38:51Coming up...
00:38:52There must be something wrong.
00:38:54I couldn't stop laughing because it was so funny.
00:38:57I'm not getting out dressed like this.
00:38:59We see how the team struggle to keep
00:39:01the most famous Christmas moment under wraps for the big day.
00:39:05The press would arrive in droves
00:39:07trying to film what you were filming.
00:39:17You ought to be careful with the old beef, Dale.
00:39:19Shut up, you brass.
00:39:20I don't know what you're worried about.
00:39:22I've been eating British beef all my life.
00:39:32Egg and chips, please, Mike.
00:39:35Some of the greatest moments in Only Fools
00:39:38came courtesy of this fella.
00:39:40And at Christmas, like Santa, Trigger always delivered.
00:39:44We were all such a good team and he was a good team member
00:39:48that he was lovely to work with.
00:39:52I know John got complaints
00:39:54when Trigger wasn't in an episode long enough.
00:39:58You know, the Trigger fan club would write to John and say,
00:40:01well, Trigger was only given half a dozen lines in this episode,
00:40:04what are you doing?
00:40:05This old broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in its time.
00:40:13Roger Lloyd-Patt was so brilliant.
00:40:15Hell, yeah, or can he be the same bloody broom?
00:40:18Well, here's a picture of it, what more proof do you need?
00:40:21Roger's secret, I think, was the very, very serious face.
00:40:25He treated it like a tragedy, as if he was playing Hamlet.
00:40:30One of those iconic characters that you never shake off,
00:40:34I don't mean as an actor, but as a person, you walk down the street
00:40:38and people don't go, oh, you're Trigger in Only Fools and Horses,
00:40:41they go, all right, Trigger, I mean, they just shout at him.
00:40:44And we had so much fun, you know,
00:40:46taking the mickey out of each other as well.
00:40:48Of course, whenever he met Rodney, we'd call him Dave,
00:40:51and he said that with confidence and solemnity,
00:40:55and you knew it was coming, and it was always funny.
00:40:59All right, Dave?
00:41:00I don't know if we ever found out why Trigger called Rodney Dave.
00:41:05All right, Dave?
00:41:07He never, ever, ever corpsed.
00:41:10We would.
00:41:12But he didn't, ever.
00:41:14Do you know about this sort of thing, then, Dave?
00:41:16I seem to remember David and Nick saying about Trigger
00:41:20is that he always got the end of the gag,
00:41:22he always got the laugh in the end.
00:41:24They'd set it up and set it up and set it up and set it up.
00:41:27Everybody would be doing dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, dialogue,
00:41:30and in would come Trigger with one line.
00:41:33And it would bring the house down.
00:41:35You know, people become famous for a little while,
00:41:37then they disappear, like Renny and Renata.
00:41:41Simon D.
00:41:43Or Gandhi.
00:41:44Gandhi?
00:41:46Yeah.
00:41:47I mean, he made one great film and then he never saw it again.
00:41:53It must have driven Nick and David mad.
00:41:56But, of course, you know, you don't, you don't not give in to him.
00:42:03In 1992, for health and the environment,
00:42:06it became all the rage to give pesticides the push and go green.
00:42:11The organic market was suddenly booming.
00:42:13Everyone wanted to buy something organic.
00:42:15And I remember when this actually happened, me thinking,
00:42:18well, why would I pay, you know, a pound for a tomato because it's organic?
00:42:24And then when bottled water came along, you're like,
00:42:26but you've got a tap at home.
00:42:28Why would you want to do that?
00:42:31Well, John Sullivan saw the funny side.
00:42:33And for that year's Christmas special,
00:42:35Del diversified into the health food market.
00:42:39Every single item in this shop has been grown the way nature intended.
00:42:43Oh, yeah?
00:42:45Well, that must be very nice for you and Cassandra to sit down to dinner
00:42:49knowing that everything on your plate was once under a pile of horse shit.
00:42:54Del Boy's just nonplussed about the price of stuff like Brussels sprout tops
00:43:01and then he sees a bottle of water.
00:43:05Ding!
00:43:06And he has this idea.
00:43:09A crafty hosepipe later,
00:43:11and Del was sitting atop the purest Peckham spring water.
00:43:16We don't actually know where the spring comes from, do we, Rodney?
00:43:19No.
00:43:21It's certainly sprung up from somewhere, isn't it?
00:43:25To actually start producing Peckham spring from his tap in Peckham,
00:43:33in Nelson Mandela House,
00:43:35and then start flogging it was just...
00:43:39It was a brilliant idea.
00:43:44We had an awful lot of laughs, you know,
00:43:47when things went wrong and water bottle caps came off
00:43:50and the audience loved it, of course, when things went wrong.
00:43:53The social commentary of that is really clever.
00:43:55We are selling public water to the public.
00:44:00Because this water used to be public
00:44:02and then Maggie, she privatised it, didn't she, eh?
00:44:05It now belongs to a board of directors and a load of investors.
00:44:08They sell it to us, we sell it on.
00:44:10All we're doing is repackaging it.
00:44:13Again, it just kind of hits that sort of thing right on the nose
00:44:16of what we were doing and how absurd it was
00:44:19and how absurd it was that you were paying for water that was in a bottle.
00:44:22John Sullivan was always, always doing things like that.
00:44:27It was a very, again, a very clever concept,
00:44:31a very, very clever idea.
00:44:34The actual bottles used for Peckham Spring
00:44:37occasionally come up for auction and sell for thousands,
00:44:40a nice little earner Delboy would fully approve of.
00:44:44Quite a lot of people kept a bottle or two.
00:44:47I had a couple, but I took them home
00:44:50and after a couple of years with young children,
00:44:53you just might have threw them away,
00:44:55but, you know, they were just in the way.
00:45:02After three long years without any Only Fools,
00:45:05in 1996, John Sullivan gave us the ultimate Christmas present,
00:45:09a trilogy.
00:45:13But there was a catch.
00:45:15The three episodes that were filmed for 1996
00:45:17were intended to be the last three episodes of Only Fools And Horses.
00:45:20In fact, originally, it was only going to be one episode
00:45:23and then they realised that actually John had written lots of material
00:45:26and therefore they increased the budget
00:45:28and they realised they could just about squeeze filming
00:45:30into everybody's schedules.
00:45:32I missed Fools And Horses so much.
00:45:36David turned down an extra episode of A Touch Of Frost.
00:45:39Nick Linters postponed an episode,
00:45:41a series of Goodnight Sweetheart so that he could do Only Fools
00:45:45because they were all really keen that they give this show
00:45:48that's been so popular and they've enjoyed doing
00:45:51the send-off that it really deserved.
00:45:54In what became an iconic Christmas Day outing,
00:45:57heroes and villains didn't disappoint.
00:46:00The script was making me laugh, genuinely, as an actor.
00:46:07It was so wonderfully put together and so funny.
00:46:12And it was just the most wonderful moment to have it back on television
00:46:16and you went straight back into it.
00:46:18There was no question of,
00:46:20not sure this works now, has it changed?
00:46:24Have the characters changed? Not at all.
00:46:26It was exactly as it was and it was still as brilliant as ever.
00:46:30Do you want to buy a ticket for a publicans ball?
00:46:32Yeah, certainly. Which one, left or right?
00:46:36And, of course, it included possibly the most memorable moment
00:46:40in Only Fools' Christmas history,
00:46:42which had been safely under wraps for months.
00:46:45It was terrifying because we would be...
00:46:48The press would arrive in droves trying to film what you were filming
00:46:54so they could spoil everybody's Christmas
00:46:57by telling everybody before the Christmas special
00:46:59what the thing was about.
00:47:01The streets around where we filmed it, central Bristol,
00:47:04we blocked off with fencing with black drapes on and put scaffolding up.
00:47:07They did everything they could to make sure that that image
00:47:11did not leak out and, of course, it didn't.
00:47:13We just wanted to keep it a secret for Christmas Day, I think.
00:47:16What's happening?
00:47:18There must be something wrong.
00:47:20I know that this is the one where I couldn't get it right.
00:47:24I couldn't stop laughing cos it was so funny.
00:47:27You go and have a look at the engine.
00:47:29I'm not getting out dressed like this!
00:47:31That fantastic reveal where you see the blue booted foot
00:47:35coming out of the van.
00:47:36So when Del Boy gets out as Batman,
00:47:40the woof from the audience...
00:47:44..but then Rodney gets out...
00:47:48..that was an even bigger woof because he looked ridiculous.
00:47:52He looked... This lanky boy as Robin.
00:47:56You know, it's men in tights, it's underpants over your tights,
00:47:59all of which is funny about superheroes anyway,
00:48:01but then it's Del and Rodney and it's, you know,
00:48:03and it's their build, it's just perfect.
00:48:05You know, Rodney's tall and thin, Del isn't tall and thin,
00:48:09and so it's just...
00:48:11It's just brilliant.
00:48:13You had two ways of going.
00:48:15You either did it in reality, in real life,
00:48:20which was you'd have these ill-fitting Batman and Robin costumes
00:48:26because they would be tired and old and ill-fitting, right?
00:48:35Or you have costumes that you have made
00:48:40that are so correct
00:48:44in terms of the idea of Batman and Robin.
00:48:49Will you get back inside the van?
00:48:51I don't want people seeing you dressed like that.
00:48:54I won't wally.
00:48:57So I thought about it for a while and I thought,
00:49:01well, what is the best comic effect?
00:49:12And, of course, the lady from the council
00:49:16is at this moment being robbed.
00:49:19Gary!
00:49:25What's happening?
00:49:27I have the faintest idea.
00:49:31No!
00:49:34The whole of the Batman and Robin sequence was just a joy.
00:49:38We took all night doing it,
00:49:40and it was probably about three or four shots.
00:49:43The counsellor, her expression on her face was so brilliant
00:49:48that you couldn't stop laughing.
00:49:50Del!
00:49:52Let's go!
00:49:54We were probably talking about it for six months afterwards
00:49:57because it was just so funny.
00:50:00The best moment on television and never, ever to be forgotten.
00:50:05It was truly wonderful.
00:50:07Those are magic moments that the nation shared together
00:50:10and it's something that ain't going to happen again.
00:50:13Coming up, Christmas With The Trotters takes us from tragedy...
00:50:17We decided to play it a different,
00:50:20slightly different way than we would normally do.
00:50:23..to triumph.
00:50:24It's a brilliant storyline because, obviously,
00:50:27when the line was,
00:50:28this time next year Rodney will be millionaires,
00:50:30in fact, they had been millionaires all along.
00:50:40On Christmas Day 1996,
00:50:42the first episode of the iconic Only Fools And Horses trilogy
00:50:46was watched by 21 million of us.
00:50:49Harry died yesterday.
00:50:51And when I hear those stories
00:50:54and I think about how much pleasure it's given a lot of people,
00:50:59it gives me a great reward.
00:51:02And just as many viewers were there
00:51:04for the heartbreaking second part, two days later.
00:51:08Far from the madcap mayhem of heroes and villains,
00:51:12modern men saw tragedy strike
00:51:14as Cassandra and Rodney suffered a miscarriage.
00:51:18I'm sorry, Rodney.
00:51:20All great comedy has got to have...
00:51:23..has got to be realistic about tragedy.
00:51:29And what you're talking about is something which is beyond words.
00:51:34It's beyond ordinary, ordinary feelings.
00:51:37What do you say? What can you say?
00:51:40I remember John Sullivan talking about it, actually, and saying,
00:51:43I don't know how this could go down in the sitcom world,
00:51:46but, you know, I wanted to do it.
00:51:48It was quite important for him to, as usual,
00:51:52he liked stretching the boundaries a bit.
00:51:55He knew that, well, the rest of us, all of us as actors,
00:52:00we could go much deeper than just being funny all the time.
00:52:07And a record-breaking 24 million tuned in
00:52:10on 29th December 1996 for the finale,
00:52:14just hoping for a happy ending.
00:52:18Rodney's life has just crashed to the floor
00:52:20and episode three starts in that same condition.
00:52:24What's happening?
00:52:26Del's trying to think of a way to get Rodney at least to talk about it
00:52:30and forget to get both of them to talk about it.
00:52:33Del Boy is deliberately contrived.
00:52:35He's stopped the lift from working because he knows...
00:52:38I mean, despite all the bluster,
00:52:40there's an element of quite savvy psychology about Del Boy as well,
00:52:43certainly when it comes to Rodney.
00:52:45We're going to play it a different,
00:52:47slightly different way than we would normally do.
00:52:51Nick and I both felt we didn't want to over-rehearse it
00:52:56because it was such an emotional scene
00:53:01and we wanted to give it as much truth as we could.
00:53:05We were looking forward and all we could see in front of us
00:53:08was this big, wide highway and we were just cruising down it
00:53:13and all of a sudden it came to a shuddering halt.
00:53:17Just like this proxy lift.
00:53:19We did a pre-record rather than in front of the audience.
00:53:22It was cos it's such an emotional scene.
00:53:24I think Tony and Gareth and everybody thought,
00:53:27let's give it some space and time
00:53:29and not have the pressure of the audience
00:53:32and Nick and David were brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
00:53:36They loved the scene, both of them.
00:53:38I think Nick and David played it for Nick as well.
00:53:41They said, this is a great moment for Nick.
00:53:44I've never felt sodding pain like that in all my life.
00:53:48Nicholas Lindhurst's ability, I've had tears watching it.
00:53:53Two men going through those emotions
00:53:56was something you hadn't seen a lot of on television.
00:53:59So you loved their vulnerability.
00:54:03We lost our baby.
00:54:06And they were allowed to show their emotions,
00:54:09which was quite groundbreaking.
00:54:11You shield yourself from it, you know.
00:54:14Rodney is grateful for being given the opportunity
00:54:17to confront his demons.
00:54:20It made me cry, that scene, so many times.
00:54:23I watched it so many times.
00:54:25And I just thought,
00:54:27everything about that show is about that scene, really.
00:54:31You're continually reminded
00:54:34that there is this extraordinary bond between the two of them.
00:54:37Come here.
00:54:39Come on.
00:54:42And then, a gear change,
00:54:44as every scene led us towards the Trotters' magic moment,
00:54:48as Raquel's antique dealer dad
00:54:50spotted treasure buried in Del's lock-up,
00:54:53a fabled Harrison watch.
00:54:56It has the name Harrison engraved in it, you can see that.
00:54:59Harrison watches were for navigation.
00:55:01Captain Cook had one for taking him round the world, he had the H2.
00:55:05There was H1, H2, H4 and H5.
00:55:07Then the 6 never got made, but there were drawings of it.
00:55:10So that's why it got called the mythical watch,
00:55:12because nobody ever knew whether it got made or whether it didn't get made.
00:55:16So it was an important piece, but it looked very ordinary.
00:55:20It didn't look valuable.
00:55:22So when they find this watch, they have to prove that it is theirs,
00:55:26and that's difficult for someone like Del Boy,
00:55:28who doesn't like to keep much of a paper trail.
00:55:30Del was not one for keeping receipts.
00:55:32He was always fearful that the taxman or the police
00:55:34would find a bit of paperwork and would link him to something
00:55:37and he'd get into trouble.
00:55:38But Rodney does.
00:55:40Rodney, in the first episode, we see looking through a pile of receipts.
00:55:43What are you doing now?
00:55:44Our accounts.
00:55:45You dozy little twonk, Rodney.
00:55:48This is prima facie evidence, isn't it, eh?
00:55:50The taxman gets hold of that, it puts you away for three years.
00:55:53Don't worry, if a taxman comes, I'll eat it.
00:55:56Those very receipts that they later find in the garage,
00:55:59in time on our hands,
00:56:01that actually prove that the Trotters own that watch.
00:56:05One silver fog watch engraved Harrison.
00:56:08Ha! Good boy, Rodders.
00:56:10What have I always told you?
00:56:12I've always said, always keep the receipts.
00:56:15Everything was plotted so carefully.
00:56:17I don't know whether he had lots of things at home on his wall
00:56:19or whether it was just all in his brain, John Sullivan.
00:56:22He was so clever.
00:56:25And the scene was set for Trotters' independent traders
00:56:28to pitch up at the creme de la creme of international auctioneers.
00:56:34I think if you were going into Sotheby's
00:56:36and saying you were doing a show and a drama or whatever
00:56:39about two South London crooks, you wouldn't get in the door.
00:56:43But once you say it, it's only fools and horses.
00:56:45I'd like to start the bidding at £150,000.
00:56:54And you just watch Del Boy do his feint.
00:56:56And can I just say, that's really hard to do those feints
00:56:59where they go straight back, cos the crash mat can hurt.
00:57:02But he does the most fantastic, stiff as a board, straight-back feint.
00:57:06Four, thank you.
00:57:09The bid stands at £4 million.
00:57:17When I first started watching Only Fools And Horses,
00:57:21I so wanted them to be millionaires.
00:57:24It's a brilliant storyline because, obviously,
00:57:27when the line was, this time next year, Rodney will be millionaires,
00:57:30in fact, they had been millionaires all along.
00:57:32And it was there and it was right under their noses
00:57:34and they didn't realise.
00:57:35You want to go first or should I?
00:57:39Well, why don't we go together?
00:57:42Yeah. Yeah, all right.
00:57:45One, two, three.
00:57:48Yes!
00:57:49LAUGHTER
00:57:54In 1996, they got more than 24 million people
00:57:59watching Only Fools And Horses,
00:58:01which happens to be more than those people
00:58:04who watched the Euro semifinals that same year
00:58:07between England and Germany.
00:58:09It was a strange feeling, one of joy and one of sadness, really,
00:58:15because you thought, that's the end of Del Boy and Rodney.
00:58:20I remember being in the studio and recording that last scene.
00:58:27I just remember saying to the floor manager in front of the audience,
00:58:30that's it, folks, that's the end of Fools And Horses.
00:58:33The whole place exploded.
00:58:35Oh, thinking about it feels emotional now.
00:58:38The audience went potty.
00:58:40We got a standing ovation in the studio of seven minutes.
00:58:46APPLAUSE
00:58:48And they wouldn't let us go.
00:58:50In the studio on the final night, everybody was quite emotional.
00:58:54It was just a silly old wooden set in a studio,
00:58:57but this funny little world of the Trotters' flat
00:59:00meant a lot to everybody.
00:59:03Coming up...
00:59:04This time next year, we're going to be millionaires.
00:59:06This time last week, we were millionaires!
00:59:09..as Only Fools And Horses and this celebration comes to an end...
00:59:13Nerf the pep!
00:59:15..we find out which festive moment...
00:59:18Must get a plug put on this thing, Rodney.
00:59:20..would top Sir David's Christmas tree.
00:59:23It really is difficult to choose between them, and there are so many.
00:59:33One, two, three.
00:59:36Only Fools And Horses had finished on a high in 1996
00:59:40and it seemed we were destined to spend all future Christmases
00:59:44without our much-loved annual visit to the Trotters.
00:59:48Or did it?
00:59:49I know that John, and I know that, more importantly,
00:59:52the BBC were absolutely desperate for more.
00:59:55It was so difficult to let it go.
00:59:58There was some discussions about how could we bring it back?
01:00:04Well, you couldn't because it's finished.
01:00:06No, no, wait a minute.
01:00:07What we could do, they could lose the money, couldn't they?
01:00:11And, yeah, go on.
01:00:16Chateau Nerf the pep!
01:00:19So, in 2001, after a five-year absence,
01:00:23Only Fools And Horses made a triumphant return
01:00:26with three final annual specials.
01:00:2920 million fans tuned in to see Del Boy and Rodney
01:00:33return penniless to Peckham.
01:00:36Don't worry, this time next year, we're going to be millionaires.
01:00:39This time last week, we were millionaires!
01:00:42He's come up with it, John Sullivan.
01:00:44He's taken them from one place
01:00:46and you're going to see them for that for a bit
01:00:48and then he's going to take them right back to the bottom again.
01:00:51You know, how clever is that?
01:00:52There was some fantastic stuff in those last three episodes.
01:00:55Why have to attend lectures on modern climactic change?
01:00:58What with global warming and Al Pacino?
01:01:02El Nino trick.
01:01:05He delivered, he brought in something that, you know,
01:01:08you think, how did you think of that?
01:01:10But although the comedy magic was still very much in evidence...
01:01:14Ahoy there!
01:01:15..a much-loved character was missing.
01:01:18Buster Merrifield died in 1999.
01:01:22We always talked very fondly and we'd say,
01:01:24oh, you know, he'd have been sitting in that chair now
01:01:27when we got to the studio, you know,
01:01:29so he was in our memories and in chat all the time.
01:01:33When Buster, dear Buster, passed away,
01:01:36suddenly we were left on our own.
01:01:39Buster had had a big contribution to the programme.
01:01:42Part of you is no longer there, like losing a limb.
01:01:46However, Buster Merrifield plays a crucial role in all three episodes.
01:01:51In a way, he is present,
01:01:53even though, sadly, Buster Merrifield had passed.
01:01:56Gone but not forgotten,
01:01:57John Sullivan wrote Uncle Albert's funeral into the series.
01:02:01A chance to say farewell to the salty old sea dog.
01:02:05Hello, I'm Marion.
01:02:07I did a bit cleaning for Albert.
01:02:09Lovely old man.
01:02:13Went on a bit.
01:02:17But this trotter tragedy didn't stay sombre for long.
01:02:21Bunny?
01:02:22Yeah, Albert.
01:02:24Why'd you call him Bunny?
01:02:26Well, that's what they called him in the RAF, didn't they?
01:02:28Cos his surname was Warren.
01:02:32Again, John Sullivan was so clever, wasn't he?
01:02:35We're at the wrong funeral.
01:02:40Yes.
01:02:42Again, go from sort of rather sad, poignant moments,
01:02:46flip the coin and you're, you know, you're at the wrong funeral.
01:02:55I mean, how funny can that be?
01:02:57How, you know, it's so lovely.
01:03:00In the last episode, where they go to the will reading of Uncle Albert,
01:03:05not expecting to get anything.
01:03:07After death duties, he has left you the sum of £145,000.
01:03:16They ended up comfortable.
01:03:19Each.
01:03:22LAUGHTER
01:03:24And it was a lovely way of remembering Buster, I think,
01:03:27that sort of, that act of, that last act of generosity and love
01:03:32to both of them.
01:03:34That meant that the family was back
01:03:37and they were going to be exactly like they always were.
01:03:42And there was one final moment,
01:03:45a Christmas miracle for Rodney and Cassandra.
01:03:51When, eventually, Cassandra and Rodney have the baby,
01:03:57it's the most beautiful moment.
01:03:59Again, it makes me cry.
01:04:01And I just thought, oh, God, this is lovely, and what an end.
01:04:05It felt like you wanted to enjoy every line,
01:04:07you wanted to make the most of every scene you did.
01:04:12Somebody came up to me, actually, years later and said,
01:04:15I was in that last audience.
01:04:17I said, it was amazing and I will never, ever forget it
01:04:20and I felt it was like history being made
01:04:22because we'd been told by the Walmart guy
01:04:24we were never going to see this again.
01:04:26That's special and very sad.
01:04:28For 22 years, John Sullivan gave us more than 20 hours
01:04:32of Christmas TV joy.
01:04:34You must get a plug put on this thing, Rodney.
01:04:36But among all of the wonderful Yuletide moments...
01:04:40Yes!
01:04:42..is there one that stands out for the man who played
01:04:45perhaps the nation's all-time best-loved comedy character?
01:04:50John Sullivan invented so many silly...
01:04:54Which way to Hollis?
01:04:56..funny...
01:04:57But wait a minute, oh, potpourri, potpourri!
01:05:00..brilliant moments that it really is difficult to choose
01:05:04between them, and there are so many.
01:05:09If I was really, really pushed...
01:05:14..I think it'd have to be Batman and Robin.
01:05:17So, a joy, a joy.
01:05:21For me, Only Fools And Horses is about family.
01:05:24You know, when I think about that show, I think about my dad giggling.
01:05:27Shots of laser!
01:05:30There's a gaping hole in Christmas still, isn't there?
01:05:33With no Only Fools And Horses.
01:05:35You appreciate people like John Sullivan
01:05:37when they inhabited the earth,
01:05:39because if you didn't have people like him,
01:05:42you wouldn't have Only Fools And Horses.
01:05:44Up and down...
01:05:45The way people watch television has changed.
01:05:47So I think those times were very special,
01:05:49because they did bring people together,
01:05:52especially the Christmas specials.
01:05:54Is it Derek?
01:05:56Raquel? Yes!
01:05:58To be involved with a programme like this,
01:06:00where 2030, probably in the future, 50 years on,
01:06:04people are still saying,
01:06:06oh, it really makes me feel better to watch it,
01:06:09really cheers me up, it's a really good programme.
01:06:12I mean, you don't get that every day.
01:06:14The camaraderie between everybody,
01:06:18the fun that we had,
01:06:20if I could regenerate that, relive it, if you like,
01:06:25yeah, I'd grab it like a shot.
01:06:28Because it's so powerfully,
01:06:31such powerful, strong, happy memories.
01:06:36If you or someone you know has been affected
01:06:39by any of the issues raised in this programme,
01:06:41please go to channel5.com slash helplines
01:06:44for information and support.
01:06:47Who can ever forget the hilarious candle sketch
01:06:50and the two Ronnies,
01:06:51celebrating one half of that duo in brand-new Ronnie Corbett,
01:06:54My 30 Funniest Moments of Boxing Day Night at 8.
01:06:58Next, Dylan Rodman.
01:07:01My 30 Funniest Moments of Boxing Day Night at 8.
01:07:04Next, Dylan Rodman in Only Fools and Horses Secrets and Scandals.