Only Fools and Horses - The Official Inside Story E-Book

Steve Clark

• Herausgeber: Splendid Books Limited
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Only Fools and Horses - The Official Inside Storytakes us behind the scenes to reveal the secrets of the hit show and is fully authorised by the family of John Sullivan, the show's creator and writer. The book is based on dozens of one-to-one interviews conducted by author Steve Clark with the show's stars including Sir David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst and key members of the production team.

Leseprobe

THE OFFICIAL INSIDE STORY

STEVE CLARK

Series written and created by

JOHN SULLIVAN

Only Fools and Horses – The Official Inside Story

First published in 2011

Only Fools and Horses format and television scripts © John Sullivan / Shazam Productions

Text copyright © Steve Clark 2011

The right of Steve Clark to be identified as the Author of the work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Splendid Books Limited, The Old Hambledon Racecourse Centre, Sheardley Lane, Droxford, Hampshire SO32 3QY

www.splendidbooks.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form including on the Internet or by any means without the written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from The British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-9569505-3-6

Designed by Design Image Ltd.

www.design-image.co.uk

Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays

Every effort has been made to fulfil requirements with regard to reproducing copyright material. The writer and publisher will be glad to rectify any omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Steve Clark has been specialising in behind-the-scenes reports on television programmes for more than twenty years. He is author of The Only Fools and Horses Story (BBC Books, 1998), The World of Jonathan Creek (BBC Books, 1999), On Set (Blake Publishing, 1999), Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – The Illustrated Film Companion (Headline, 2001) and The British Television Location Guide (Splendid Books, 2011). He lives in Hampshire with his wife and son. He doesn’t drive a Robin Reliant… but he’d secretly quite like one.

Contents

Introduction

Foreword by Theo Paphitis

PART 1 In The Beginning

PART 2 The Writer - John Sullivan

David Jason - Del Trotter

Nicholas Lyndhurst - Rodney Trotter

Lennard Pearce - Grandad Trotter

Buster Merryfield - Uncle Albert

Roger Lloyd Pack - Trigger

John Challis - Boycie

Patrick Murray - Mickey Pearce

Kenneth MacDonald - Mike Fisher

Paul Barber - Denzil

Sue Holderness - Marlene

Tessa Peake-Jones - Raquel

Gwyneth Strong - Cassandra

Also Starring…

PART 3 Series By Series

PART 4 Pastures New: The Green Green Grass

The Early Years: Rock & Chips

PART 5

Episode Guide

Theme Tune Lyrics

Index

This book is dedicated to the memory of John Sullivan 1946-2011

Introduction

Only Fools and Horses is a programme that was nearly never made. Turned down by BBC executives when it was first offered to them, the first series made little impact and there was no great enthusiasm at the Corporation for a second run.

Of course, it did get a second chance and soon after established itself as a firm favourite with viewers and, as time went by, it became a comedy phenomenon. So much so that the writer John Sullivan used to get letters from publicans complaining about a drop in trade on the nights when the show was screened.

Adored by everyone from real-life market traders to senior members of the Royal Family, it went on to achieve the highest ratings in British television history and lines from the show are heard every day, up and down the country.

As you might imagine, writing a book about Only Fools and Horses has been both a labour of love and a privilege. My aims with this book are to celebrate this unrivalled series and tell the story of how it came about and became the classic it is.

In the pages that follow you’ll hear from the show’s writer, producers and cast about how they made this truly exceptional series. So do read on…you know it makes sense…

Steve Clark

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to everyone who has given up their time to talk to me about Only Fools and Horses over the years. These include: Paul Barber, Ronnie Barker, Jim Broadbent, Ray Butt, John Challis, Tony Dow, Phoebe De Gaye, Lynn Faulds Wood, Gareth Gwenlan, Roy Heather, David Hitchcock, Sue Holderness, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Carole James, Graham Jarvis, Sir David Jason, Sydney Lotterby, Roger Lloyd Pack, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Kenneth MacDonald, Buster Merryfield, Patrick Murray, Daniel Peacock, Tessa Peake-Jones, Tony Snoaden, Michael Fenton Stevens, Gwyneth Strong, John Sullivan, Deanne Turner and Donal Woods.

I am also very grateful to Theo Paphitis for sparing the time to write the foreword and to Al Murray for his generous contribution. Thanks for their help also to: Perry Aghajanoff, who runs The Only Fools and Horses Appreciation Society, Gail Evans, Adrian Pegg, Jim Sullivan, Jane Redmond and Richard Hamilton-Jones at BBC TV Locations and the staff of the BBC Archives at Caversham. Thanks also go to Jenny Bradley, Janet Bruton, Nicola Clark, designer Chris Fulcher, Kealey McVeagh, Adrian Notter, Michele Notter, Kathryn Perkins, Amber Ross, Annabel Silk and Shoba Vazirani.

Foreword by Theo Paphitis

I am honoured to have been asked to write this foreword because I love Only Fools and Horses and think it is a wonderful show. I started watching it pretty much from the start - in fact I can’t remember being without it and I just couldn’t wait for the next episode. And now, even though I’ve seen some episodes literally dozens of times, I still love it. Despite the fact that you know what’s going to happen when you watch the falling chandelier episode or the one where Del falls down in the bar they still make me laugh.

It is classic and timeless and I’m still to meet somebody who doesn’t like Fools and Horses or can’t recount an episode or talk about it. It’s very much part of our culture and it’s in our psyche and forever will be. It’s always been a big part of mine and my family’s life. It really is one of those programmes that spans the generations.

One of the many strengths of Only Fools is its rich characters which is down to its creator John Sullivan, who had a great eye for observing people and creating very believable characters that you could relate to. Chief amongst them, of course, is Del Boy. He’s a geezer, a real man’s man and when he walked into a room it was always all about Del; it wouldn’t have mattered if the Queen was there. I think we all know a Del Boy. Chris Tarrant once said to me: ‘You’re a bit of a Del Boy aren’t you…’ and I do think there is a bit of Del Boy in all of us. He might have bent the rules but Del’s heart was in the right place. As an entrepreneur Del wasn’t what you’d call the real deal. With Del it was always about making a quick buck and there were always going to be victims. Whatever he was doing, you knew someone was going to get tucked up with some bit of dodgy gear and lose out – and quite a lot of the time it was him. That’s what was so funny. That said, Del never did a vicious thing in his life. He would always be there to help if someone asked, although they might have regretted it because he’d usually mess things up but his first instinct was to try. He always does his best, even though he’s not very successful at what he does, and God loves a trier.

David Jason is a boyhood hero of mine and I met him a few years ago at Pinewood Studios. I was taken aback by his humility and just how different he was to his character. He wasn’t as big as I imagined. How such a gentle, softly-spoken man like David was able produce such a cheeky, confident character like Del is, I guess, the mark of a great actor.

It was usually poor Rodney who found himself on the receiving end of one of Del’s crazy schemes but as the years went by he began to get the measure of him to some degree. Grandad and then Uncle Albert, representing the older generation were both great - and had some wonderful one-liners. There was also a great line-up of supporting characters like Trigger, Boycie, Denzil, Marlene and even Mickey Pearce, who I liked despite all the grief he gave Rodney.

John Sullivan could make us laugh – but could also move us. There were sad moments, like Grandad’s funeral and, much later, Uncle Albert’s and moving moments like Damien’s birth, which brought a tear to everybody’s eye – but then it made us laugh because Damien terrified Rodney. John Sullivan had an amazing skill in writing brilliantly clever lines that you wouldn’t have expected in a million years and they often made you cry with laughter. Those one-liners are legendary and so, of course, are Del’s catchphrases. You do hear people saying Del’s lines all the time and we’ve all said them. I have been known to say ‘mange tout’ from time to time and some people look at you as if to say: ‘Are you a complete idiot?’ And on more than one occasion I’ve wrapped up a serious business meeting where we’ve been discussing embarking on a new venture with: ‘This time next year we’ll be millionaires’ before one of my colleagues points out that I already am one…

Trying to pick my favourite moments is a very tough job – there are just so many to choose from. I love the cringe-worthiness of what happens in the chandelier episode. I don’t know how the actors managed to pull it off with such deadpan faces – it must have been very hard to do. It wasn’t just the chandelier falling, it was their expressions as well. Of course the famous scene of Del falling over in the wine bar is quite brilliant. It wasn’t just the fall, it was the whole way it was done so you didn’t see it coming. Then, there was that superb episode As One Door Closes where Del, Rodney and Uncle Albert spend ages trying to catch a valuable butterfly and then just after they finally get it Denzil comes along on roller skates, gives Del high fives and crushes it. You just want to cry…

There’s a great moment in A Royal Flush where Del turns up at a stately home clay pigeon shoot with a pump-action shotgun. Rodney’s face is a picture and he asks Del where he got it from. ‘Iggy Iggins,” says Del. “Iggy Iggins robs banks,” says Rodney. “I know,” says Del. “But it’s Saturday!” - just brilliant. I also love that scene of them running through Peckham as Batman and Robin in Heroes and Villains and the hilarious moment when Del asks for directions from a bloke on an oil rig in To Hull and Back.

There was a great line in the first episode Big Brother - and also heard in Time On Our Hands - that I have heard so many times since. Grandad was talking about Del being a trier and then he says to Rodney: “Your dad always said that one day Del Boy would reach the top. Then again, he used to say that one day Millwall would win the cup…” During the 2003-2004 football season, while I was chairman, Millwall got to the FA Cup Final - against everyone’s expectations. That line was heard everywhere - at the ground, in the press and on the radio. We lost to Manchester United so unfortunately Grandad was right. Another classic moment was, of course, in Danger UXD, the one with the exploding inflatable dolls. The bit where they popped up in the back of the van was priceless. And who can forget the scene in A Losing Streak when Boycie and Del have a game of cards and at the end Del says he knew Boycie had been cheating. Boycie says: “How?” and Del replies: “Because that wasn’t the hand that I dealt you…” Just a great line…There was that brilliant moment when we discover that singing dustman Tony Angelino couldn’t pronounce his Rs and sang Cwying - and who could forget Del bottling tap water and selling it as Peckham Spring. I could go on all day…

I would love to invest in Del Boy if he came on Dragons’ Den despite everything I’ve just said about him - like his unpaid tax, stitching people up, leaving someone with shoddy goods and only doing what he does in the short term to make a quick buck – all of which goes against every ethos I’ve got in business. I believe you’ve got to be long-term and that everyone should leave the party with a balloon - that means everyone’s a winner and you pay your taxes and do everything by the book and that way you sleep at night.

But wouldn’t it be great to try to convert him? Del needs mentoring and he needs to think long-term. It can’t be all about making the quick buck today. It’s not like “this time next year bruv we’ll be millionaires” it will be this time in five years’ time or this time in ten years’ time we’ll be millionaires. I’d love to do it – and I’d really like to take him down to meet the taxman and hear him say: “Hello, my name is Del Boy Trotter. I’m sixty years old and I don’t exist as far as you are concerned - I don’t pay taxes, I’ve never worked” - explain that one away.

John Sullivan’s passing earlier this year was very sad, but he’s left behind a comedy legacy that will outlive us all. Only Fools and Horses is in our every day psyche and also our business psyche. Del Boy Trotter was everything the rules say you shouldn’t be as an entrepreneur, but we love him.

Bonnet de douche

PART 1 In The Beginning

John Sullivan always remembered 1980 as the year his second television series was cancelled by the BBC. For the young writer with a family to support it was nothing short of a disaster. Three years previously he’d risen meteorically from his job as a scene shifter at BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane, London, working behind the scenes on programmes like The Morecambe and Wise Show, Porridge, I, Claudius, and To The Manor Born, to become a writer on a BBC contract with a hit series, Citizen Smith, to his name.

The show, which starred Robert Lindsay as Tooting revolutionary Wolfie Smith, had been a hit with viewers and Sullivan went on to write a further three series. However, during the filming of the fourth series it became apparent it would be the last. John had decided that he’d gone as far as he could with the character of Wolfie, and Robert Lindsay had indicated that he would like to move on and try his hand at something new.

John wasn’t too worried as he had another idea up his sleeve, a sitcom called Over The Moon about a football manager running a down-at-heel club but with aspirations for glory that were never likely to be fulfilled. A pilot episode was recorded on November 30th at Television Centre starring Brian Wilde – best known as Foggy in Last of the Summer Wine – as Ron Wilson, the manager.

The show also starred George Baker as the club’s chairman Major Gormley and Paula Tilbrook, who went on to star as Betty Eagleton in Emmerdale, as Wilson’s landlady Mrs Allardyce.

“The BBC liked the pilot and commissioned a series and I went off and wrote a second and third episode,” John recalled. “I had high hopes for the show and was confident it would work.”

The man in charge of the series was to be a smart senior BBC producer and director called Ray Butt, who had already made the successful pilot episode of the show. He and John had met previously when Ray was called in to direct several episodes of the second series of Citizen Smith and sort out some problems to do with cast punctuality. “Ray was brought in to kick some backsides,” said John.

The two men got on well and had gained a healthy respect for one another. Their similar working class backgrounds produced a natural rapport and they shared a mutual passion for the business they worked in. They became friends and began a fruitful working partnership that would last for many years.

“The first good thing was that we had similar accents,” said Ray Butt, a genial and likeable man who joined the BBC in 1955 after National Service in the RAF, when a lot of vacancies were created at the Corporation following an exodus of employees to the newly formed ITV. “John is a south London boy and I’m an east London boy so we seemed to talk the same language.”

Everything was looking good for Over The Moon and John Sullivan was busy writing the third episode when disaster struck. Ray Butt was called into a meeting at Television Centre and told that the show was to be cancelled. He rang John Sullivan and broke the bad news.

Sullivan remembered the moment well. “I was working on the fourth episode when Bill Cotton, who was the Controller of BBC1, came back from a trip to America and killed it. As you can imagine I wasn’t very happy. Ironically one of the reasons that they decided to shelve the idea was because they’d decided to make a new series about a boxer called Seconds Out starring Robert Lindsay. They didn’t want two comedies with sporting themes, so I lost out.”

For John it was terrible news. He was overdrawn and had been banking on Over The Moon to keep him and his family afloat. “I had no work in the pipeline,” he recalled. “We’d just bought our first house in Sutton, Surrey, and frankly I was worried about being able to pay the mortgage because prior to that we’d only been renting somewhere. I was under contract for a year but after that the future looked very uncertain. Not only that but no show on the box means no repeat fees.”

He and Ray arranged to meet for a lunchtime drink the following week at Ray’s local, The Three Kings in North End Road. Over several pints the two friends talked of their disappointment and Sullivan looked for inspiration. Their conversation was wide-ranging and included talk of their childhoods and their families. Now and again John would bounce ideas off Ray and make suggestions about new characters.

John had one vague idea at the back of his mind that wouldn’t go away about a wheeler-dealer street market trader who dealt only in cash and would sell anything to anyone. But he knew the BBC didn’t like it because he’d already talked to the Corporation’s Head of Light Entertainment, Jimmy Gilbert, a few years before and it had been given a very firm thumbs down.

“I’d written a one-page treatment thing explaining the idea,” said John. “It was all about modern working-class London. I was sick to death of the kind of comedies I saw on telly which were almost always based in the forties or earlier with toffs and that sort of tugging the forelock ‘Gor bless you guv’ type of stuff which didn’t exist. Now we had a modern, vibrant, multi-racial, new slang London where a lot of working class guys had suits and a bit of dosh in their pockets and that was a very different thing.

“That’s what I wanted to write about. It would be a bit more aggressive and feature the pubs, clubs and tower blocks and even touch on the drug problem. Jimmy just looked at me for a while and then he went away. I got a message back some time later through someone else that the BBC didn’t want to go along that road and that was that.”

Ray Butt, however, thought it was a great idea. He recalled: “At the time the papers were full of all this stuff about the black economy and this fella John talked about was that sort of bloke. He’d only deal in cash. He was a guy who would do anything for readies and he didn’t pay any tax. He didn’t take anything from the state but wouldn’t give anything to the state, either. He was a readies man, simple as that.”

Both men liked the idea and both knew a fair bit about the world that the character lived in. Ray Butt’s father Bill had come out of the RAF after the Second World War and, finding his pre-war job as a printer rather dull, pooled his money with a friend, bought an old NAAFI wagon and set up a business selling ice creams around markets. That was fine as a summer trade but to earn a living in winter Bill Butt had to diversify out of ice cream. So he set up a stall on the Roman Road market near his home selling everything from ladies’ stockings to toffee apples. As a youngster Ray used to work the stall at weekends and during his school holidays.

The family also travelled to other markets in Ashford and Maidstone in Kent and Epsom, Surrey. Ray also spent time working for another street market trader who would later become a legend of the entertainment world – Tommy Cooper. “Tommy was a market grafter long before he was a comic,” said Ray. “And I worked for him as a kid in the markets. He used to sell saccharin and elastic and stuff like that but he was wonderful. His selling routine was great as you might imagine.

“In the eighties people were talking about the black economy like it was something new but after the war it was all the rage,” said Ray. “Market traders were all working for readies. They had this cash and there was no way they were going to declare all of it to the Inland Revenue. You had to declare something but basically the vast majority went straight into your bin and the tax man never saw it.”

“Ray and I decided that the most interesting market characters were the fly pitchers,” said John. “They were funny guys who’d turn up with their gear in a box or a suitcase. They’d never have a licence and they’d just flog their stuff to passers-by. You never knew their names and we wondered where they came from and where they went back to after a day selling their wares.” A few pints on, the pair decided that there might be some merit in John’s trader idea.

“This idea didn’t come as some great blinding flash,” said Ray Butt. “It was just one of a number of ideas John was bouncing off me. I just told him to go away and see what he came up with and that was pretty much that.”

John Sullivan went home that afternoon full of renewed enthusiasm. “I took the archetypal fly pitcher with the gold watch and the battered suitcase and decided to give him a family and a home life,” he said. “I made him a guy with a burning ambition to make it big – but who never quite managed it.

“Part of my inspiration for Del was a guy I knew called Chicky Stocker. He was a working class Londoner and a tough man but always dressed very neatly. He wasn’t the sort of bloke that you’d go out of your way to annoy but nevertheless he was a very nice man. He was very genuine and I liked his attitude to life. He was very loyal to his family and I tried to instil that into Del. Other aspects of his character, like buying drinks for people down the pub even when he couldn’t really afford to, came from people I knew in the car trade. They always wanted to keep face and even if they were doing badly, they’d borrow money to flash about to let everyone think they were doing well. Wearing lots of gold rings was also part of that.”

John was also fascinated by the idea of writing about the age gap between his main character and a younger brother. He recalled in 1998: “That idea came from three different sources. Firstly, my sister Maureen is thirteen years older than me and because of that she was never really like a sister until I was twenty or so. It was weird. She wasn’t like a mother but it was odd because of the age gap and it took a few years when I was older to catch up with that.

“Secondly, the brother of my oldest friend Colin was eleven or so years older than him and thirdly, another mate of mine also had a much younger brother. In both cases the older guy had some little business going and took the younger brother in so there was this continual big brother thing throughout their lives. That fascinated me.

“The character of Grandad gave the situation the voice of an old man who’d seen all of life. He’d witnessed the end of the First World War and lived through the Second and now couldn’t really give a monkeys about the world. Del Boy was the man in the middle, with enough experience of life to know the pitfalls, but still young enough to have a dream and be ambitious. Rodney was the naïve young lad at the beginning of the road who was very, very green. With the three ages you had a balance.”

The inspiration for Rodney was a little closer to home. “Rodney reminded me of myself when I was young,” John said. “I was a dreamer and an idealist, just like Rodders. There was a kid in school with us who had two GCEs – and he went round acting like he was Einstein. Whenever there was an argument he’d behave like his two GCEs made him automatically right. I thought that was pathetic. I used that idea for Rodney, who was so proud of his two ‘O’ Levels. On one hand Del would use them to praise him because he was proud that someone in the family had passed exams and on the other hand he’d send him up because of them.”

To bond the brothers even closer John brought in the idea that their father had deserted them and that their mother Joan had died when Rodney was just three, leaving Del to bring up his little brother. “In those cockney and Irish working class worlds the mother figure, particularly the late mother figure, was so incredibly important,” said John.

“Over the years people would still be crying over the memory of a mother even though she’d passed away ten years ago – and then you’d hear from someone else that she was a really horrible person! That means there’s warmth and love there but you could also paint the picture that she was nothing like how Del describes her. But we had all these suspicions about what she was really like. Rodney didn’t really remember her and Del loved her so much and just couldn’t see what she was really like.”

A few weeks after John’s initial conversation with Ray in the pub, he arrived at Ray’s office at BBC Television Centre with a draft script for Readies, as he called the show at that time. Butt was impressed. “I read it, liked it and sent it to Head of Comedy, John Howard Davies,” he recalled. “He read it and then sent me a memo back saying he quite liked the script but that he didn’t think it was an opener, a first episode.

“I kept that memo on my wall until the day I left the BBC and I treasured it. He was totally and utterly wrong because we made that episode and it stayed as the first episode, Big Brother.”

Despite his reluctance over the first episode, John Howard Davies did see potential in the series. With pressure from Ray Butt, Davies commissioned John Sullivan to write a full series, although there was no guarantee that it would ever actually go into production.

“It was a tremendous moment for me,” John recalled. ‘I think they were a little bit shocked about how colourful it was, but they went with it.”

Several factors worked in John’s favour this time, compared with the first time he’d talked to the BBC about Readies. Firstly, the BBC had to pay him anyway, under the terms of his contract, so they knew they might as well get him to write something. Secondly, they had a gap in their transmission schedules left by Over The Moon. Thirdly, Minder had begun on ITV and was proving to be a big ratings success. There was a realisation that there was an audience for shows about modern-day, rough, tough, London wheeler-dealers and the BBC wasn’t yet tapping it.

“When Minder first came out I was choked because I thought that they’d done that modern London,” said John. “They weren’t doing markets or tower blocks but it was modern London and it was very good and I just thought: ‘Shit. That’s that idea gone.’ But after Over The Moon was axed and I wrote Readies the BBC changed their minds. I’ve always given credit to Minder for opening that door for me, because without it I don’t think that idea would have ever got used.”

Within two weeks John Sullivan had written a second episode and the rest followed quickly. Senior executives liked them and the show – BBC project number 1149/0601 – was given the green light to go into production.

Ray Butt set about finding a cast for the series. This proved terribly simple on one side – and fiendishly tough on the other. Nicholas Lyndhurst, who’d begun his acting career as a child and gone on to find fame as Wendy Craig’s screen son Adam in Carla Lane’s BBC comedy series Butterflies was first to be cast in the role of Rodney Trotter.

John Sullivan recalled: “John Howard Davies came down to the production office and told us, sort of point blank, that Nick Lyndhurst was going to play Rodney. He thought Nick was right for the part and neither Ray nor I disagreed. The only thing I doubted, and it was only for a moment, was whether Nick could play working class convincingly.

“That was because I’d only seen him as middle class in Butterflies and as I really hate false accents I didn’t want some middle class boy coming in trying to do his version of cockney. John told me about Nick having played Ronnie Barker’s cockney son Raymond in Going Straight, the follow-up to Porridge, and convinced me about him – and of course once I’d seen him in action I was happy. There was no argument.”

Lennard Pearce only landed the role of the Trotter boys’ elderly Grandad by chance. Ray Butt rang an agent he knew and trusted, Carole James, and told her what he was looking for. “What I was really after was almost an old man Steptoe character but I didn’t want to use Wilfrid Brambell because he was so well known from Steptoe and Son, but it was that sort of part,” said Ray.

“Carole said she didn’t have anyone who fitted the bill on her book but she knew of this actor called Lennard Pearce who was with another agent. So I rang the other agent and we got Lennard in to see us and I thought he was perfect.”

John Sullivan recalled: “We saw two or three actors for the part and then Lennard came in and he read a bit for us and we just heard that lovely old growly voice of his. When he’d gone I said to Ray: ‘That’s him.’

“Ray said: ‘Let’s see the others’ and I said: ‘Well, we can see the others but that’s him’. There was no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he was right as our Grandad. To me his voice was just like everyone’s grandad.”

Lennard was perfect for the part – except in one way, as John explained. “Being an old man I assumed he had some false teeth, so I wrote one episode, It Never Rains, where he didn’t have his teeth in. Lennard read it and piped up: ‘But I’ve got all my own teeth!’”

Casting Del proved to be the biggest headache. First choice was actor Enn Reitel. “I thought Enn was right for the original character of Del as written,” said Ray Butt. “He was physically very different to David Jason though and much taller. I thought casting Enn would appease Jimmy Gilbert, the BBC’s Head of Light Entertainment, because he looked more like Nick Lyndhurst.”

Ray Butt approached Enn Reitel’s agent only to find that he was away busy filming a series for Yorkshire Television called Misfits and would not be available. Enn went on to find fame in the BBC series The Adventures of Lucky Jim and the ITV series Mog, but his versatility with voices has been his fortune. He provided many of the voices for Spitting Image including Lester Piggott, Dustin Hoffman and Donald Sinden and is now one of Britain’s top voice-over artists.

John Howard Davies then suggested to Ray Butt that he went to see another actor, Jim Broadbent, who was appearing in Mike Leigh’s play Goosepimples at the Hampstead Theatre in north London. “He was very good and afterwards we had a drink and I offered him the part,” recalled Ray Butt. “He turned it down because the play was transferring to the West End. He didn’t think he could split his energies between opening in the West End and doing a new sitcom series. I understood his problem and thought it was very nice of him to be so upfront about it.” Jim did appear in three episodes of Only Fools and Horses as dodgy detective Roy Slater, who viewers later found out had once been married to Del’s long-time girlfriend, Raquel.

Two other names in the frame to play Del were Robin Nedwell and Billy Murray, who was starring in the play Moving in the West End with Roger Lloyd Pack and Penelope Keith. Ray didn’t think Billy, who went on to star as Detective Sergeant Don Beech in The Bill and as Johnny Allen in EastEnders, would work, but the trip to the theatre wasn’t a complete waste of time. Ray concluded that Roger Lloyd Pack would be perfect for the role of dozy roadsweeper Trigger who first appeared in episode one.

Ray Butt was getting nowhere fast in his search for Del. “I remember thinking: ‘Christ, we start filming in a couple of weeks and we’re still missing a main character.’ Time was getting tighter and tighter and we were getting close to being up the creek without a paddle.”

There was a real possibility of losing Nick Lyndhurst and Lennard Pearce, for he didn’t have the budget to contract them to the show until it was due to go into production and therefore there was a chance they’d be signed up for other work in the meantime.

Sitting at home one Sunday evening, Ray switched on his television and happened to catch a repeat of Open All Hours, written by Roy Clarke, the hugely successful comedy series about stuttering northern corner shop keeper Arkwright, played by Ronnie Barker, and his delivery boy nephew Granville, played by David Jason.

One particular part of the episode caught Ray’s attention. Granville was in the shop’s store room and had a long solo scene. “The penny dropped,” he recalled. “I thought: ‘David could be just right for Del.’” The following morning Ray arrived at his office at BBC Television Centre and immediately telephoned John Sullivan to suggest David Jason for the lead role.

“John was a bit tepid to put it mildly,” Ray recalled. “He wasn’t that keen at all because his first impression was that David wasn’t right for the role. He wasn’t dead against him and was willing to listen but he wanted time to think about the idea.”

“It wasn’t that I was against the idea of David for the role as such,” said John. “It was more that I couldn’t actually see him in the part. I was terrified that he couldn’t play that sharp edge that we needed for Del.”

“John had it very fixed in his mind what sort of character Del Boy was,” said David Jason. “And he didn’t think I could play that.”

Ray Butt had another ally in senior producer Syd Lotterby. He’d worked with David Jason on shows like Open All Hours and Porridge and had produced and directed a pilot show, written by Roy Clarke and starring David, called It’s Only Me – Whoever I Am, which was never transmitted. “It turned out to be pretty disastrous,” said David. “Unfortunately it just didn’t work. It was loosely based on the character of Granville and we thought there might be something in it for me so we made a pilot. It was about a guy who lived with his mother in the north and wasn’t allowed to grow up, basically.”

Ray Butt had worked on that show as production manager alongside Syd Lotterby. After filming he, Syd and David often played pool at the hotel where they were staying. David was fascinated by Ray’s east London accent and often mimicked him.

“Ray had got a very strong East End accent,” said David. “When we got back from filming, we’d be stuck in a hotel and there was nothing to do so we’d play pool or snooker. I’d mimic Ray, so we’d both be talking like east enders. It was: ‘Alright mate, alright pal’, that kind of thing. His accent just fascinated me so I was just copying it. Sydney Lotterby thought this was extremely amusing. Ray took it well, too. I mean it was meant well, we got on great.

“Some time later I was working with Sydney Lotterby on Open All Hours. We got in the lift to go down for lunch and Syd said to me: ‘I’ve got something here that I want you to read – just tell me what you think of it. There’s nothing in it – it’s not an offer. It’s a comedy and I’d just like your opinion of it.’ I was really pleased that my opinion was being sought, if you like. So I took it home – I can’t remember whether it was called Only Fools and Horses back then – but it was the script for the pilot.

“I came in the next day and Syd said: ‘What did you think of that?’ and I said: ‘I think it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. It’s brilliant. I couldn’t wait to turn over to the next page.’ He said: ‘If there was a part going, what part would you like to play?’ and I immediately said: ‘Del Boy’.

“The reason he asked that was because I’d been playing old men in shows like Porridge. I was a character actor. I could – and was quite happy to – play anything. So he wasn’t sure if I might have wanted to play Grandad, for example.”

Or even Rodney? “Could have been, could have been, because, don’t forget, at that time you could have cast it any way. It wasn’t until later that we found out that Ray had already cast Nick Lyndhurst. Anyway, that was that. Syd Lotterby said: ‘Thanks very much. Say no more.’ I didn’t know any more about this thing. I’d just been asked my opinion and I forgot about it.”

David kept quiet about the lift conversation until a party at BBC Television Centre after the studio recording of the episode Time On Our Hands. “I’d kept Syd’s confidence because he’d asked me to, but I decided to break my silence,” said David. “So because the show was now all over I told the story to John Sullivan and Ray Butt. Ray didn’t believe it.”

Sydney Lotterby reminded Ray Butt of those mickey-taking pool games when Ray said he was going to get David Jason in to read the part of Del Boy. “It was obviously Syd Lotterby who reminded Ray of the time we were filming that programme and I was taking the piss out of Ray,” David recalled. “It must have been Syd who said: ‘You ought to think about David Jason.’” This only added to Butt’s certainty that he’d found the right man for the part.

Real resistance to David Jason being cast came from Head of Light Entertainment, Jimmy Gilbert, and other senior executives. For one, they feared casting him in his own series could jeopardise their relationship with Ronnie Barker. At that stage Barker was Britain’s number one TV star and a major asset to BBC Television. Both Open All Hours and The Two Ronnies were huge successes for the Corporation and the risk of offending Barker was deemed too great.

Yet Barker saw David Jason almost as his prodigy and it seems unlikely now that he would have been anything other than delighted that his friend and colleague should gain the recognition he was due by way of his own starring vehicle.

There was further reluctance to consider Jason on the basis that he didn’t look at all like Nicholas Lyndhurst, a fact which was actually a key part of John Sullivan’s Trotter mythology.

For as John Sullivan recalled: “The whole point is that Del and Rodney are actually the only ones who think they are brothers. Everyone else thinks they might well have different fathers. They had to be counterpoints to each other: one tall, one short; one blond; the other dark-haired. They had to look different to each other and at one point when we were casting there was even a suggestion that we had one of them mixed-race.

“The age difference between them was important too because Del is almost a father figure to Rodney and he is supposed to be about fifteen years older than him.”

The more Ray Butt thought about David Jason as Del – not to mention the closer his filming deadline became – the more he convinced himself that he was the right man for the job. “I always knew that David was a fine actor and a particularly fine comedy actor,” said Ray. “He’s also capable of playing very heavy drama and has shown that time and time again.”

A week after he’d been given a script by Sydney Lotterby, David Jason was sent a script by the BBC. “It was the same script,” he recalled. “And they asked if I would come in and read for the character of Del Boy. I said: ‘Of course.’”

Even in 1981 David Jason was established enough that he wouldn’t normally be asked to audition for a part as producers and directors knew what he could do. “But this was so good and it was the sort of character that I’d never played before,” said David.

“I’d played the hundred year-old gardener Dithers in His Lordship Entertains and old Blanco in Porridge and I’d also been playing a lot of hapless characters like Granville in Open All Hours, which I was still doing, and then there were the parts I’d played in Lucky Fella and A Sharp Intake Of Breath.

“For most of my career I’d been playing losers and then here was the part of Del – this sharp, bright, upfront bloke with all the bounce and balls. It was the sort of part that normally nobody would ever have dreamed of offering me. I went to that meeting desperately wanting the job. I thought it was one of the best things I’d ever read. It was just very funny, although there was no guarantee it would be successful. I suppose I just had a gut feeling that it would work out.”

David, knowing it would be him who missed out if BBC bosses couldn’t be convinced to let him and Nicholas Lyndhurst play brothers because they didn’t look alike, had his own explanation prepared for their differences. “Just because they were brothers didn’t mean they had to look alike and they might not genetically have the same father,” he said. “One of them could actually be the milkman’s! Of course we didn’t know that at the time but later John quite rightly exploited the fact that they don’t necessarily look like brothers. After all there’s one three foot five and the other eight foot six!”

The following day David was asked to come back and read with Nicholas Lyndhurst and Lennard Pearce. This time John Sullivan was at the meeting and he was impressed. “He read with Nick and Lennard for about a quarter of an hour and that was it,” said John. “Ray and I looked at each other and nodded. We had our Del and Rodney.”

David Jason recalled: “Ray suddenly said: ‘OK, thanks. We’re going to go with you three.’ As you can imagine I was delighted. Then we all shook hands and went off to have a drink.” That was it. After all the discussions and disagreements, the cast was finally decided in fifteen minutes. Within weeks, the show went into production.

WHY ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES?

John Sullivan had to fight his corner over the title of the show. As far as he was concerned, Readies had simply been a working title. He recalled: “I always thought longer titles grab people’s eyes and obviously I wanted to make viewers aware of us. I liked the idea of calling the show Only Fools and Horses from the old expression ‘only fools and horses work’, because Del’s main aim in life is not to work and yet he scurries around till eleven at night working his socks off not to work.

“The man himself is a contradiction. So I wanted to call it that and Jimmy Gilbert said: ‘What does it mean? Oh, it’s a London saying’. In the end we found out it was an American saying from Vaudeville theatre days that came over here through music halls. One day we did a straw poll in the BBC bar and asked people what they thought the expression meant. The answers ranged from ‘A quote from Shakespeare’ to Lester Piggott’s autobiography.”

Other than Readies and Only Fools and Horses other names were considered for the show including Big Brother. That title was rejected because it was thought it might confuse viewers with George Orwell’s book 1984, with the real year 1984 just over two years away. John was due to have a final meeting with Jimmy Gilbert and John Howard Davies over the show’s name and spent a weekend trying to come up with an acceptable alternative. He couldn’t.

Gareth Gwenlan, who was at that time an executive producer in the BBC comedy department, and later became the show’s producer, had heard the saying, supported John Sullivan’s argument and helped him win the day. “Gareth is a great politician,” said John Sullivan. “He said: ‘Go into the meeting and say you haven’t got a clue what else to call it. Tell them it’s up to them to come up with another title. They won’t be able to and you’ll get your title.’

“That was just what happened. They looked at each other and said: ‘OK, you can have it.’ After weeks of haggling, finally they decided to go with the name Only Fools and Horses.”

DESIGNING THE FLAT

John Sullivan’s original script for the first episode of Only Fools and Horses gave clear guidance on how the Trotters’ flat should look. It read:

The room should reflect their styles of business. Nothing is permanent. The settee and two armchairs are from three separate suites. (The other pieces being used as make–weights in various past swops). There are three TV sets, one colour, one black and white and the other has its back off awaiting repair. There are a couple of stereo music centres standing one on top of the other. Various video games, talking chess game etc litter the room. Their phone is one of the ornate 1920s types with separate ear-piece (on an alabaster base). The décor is clean but gaudy. Dozens of clashing patterns. It should look like a bad trip.

That gave Designer Tony Snoaden a clear idea as to how he should turn Sullivan’s brief into reality. For inspiration about the actual layout of the flat he visited two different blocks of council flats, one near Kew Bridge in south west London and another in north Acton in north west London. There, he measured up and drew up plans for the set that would become one of the most familiar flats in Britain.

Cheap wallpaper was chosen from books in the BBC Design Department’s sample room as was poor quality carpet. Both were then ordered from the manufacturer. Tony then went out with props buyer Chris Ferriday and chose the props that would litter the flat. They scoured specialist firms that sell or hire bits and pieces for TV shows and came back with everything from Del’s ice bucket to reproduction paintings and from a tacky wrought iron guitar to ornaments. They also looked round Del’s fictional stomping ground like markets to pick up oddments.

“We were looking for the sort of things that people like the Trotters would have in their living room,” said Tony Snoaden. “I had quite a lot of freedom to dot things around, like leaving an old tyre in a doorway, and that was because Del thought he could sell almost anything and therefore would have all sorts of stuff just hanging around.”

Each episode would feature different boxes of junk and reflect Del’s latest line, but some things like the old chairs, Del’s cocktail bar and telephone would remain constant. “It had to have a constancy about it but we’d still add things each week depending on what Del was selling,” said Tony. “Even in much more recent episodes I’ve spotted things that we had during my time on the show.”

More than a decade on designing the sets for Only Fools fell to Donal Woods, whose first episode was the 1992 Christmas special Mother Nature’s Son. He inherited the main sets – the flat, Rodney and Cassandra’s pad and the Nag’s Head interior from a string of different designers who had gone before him.

Each time a new series or special was filmed the set would be rebuilt from scratch because it’s cheaper to do that than store old sets. “Each designer would keep detailed records of what they’d used in the way of props and wallpaper and carpets so we could follow on from that,” explained Donal.